Jono Carroll hits back at Conor McGregor for prediction poem

At the end of last month Jono Carroll decisively ended his grudge with Declan Geraghty.

‘King Kong’ stopped his fellow Dublin super featherweight southpaw in the ninth round of their rematch on the Mick Conlan Homecoming undercard at the SSE Odyssey Arena, ensuring it was ‘repeat’ rather than ‘revenge’ as the pair served up another epic clash to match their 2014 Fight of the Year.

While the pre-fight odds from the bookies had Geraghty a slight favourite, Carroll [16(3)-0] dominated the contest, dropping ‘Pretty Boy’ in the third and the gutsy inner-city fighter was eventually stopped on his feet in the ninth.

Geraghty’s former Crumlin amateur team-mate and mixed martial arts superstar Conor McGregor [0-1(1)] had rowed in in support ahead of the clash and had sent the EU silver medallist a message of encouragement.

The poetic message, read out by Geraghty on IFL TV, went as follows:

“Do your thing brother, do it emotionless, do it smooth like butter,”

“You got the butter smooth work in you and you can bang in there when needed. Bang when it presents itself,”

“Stay tight in defence wait for these moments and then just yourself ,everything else will come embrace it and just behave, be snappy and full of confidence,”

“You’ve too much for him.”

Yesterday Carroll took to social media to pull McGregor up on his prediction, posting a screenshot of an Irish-Boxing,com article and stating that “there is a reason that Conor McGregor got slapped around once he stepped into the boxing ring – because he clearly knows nothing about boxing.”

“I hope you enjoyed he show mate. And if you ever want to step into the ring again I’ll slap the head off you too.”

The posts, which have been shared widely, have not elicited a response from McGregor who last fought in August, making his professional debut versus five-weight champion Floyd Mayweather and being stopped in the tenth round of the mega-money fight.

The Finglas-Dunshaughlin fighter is currently enjoying some time off with family following his show-stealing win in which he defended his IBF Inter-Continental title.

The relentless fighter is now believed to be just one win away from a world title shot – and a final eliminator, with a view to facing the winner of next month’s vacant title fight between Tevin Farmer and Billy Dib, looks to be in the pipeline.