The rivalry between John Kavanagh and Mark Henry has been one of the stranger ones of the year.
Famed MMA tactician Henry has always shown nothing but respect towards his fellow coaches and their fighters. However, there was something about Conor McGregor that changed him.
When the Notorious climbed to the zenith of the featherweight division, Henry started making some noise to try to get his prize pupil, former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar a crack at the Dubliner. He criticised McGregor’s run to the top of the 145 lb pile, claiming that he had received nothing but favourable match-ups en route to the belt.
Bizarrely, he then took aim at Kavanagh on social media. Henry likened the SBG head coach to Edmond Tarverdyan, the much-maligned coach of Ronda Rousey and Travis Browne before claiming that McGregor’s striking coach Owen Roddy deserved most of the accolades for his development into a knockout artist.
It was a weird move from Henry, one that was completely out of character. He has since apologised for his actions, but when the official UFC 205 press conference came to New York, Henry’s fighter Eddie Alvarez and McGregor tried to perpetuate the beef.
Conor McGregor: "F–k Mark Henry. F–k that pad man". Alvarez fires back with "F–k John Kavanagh" #UFC205
— Damon Martin (@DamonMartin) September 27, 2016
On Monday’s MMA Hour, Kavanagh gave his take on Henry’s online smack talk. He admitted that prior to UFC 205 getting booked, he hadn’t come across Henry before and had no idea he was Alvarez’s coach. He believes he may not have meant any ill will with his social media smack talk and that it could have been a throw aawy comment that just spiraled out of control
“Looking back, I don’t want this to come across the wrong way, he seems to be of that age where social media came a bit later to him. I’ve certainly made mistakes on social media when I was starting off. Maybe he went from not really having a voice to being heard by quite a lot of people. Maybe he just said a couple of things out of the character and suddenly he has to follow through on this.”
“I actually felt a little bit sorry for him that maybe he said some things that put him on a path and he was like, ‘Oh, shit!’ Like I said, I have done the same. You send out a little tweet or you answer somebody and suddenly that gets pulled out of context, it’s made into a headline and 50,000 people see it and you get berated about it.”
This time it's different #UFC205 https://t.co/HZPca05vsS
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) November 7, 2016
Kavanagh really didn’t think he would have to deal with that situation again, but then he had a chance encounter with his rival coach and who he believes was Eddie Alvarez’s brother after the presser at Madison Square Garden.
“That was about as much thought as I gave it until I actually bumped into him. I was walking out of the fighter hotel after the press conference, I was walking back to the airport. I hadn’t seen him before, but I kind of recognised him.”
At that moment, Henry deviated from his intended destination to speak to Kavanagh outside. The two coaches handled the potentially awkward situation with incredible class, extended the olive branch and wished their respective fighters well in their preparation for the fight.
“We actually went passed each other in a revolving door. So he was going in and I was going out and as I was stepping into the car to go back to the airport and I guess the two of them (Henry and Eddie’s brother) copped it and they bought came out. I turned around and I was like… this could go one of two ways. He came over and put his hand out and I went, ‘forget about it, shake my hand.’
“He just said, ‘I just want to wish the best to you and your team. I hope Conor has a good training camp.’ I went, ‘Thank you very much.’ I guess it was Eddie’s brother (who said) ‘You guys are doing a great job and I hope you have a safe training camp.’ I repeated the same back, shook his hand, got in the car and flew home.”
If you’re looking for animosity, look elsewhere.
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