John Kavanagh reckons that Conor McGregor primarily focusing on boxing in his camp for his fight with Dustin Poirier led to his UFC 257 loss.
The Dubliner has been criticised following the KO defeat in January for his failure to anticipate Poirier's vicious calf kicks - which ultimately led to the end for McGregor.
And reflecting on the camp and subsequent fight, McGregor's coach John Kavanagh has admitted that they should have focused a bit more on some of the other areas of mixed martial arts.
“I describe it as a game of spinning plates,” Kavanagh told BT Sport.
“You’re spinning the boxing plate and you realise the wrestling plate is about to stop, so you have to go spin that one, and then you have to go spin the jiu-jitsu one, you have to spin the kickboxing one.
“We got a bit obsessed with the boxing one. There was talk of a big boxing fight after that. Our bad, our mistake, our fault – no one to blame.
"We just have to make sure we have to keep spinning that kickboxing plate and all the other aspects of MMA and get ready for the rematch.”
It comes after McGregor was told he needs to get out of his comfort zone or he 'will go down' as he bids to bounce back from the defeat.
That's according to UFC legend Georges St-Pierre, who reckons that McGregor needs to take a back seat in future training camps and be willing to sacrifice control in a bid to rediscover his edge.
“When I made my first million, of course my life has changed,” St-Pierre told ESPN.
“I had more security and I didn’t feel that I was fighting for the same reason that I was in the beginning in terms of security. When I was poor in the beginning, I was on the edge. I knew if I lost I would have been dead and my life would be a mess. When you get money, these things change.
“However, to keep performing, you need to get out of your comfort zone. You cannot stay in your comfort zone during a training camp because you’re trying to recreate the same element that you will face for a fight.
"When you’re gonna fight, you won’t be in your comfort zone, so it is imperative that Conor, if you want to get back on the road of success, he needs to get out of his comfort zone. He needs not to be the boss of his training camp. He needs his coaches to tell him now you’re gonna spar this guy, you’re gonna go there, do this.
"Even if it doesn’t please him, he needs to go through that. Because if you stay in your comfort zone, the only thing that can happen is you will go down. You need to do that.”
