Roan Carneiro to become Conor McGregor’s next head coach? ‘Fake news’

Bloodyelbow.com

Conor McGregor wasn’t just in America last week for the Super Bowl, as ‘The Notorious’ also attended Atlanta’s American Top Team facility and got in some solid rounds on the mat with head coach Roan ‘Juaco’ Carneiro, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt and former UFC fighter.

After McGregor posted a picture of himself and Carneiro on social media, speculation was rife as to whether the former ‘champ-champ’ was looking for a new coach.

Speaking to The Body Lock in a recent interview, however, Carneiro confirmed that McGregor, who trains under renowned coach John Kavanagh at SBG Ireland, was simply looking for somewhere to train for the day.

“He [McGregor] was like ‘hey man, you want to roll?’ I said ‘of course man, why not?’ Then we do one roll, five minutes and then the second roll, another five. And then the third, I have to be honest, it was my first training [session] after my [last] fight so I gassed a little bit. He’s like, ‘come on man, let’s go, one more, one more.’”

“Then he wanted championship rounds, so then we rolled for five, five-minute rounds. He liked a lot. We exchanged experience. I showed him some tricks. [I] just left my door open for him, whenever he wants to come, he is going to be welcomed. He changed what I thought about him — super nice guy, so respectful, I only have good things to tell about him.”

Addressing the coaching rumors, Carneiro said any talk of him becoming McGregor’s new head coach is ‘fake news.’

“I saw he posted a picture on his social media. I’m like wow. My Instagram, all social media, Twitter, everything went crazy. Talking about calls, people were calling me. Then the rumors. Oh, he’s going to be the next head coach. This is fake news. He might like the training, I’m sure he liked it, but we didn’t have any conversations about me being his trainer.”

With that said, Carneiro will leave his door open to McGregor in the future and says it would be an honor to help the former UFC featherweight and lightweight champion avenge his loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov.

“He might in the future, I leave the door open. If he wants my help, I definitely want to help him. To be honest, it will be an accomplishment if I’m able to make him beat the guy who beat him. That makes me go wow. I don’t care about his money. I don’t care about him being Conor McGregor. I don’t give a damn about it. My final goal is the victory. Bringing some guys from their adversity to conquer the results. That’s my philosophy.”

McGregor recently received a $50,000 fine and six-month suspension for his involvement in the UFC 229 post-fight brawl at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena. The 30-year-old is eligible to return to the cage as early as April 6th.