Even Khabib Nurmagomedov’s corner couldn’t take any joy in this one.
Javier Mendez has no love for Conor McGregor. But watching him blow out his right knee 69 seconds into UFC 329, the American Kickboxing Academy coach felt only sympathy, and he said so on Submission Radio.
To have a warrior like him train as hard as he did after a five-year layoff and come back, and to have something like that happen, your heart has to go out to the guy. Look, I may not like him as a person at times, but I have to respect what a great warrior he is.
Mendez wanted it settled with fists, not a freak injury.
He beat himself on that one, and I feel for him.
Not everyone in that camp was so gracious. UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev, another AKA product, kept it cold, posting: “Conor beat Conor congrats Max.”
McGregor’s last two outings before the layoff were both losses to Dustin Poirier: a second-round knockout at UFC 257 in January 2021 and the broken-leg stoppage in their UFC 264 rematch that July.
