John Kavanagh refused to train Carlos Vera of Team Conor McGregor for a fight against his own student on The Ultimate Fighter.
McGregor's team were looking for their first win of the season as Vera took on Team Chandler's Brad Katona in the latest episode of the season. Unfortunately for McGregor, he suffered his fifth consecutive defeat as a coach this season with his SBG teammate Katona winning a unanimous decision against Vera.
Katona trains out of SBG, the same gym as The Notorious, meaning they both share the same coach in SBG head honcho Kavanagh.
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There is a conflict of interest on the reality show as Katona, who won season 27 of The Ultimate Fighter in 2018, was picked to be on Chandler's at the beginning of the series. Kavanagh decided to distance himself from Katona's fight against Vera because of their relationship.
"My opponent Brad Katona is John Kavanagh's student and before we started he said, 'I want you guys to know I'm Brad Katona's coach and I will be stepping for any kind of help that you guys need regarding that fight'," Vera explained of the situation. McGregor still opted to coach Vera for the fight despite Katona being his teammate, with coaches Owen Roddy and Phil Sutcliffe also helping the fighter.
"Brad is also managed by my stable Paradigm Sports and John coaches him so it's a bit of weird vibe, it is what it is. Fighting for me it's not personal," McGregor said of the conflict of interest before Kavanagh added: "A little bit of drama with Brad Katona ending up on the other team. It feels like it's a bad movie, but at the end of the day he is here to do a job. There is only one winner in the bantamweight division and Brad is aiming for that to be him."
Vera did have some good moments in the fight but Katona wrestled his way to victory much to the frustration of McGregor, who called for a sudden death round by saying: "Give them three rounds lads, we want three rounders here judges yeah? None of this two round s***. They're unfinished fights. If they've got unfinished fights, give them a third round. The guys are fighting for their life here."
McGregor will look to pick up his first win in next week's episode of the reality TV show when his unbeaten teammate Lee Hammond fights Team Chandler's Kurt Holobaugh. Hammond is unbeaten in five professional fights, with four of his wins coming by stoppage in the first round.
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