My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 13 - COACH JOHN KAVANAGH

Episode Date: June 17, 2019

On the 13th episode of My Mom's Basement, the man who coached Conor McGregor to a :13 second victory over Jose Aldo joins Robbie to discuss all of the rumors that surrounded he and Conor's relationship following UFC 229, Conor McGregor's recent training, what The Notorious' future holds, and the possibility of an Octagon Bob vs Conor McGregor sparring session!You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey My Mom's Basement listeners, you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. It was an unbelievable time getting to sit down with Jon Cavanaugh, someone that I've looked up to for a while, someone that, you know, I've read his book two times over, I really know a lot about this guy, and it's always funny how these things happen. You know, the first time I met Conor McGregor, it was outside his bail bondsman's place in Brooklyn when I protested his court date and I got to meet him for two seconds. I never would have imagined that was the way that I would have met Conor McGregor. And the way that this podcast came to fruition was never the way I would have imagined that happening either because I had about, I don't know, 10 minutes notice to do it when you think about it. I mean sort of 40 minutes. So I got a text at 12.50 p.m. last Tuesday from Danny Brenner who works for Bellator PR. He's a good friend of mine. And he said, hey, man, John Kavanaugh is in town.

If I could get him to come to the office, is there any way that we would be able to make something happen? Could we do an interview? Would you want to do an interview? I was like, absolutely, totally. But we would have to do it at like 1.30 because I have Chael coming in at 1. This was 10 minutes before I had Chael Sonnen coming in. And if you haven't listened to that episode, by the way, that's Friday's bonus episode. I urge you to go back and listen to it because my interview with Chael and my interview with Aleema Leigh McFarlane were two of the best interviews I've ever done. I think this one holds up against those as well

and stacks up against them, but I said yes if we could make it happen at 1.30, so I literally for 10 minutes thought about what can I ask Chael, what can I ask John Cavanaugh. Chael came in, I did about a half an hour interview with him, and then as soon as he was out, John Cavanaugh was in.

They were like ships passing, what do they say? Ships passing in the fleeting night. I don't know, whatever that saying is. But I immediately sat down with him. And I even said to young page views beforehand, I was like, dude, I have no time to prepare. Like I have no time to do any prep. What am I going to do? And he was like, bro, you know more about John Kavanaugh than probably anyone. I was like, you know what? That's a frigging good point. So I just kept it real with him. I immediately opened up with some talk about, you know, how since UFC 229, I've been a little disappointed with some of Conor McGregor's actions, and I've found some of his antics hard to support. And we talked through it, and it was a very honest, very open chat. John Kavanaugh said some awesome stuff about what Conor McGregor is doing now,

what he feels about Conor McGregor now. It is... It's a surreal interview for me to listen back to, because like I said, it was such short notice that I didn't even really have time to be nervous, I didn't have time to prepare, and I didn't have time to realize how big this was,

especially for me, a big Conor McGregor guy. But it was, it was, it was an honor sitting down with John Cavanaugh and it was really cool just getting to have a conversation with him face to face. So I hope you enjoy it. As always, please subscribe to this podcast. If you haven't already, leave us a rating and review, that would be awesome. And keep the conversation going on Twitter all week. You could tweet at me at Robbie Barstool. You could ask me questions. I'll answer them on later episodes of the show. But let's get right into the interview. And I hope you guys have a good week. I will catch you on Friday with a bonus episode. All right, welcome back to the show. This interview is a very special one. I would say I would go as far as calling it the most special

interview I've ever done in my entire life. And it was just sprung on me about a half an hour ago. We had a cancellation and my guy called me up and he said, oh, we might be able to have a replacement. Someone might take a short notice interview, if you will. And that man is the one, the only John Kavanaugh. John, thank you so much for gracing the Barstool office with your presence. Well, you're embarrassing me, but thank you for the gracious welcome. How are you?

I'm very good. Yeah, I'm just off a long-ish flight. It's not too bad flying to the East Coast. So I'm just getting my bearings. Yeah, straight from the airport, flying over from Ireland. Yeah. And who do you got this Friday at Bellator 222? So the bad boy at Bellator, Dylan Dannis,

making his long-awaited return. Absolutely. So everybody's looking forward to see how he does. Who's in his corner other than you? I actually don't know that. Oh, wow. Yeah. I'm guessing probably the same team as last time.

But I haven't even met him yet. I came here before I met Dylan. Unbelievable. Well, you've got to hit all the SPG guys, you know, like one by one. I'm the first stop, Dylan next. Exactly. This is our first time ever sitting down and ever actually having a conversation. We met briefly.

But here's just a question right off the bat. What have you thought of the absolute lunacy that I've been tweeting to you guys for the past few years it's been a lot of fun i'm not gonna lie i've enjoyed it i think it's um yeah you know you don't take yourself too serious and you mix humor with you obviously have a deep understanding of our sport and the storylines to go along with it with a bit of as we would say with a bit of crack yeah yeah yeah not the illegal sort yeah the good sort um so yeah i i i think it's fun that means a lot because every time i send out a tweet a ridiculous executive director of support tweet i think like either they're gonna find this funny or they're eventually gonna put a restraining

order on my ass because it's some of this stuff was getting a bit much. You're kind of a bit of an Irish sense of humor that we – again, we don't take ourselves all that seriously and we understand a joke. I love – I have – unlike anyone else in this office, I actually have a bit of an Irish base. There are Irish people that listen to the show. There are Irish people that read my blogs, follow me on Twitter and stuff. And when we went out to Vegas for 229, it was hilarious to see people that did not know me from, oh, they didn't know Robbie from Barstool. They didn't know any of this. They just knew, oh, you're the McGregor guy. You're the court sign guy. So they would all

tell me that. And then they would all tell me, you're a real cheeky cunt, mate. And that's a term of endearment. Yeah, cheeky cunt. I'll take a term of endearment yeah cheeky cunt i'll take that i'll take that so let's let's talk about connor let's talk about our guy um there's been oodles of rumors coming out uh after the fight i mean kind of always since he reached superstardom with connor one of the main ones that i would like to open up with and i have no idea what the answer to this one will be. It was said that after 229, you and Conor didn't speak for a very long time and this was a big thing and there was animosity towards the training and the buildup to it.

Is there any truth to any of those rumors? Now, you'll have to forgive me here. Which one is 229? Habib? Habib. Oh, sorry. I was wondering was it Nate1? Because I know that in the past, after Conor fights, you guys don't talk for a little bit.

It's kind of a normal thing until he's ready to come back. Yeah, I mean— But for some reason, there was so much emphasis, and there was like a microscope on it this time. Yeah, but that's—I suppose probably the process hasn't changed, but the amount of eyes on us has. Like you alluded to there when when this contest is over i mean connor's going to be on some downtime he has to um win or lose you know win or lose yeah and he's got to decompress and then family time and friends and and do all of that and i'm generally speaking monday morning back in the gym because i have a big team you know um so i don't

think it was really any different than than previous it's just that there was seemed to be a lot more um emphasis put on it and there was every time he would put up anything on instagram or twitter there were people that would dissect it and think they were kind of crazy conspiracy theory people really were you reading that and you weren't commenting on it for a long time. And I was curious as to why you weren't because it's just rumors. Don't pay attention to them and they'll go away. No matter what comment you do back, there's only 10. You cut off the head of one snake and two more shall appear.

So I just didn't bother commenting. I mean, I think one of the first, if you want to say, incidents to happen after was Conor came along to one of my amateur shows and put a picture together. So I thought that would say a lot more than me trying to run around putting out fires. And then, like I said, you put out one and two more come up. I thought that would be the end of it, but it wasn't. And then just to get this out of the way early, I have to admit, as Conor's biggest fan, I would say, It wasn't. feelings towards certain things in the MMA community I don't want to say towards Connor but I know you've kind of gone out and said yeah you know I'm his coach I do this what he does in his personal life is his personal life do you feel it's warranted that I do feel a little bit disappointed by some of the antics that have gone on afterwards um I see where you're coming from

um I do I do think it's it's like that thing walk walk a mile in somebody's shoes I'm not directing this at you But I do think it's easier when you're on the outside To kind of comment on how someone should live their life And the kind of perfect responses to things I'm around him a lot obviously over the last plus decade And I have no idea of the type of pressures he's under I remember actually on one instant, my coach did this on,

it was kind of like an internal SBG group and there was a few people commenting that were disappointed. He said this or he did that. And the guy, my coach was saying, look, you got to understand what it must be like to deal with the type of pressure he's under. To be under 30 years of age,

have over 100 million in your bank account and everything you do is scrutinized. Everybody has a phone. Everybody has an opinion. Everybody has cameras. I'm certainly glad that when I was in my 20s and you're having your mistakes and your ups and downs, that every single step of the way wasn't recorded. So is Conor a perfect human being? No.

He's not going to say that he is um but like i said i i'm not going to be the one to start throwing stones while i'm in a glass house and try to even barely comprehend the type of pressure he's under so yeah like you said you know i'm i'm i'm as coach proud to be and when we're training that's that's our focus and i'm getting ready for the next contest i have a lot of my own life. You have a lot going on. Yeah, you're opening a new SBG gym. You know, moving to a new location.

I'm going to have to make my first trip out of the country. I would love to give the people a big tour of the new facility. That would be awesome. So it's official weekend is August 9th. That's a Friday. So Friday to Sunday, having a kind of a weekend opening. Yeah. So if you could make it, that would be today for me. So Friday to Sunday, having a kind of a weekend opening. So if you could make it, that would be today with me.

I would love that, yeah. We'll put you up. All right, we'll see if we can make that happen. It would be great. Yeah, I would love it. As an honorary SBG member, Dylan Danis said, I spoke with him a few weeks ago, he said you're an honorary SBG member. Would you co-sign that?

I will have your membership card ready for you. Oh, wow. Wow. I mean, now I have to come. Now I really have to come. Like I said, I mean, Connor to me is still a teenager that walked in my gym. And you still feel, I've seen you say this, that Connor is like you still see in Connor that

same teenager that walked through your gym door the first day. Do you still feel that way? More recently I have. I did think there was a period where, and he said himself, where there was a – trying to find the motivation. Because – and I said that this is one of the things I said early after the Habib fight, which I think was misinterpreted or maybe it could have been the kind of basis of some of those rumors. And always when you say things, nobody listens to the tone. They just read the quote. Right.

So sometimes you say something and you laugh and then they take it and they spin it around and Kavanaugh hates McGregor because... Yeah. No, what I was saying was, or immediately after the beef fight was, his biggest problem was not the... Moving forward in martial arts

would not be necessarily the training. It was the motivation. Because when he started off, he had very distinct goals, very clear goals goals he wanted to be world champion which he achieved two-way classes and he wanted to have more money than he can spend and even with his spending he's achieved that too so for me as a coach in the background i'm thinking what's what's going to get him training again he's achieved those goals you can't what's he gonna do win the welterweight title or, you know,

win back a lightweight title? Would that be the thing? Or, you know, add a few more zeros to his bank account? Yep. So that wasn't going to be it. And then what I saw happening

over time, it took time, was that I think for him, he realized that the motivation was the activity itself. The love of training, problem solving, fighting, sparring, the love of training, problem solving, fighting, sparring, the build-up to fights,

the whole industry that goes with professional MMA. Because, you know, you buy so many shiny things, you travel to nice restaurants and hotels, and eventually you'll come back and say, well, okay, what is it that's motivating me? We see it to a lesser extent when they talk about even just to bring it to this past weekend. Henry Cejudo is now a two-weight world champion. And there's a lot of discussion right now.

Is it worth going back to flyweight for him? Should he really cut that weight? I feel like it's kind of just a bigger scenario for that. Is there motivation for him to go back to flyweight and defend both belts? Because it's easier to be at bantamweight. Do you feel it's kind of like that on a grander scale with connor kind of i think actually even a better analogy was i just heard uh um bruce springsteen he's at the release in an album yeah and he has already booked the studio for next year for his next album and i think he'd

be 71 at the time why like what what is he going to get time. Why? Is he going to get another Grammy Award? Is he going to get – Like Billy Joel hasn't written music in decades because he figures he doesn't have to. He has enough hits. Right. And maybe he just feels he's done enough. Yeah. Bruce Springsteen still has this fire, this creativity, this wanting to produce, to do something.

And I would equate a little bit more to that to Conor Rather than just another athlete's journey I only heard that on the radio yesterday It was a little bell in my head going That's what it is Yeah It's this Obviously Bruce Springsteen just loves what he does And it's not for fame or for money or for awards

He's got all that Now it's just the love of the activity And you feel Conor has that back Yes When do you think he got that back around what era you don't have to pinpoint a specific date i would say um kind of the start of the year near the end of last year was when i really start coming back following the habib fight yeah after a little bit of time out and i saw recently he he went back to the crum Boxing Club and he competed in their – what was it? They had some kind of like charity show that they do. I didn't even know about that until the following day and these videos started popping up.

Conor's in a boxing match. I was like, what did I miss here? No, I was – trust me, I was just as perplexed as you. I was like, what is going on right now? But it – It was a good contest as well. You have been seeing like he's in the gym more and more you know at least from it's hard for me to say whether or not he is it could be dave could be taking 100

pictures of him and jim puts him out over time but over instagram i see a lot of gym shots it looks like he just recently got a little injury and to his hand yeah that was that was a real shame i thought we had some good momentum going again did you think a fight was approaching oh yeah yeah yeah wow yeah absolutely and and the hand might have delayed something he hurt his hand so um it's do you know or can you say what the timetable for recovery is there um it's not that it's not going to be that long um i guess the where your real question i guess is the timetable for fighting competing just even for a return because Conor, you never know. It kind of always seems with Conor at least that he watches fights and then he decides. It seems like there's always something that goes off in his head where he's like, all right, now I want to fight.

And I think you've hit the nail on the head there. I think the motivation for the training and competing is there. Now it's the challenge. What's it going to be that makes it he's watching a fight or something and there's a spark that goes off and suddenly you get a text, hey, we're fighting Floyd Mayweather or something crazy like this. So I don't know what it's going to be. I don't know when. Have there been names discussed? I mean, I know that the usual suspects are always up there.

Yeah. But like when you guys were training and before you hurt his hand, were you thinking like, oh, we're going to come back and fight this guy? I thought it was going to be Cerrone. Okay. That was going to be. Before the Ferguson fight was booked? Or you thought he would get the winner? Okay.

Yeah, I thought it would have been that. To be honest now. I've always thought that would be such a perfect fight for both of them. Yeah. I love both of their styles. They're so exciting. Would have been a cracker. Conor against anybody is a fun fight.

That's true. He's got such a creative style. Conor against anybody is a fun fight. That's true. He's got such a creative style. I mean, I'm his coach, but I just love watching him. I love watching him in training. I love watching him compete. I always learn something that I can then give over to. It's so funny to me to think that Conor's knocking on 30 now, and I have a bunch of 18 to 21-year-olds in my gym.

That was Conor like a decade ago. All inspired by him. All watching him and learning from him and it's always great for me when i'm given given lessons and i can pull a story from the archives and say you know he went through this you know whether it's recovering from injuries or certain physical techniques and i've got a decade's worth of information there that i'm that the next generation yeah are benefiting from Now, I've seen Connor talk a ton on Twitter recently about,

one, he wants UFC shares, he wants Mark Wahlberg. Has that been a name thrown around the gym? Have you watched any Wahlberg movies and picked up on any movements? I think he telegraphs too much. He's a little bit flat-footed. I've seen him do a little bit of pad work. He's a bit stuck in the mud, if I can steal a Connor phrase.

If I could give you a little advice Go back, watch some Marky Mark You could see his dance moves You could see how fluid he is in his movements True, but I think he's lost that He went away from it, he put on some weight Had a couple kids, the motivation may not be there anymore That's the question

And the other name thrown around is Habib It's always Habib, Habib, Habib, Habib Truthfully I don't want us to fight Habib again And I'm saying us because we. Truthfully, I don't want us to fight Habib again. And I'm saying us because we're a team now. I don't want us to fight Habib again because I got so many death threats in my DMs. I'm sure you got the same. I was walking around Las Vegas with a medical mask on because I thought people were going to come kill me.

It was unbelievable. When I sat at the fight, Conor gave me a ticket to the fight, and I sat next to his security guard. And when the whole brawl happened, he turned to me. He's like, you should get out of here. I was like, so afraid. Habib's thrown around. Conor seems to want Habib next. He wants that to be his return.

It seems like that would be a little strange, being he just lost to Habib. Obviously, the storyline is there. How do you feel about that? How would you feel if Habib was Conor's first fight back? Do you want him to fight somebody before he challenges Habib again? I wouldn't mind who it was as long as Conor was excited. Yeah. If you want to know what my goal is, it's just to go back training.

Just to get a couple of weeks, a couple of months training, get that rhythm going again. Do you want to do the Rocky III again? Yes. Go up to Iceland? That would be great. Something like that, yeah, Iceland or whatever. But even before that, just back in the gym, back in the team sessions, just back training. Just back training.

You know, that was a – One step at a time. One step at a time. One step at a time. Now you have a bunch of other fighters at SPG, a bunch of other fighters that i'm friendly with and i love to watch uh kean cowley yes uh peter queely james gallagher three names that are all i feel like all gaining notoriety all coming up on the scene all right place right time for those guys and there's others to mention too uh brian moore and and a bunch of others how do you feel about how all of their careers have been going and how how now james gallagher is one of Bellator's biggest stars? Yeah.

I mean, it's fantastic. The last two years or so, two to three years, the team went from maybe less than 15 fighters or so, 15-ish, to 60 fighters. You know, my gym has expanded. We're moving to a location that's one and a half times the size. We've got some pretty cool stuff coming up. Obviously this

weekend Dylan Dann is flying the flag. The following weekend I'm at Bellator London. We've got Gallagher. Who the hell? Queely just pulled out of that card. Queely unfortunately had an injury. He had to pull out. Which I think will be really good long term because he's had this ongoing nose problem, nose injury,

where he's been fighting fights basically with about 50% capacity of breeding, and that's all fixed now. So when he comes back in September, that's going to be a… Is that a Dublin card in September? Yeah. So the Dublin card in September, he'll be back on that. So, yeah, we've got the London card. Shortly after that then, we have King Kelly in London on the Brave card.

Actually, on that card as well, it hasn't been announced yet, but Young Nikolai. You might recognize him. He's always in the photos with Conor. Fantastic fighter. Good everywhere. in the photos with Connor. Fantastic fighter. Good everywhere. Bit of a showman. I'm looking forward to seeing that. Yeah, you know, we're always busy.

Every other weekend I'm away. I think I've been away every weekend since early April now. And I won't be home until sometime in July. That's just the way it's going to be. How is the SBG bully doing? He's doing good. Yeah, he's doing good. Still bullying.

Still bullying. Is that how Connor got that injury? I don't want to say. He got shoved into a wall by the SBG bully? I don't want to say. You know, whatever happens in the gym stays in the gym. But he might have been a bit late returning some money or something like that. I don't know the full story.

But I'm not going to question the bully. So in your mind, Conor McGregor absolutely fights in the UFC again? 100%. That's 100% confirmed? Well, I guess you can't confirm anything with that guy. But there's no doubt in your mind. I can't imagine him not. From the way he's been training still now, you know, he's still – he's got this cast on his hand and he's up on the bike every other day.

Yeah. He's doing this and he's doing that. It just – I don't – like he's – there's a very good Alan Watts talk on YouTube. Do you know Alan Watts? I've heard of him. I haven't seen the video you're talking about. It's very – I'll share it with you. And he talks about this idea of like,

what would you do if you had everything? If you had all the money you ever wanted. And, you know, initially you're going to have this splurge of spending and you're going to buy this car and go on this travel and eat this type of food. And then weeks will go past and you'll keep doing that. Maybe even months will go past and you'll keep doing that. But he says eventually you're going to come back to like, okay, I've done all that.

What is it that really lights my fire? What is it that really gets me up? And the punchline of the Alan Watts video, by the way, is that you should just do that now. Forget the stuff in the middle. But I feel that's where Connor's back to. He's at the end of that Alan Watts video and he's done those things, which are cool. I used to joke with him saying, you know,

you should spend your money on experiences, not material goods. And then he would pause and then he would say to me, why not both? And start his manic laugh. So I think he's had the material goods

and he's enjoyed that and now it's time to go for those experiences again. So, I mean, as a Conor fan, you know how crazy my fandom runs everything you're saying to me right now is what i want to hear that we're seeing maybe the connor of old could return and and everything like that it's just uh when you envision his return what do you as a coach

want for him uh do you just want him to be happy like fighting fighting? That's it and the key. Yeah. That's it and the key there. I want him to be happy. And maybe there's a selfish side of me as well that I just enjoy watching him train and compete. Of course. I get another year's worth of lessons out of a training camp that will do me for the next two decades that I hope to still be doing this job and have you ever thought of bringing in maybe a an orthodox like six foot tall like 143 pounds on a good day uh sparring partner for connor from new jersey um we gotta be careful because i don't want to see him getting hurt yeah yeah yeah i'm just suggesting some different styles for him to see well look if you've got some looks that we haven't seen yet um we're always in

we're always open to new ways of moving and new new techniques new ideas so i got this guy octagon bobby's august august 9th i hope to see you in the gym and who knows hopefully connor's there for the opening too and we can maybe get a few rounds in that would be sweet if we could get a few rounds in there because i think i think we match up very well for each other. I think it'd be a fun, fun spar, you know? Sure. All right, coach. Thank you so much for doing this interview. It was an honor. It was a pleasure.