All of the talk surrounding Conor McGregor seems to revolve around whether or not he’ll ever get to fight Floyd Mayweather.

He claims to have signed his end of the deal – a statement UFC president Dana White backed up – and has been goading the 49-0 American to play his part and make the fight official.

SUPER FIGHT

Instead, we’re going in circles every week with no concrete information, and it’s easy to forget that the Notorious is still the UFC lightweight champion and is yet to make a defence of the gold he claimed back in November when he made light work of Eddie Alvarez inside Madison Square Garden.

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You can’t blame him for prioritising a fight with Money because he’d be set up for life with all of the ‘cheese’ he’d be raking in regardless of the outcome – but fans may yet see the outspoken Irishman compete inside of the Octagon in 2017.

That’s something Dana has said on numerous occasions, where he claimed McGregor actually wants to compete twice in 2017 but as each day passes by, it looks less and less likely that we’ll see him compete on two occasions.

ESPN’s Brett Okamoto caught up with McGregor’s head coach John Kavanagh of SBG Ireland ahead of the Max Holloway and Jose Aldo fight, where he too confirmed that they’re looking to return this year.

He said: “Yes. The shape he’ll be in post-fight – he’ll obviously be in tip-top shape. We’d love to get an MMA fight in by the end of the year.”

Kavanagh discussed that he’d want to see what unfolds between Blessed and Aldo at UFC 212, and now has a better idea of who is in the running to fight McGregor as the Hawaiian picked up a TKO win over the Brazilian before claiming McGregor needs to beg to secure a fight.

That probably won’t happen, especially since the Irishman is at lightweight now and there are plenty of challengers there too – including a trilogy fight with Nate Diaz, but it’s not something he brought up.

Instead, Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov are the names he mentioned and went on to discuss that The Eagle is an enigma on his own, and was actually looking forward to potentially going up against him.

He added: “You know, it looked like that was going to be the case.

“I thought Tony was going to be a great final challenge for Khabib. He’s durable and has a good submission game on the ground, so Khabib would have a difficult time controlling him on the ground. It was a very interesting contest.

“I thought Khabib would win, and he’s got a big Russian fan base, he’s his own enigma in many ways.

“I thought there was a perfect collision coming, and it’s disappointing it didn’t happen. That’s the world we live in.”

He might not want to rule the dangerous Dagestani out just yet, as he too intends on returning to action later this year.

Will Conor McGregor compete inside the Octagon in 2017? Have YOUR say in the comments section below.

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