By the time we went to check out of the hotel the following morning, the two lads had run up a fairly hefty bill for their extravagance. By now, still knowing nothing of this, I was waiting outside the hotel in a car, along with Aisling and Philip Mulpeter, another excellent SBG fighter who was there to lend a hand with cornering duties. When Conor and Cathal got into the car that would take us to the airport, they both looked quite sheepish and were surprisingly quiet. We must have been only a couple of minutes into our journey when the driver’s phone rang. After a brief conversation with the caller in Arabic, the driver hung up the phone, stopped the car, turned to us and said: ‘Hotel. Big bill. Food. Beer. Many beer. Money to pay. It’s you?’
That’s when Conor and Cathal explained themselves.
‘We thought all the food and drink was on the house so me and Cathal were necking pina coladas like there was no tomorrow,’ Conor said.
They realized they were mistaken when they went to hand back their room keys. The pair of them managed to slip away from the reception discreetly without settling the bill, but the hotel wasn’t going to let them away with it that easily.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘We’re going back to the hotel and you can sort this out.’
The lads begged me to let it slide. They had spent so much that it was going to cost them almost everything they had earned from their fights, which was around €1,000 each. But that was their problem. I told the driver to turn the car around and return to the hotel. Conor and Cathal paid their bill and barely said a word to me as they sulked all the way home to Ireland.
8
As recently as 2012, the most talked about fighter in our gym was not Conor McGregor. It was Gunnar Nelson. In fact, there was no non-UFC fighter in all of Europe who was generating as much excitement as Gunni.
In February of that year he extended his unbeaten professional record to ten fights with another first-round submission – the sixth of his career. It seemed like only a matter of time before the UFC would be in touch, and the call came in July. They offered Gunni a contract, beginning with a welterweight bout against German fighter Pascal Krauss in Nottingham on 29 September.
It was Gunni’s ability as a fighter that earned him the UFC call-up, yet people also seemed to be intrigued by his demeanour. Regardless of the situation, he’s always calm. His emotions never appear to change. Whether he’s teaching a kids’ class or in a bloody battle in the octagon, Gunni’s manner is always the same. He’s one of the biggest celebrities in Iceland but fame means nothing to him. As a European fighter with a certain enigmatic quality about him, I think his personality reminded a lot of people of the legendary heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko when he first came to prominence. He was a breath of fresh air.
Gunni’s progress was truly remarkable, particularly when it came to grappling. Having taken up Brazilian jiu-jitsu in 2005, he became a black belt just four years later. By the time he was signed for his UFC debut, the days of me taking Gunni down and tickling him had long since passed. If anything, the roles had been reversed.
When Gunni made the move to the UFC, there weren’t many guys with the ability to simply execute a takedown, pass guard, mount and then submit. Gunni was doing that easily and often. In theory it’s a straightforward concept and Gunni certainly made it look uncomplicated, but it was seldom seen from other fighters. It was almost like a throwback to the days of Royce Gracie.
Before he had even fought in the UFC, I was completely confident – as I still am now – that Gunni was eventually going to become a UFC champion. But some observers had their doubts about his ability to make a seamless step up in competition. The regional scene in Europe and the UFC are completely different levels, they said. Others were convinced that Gunni would be exposed in the welterweight division; that he’s too small and should actually be a lightweight. That theory was further enhanced when there was some reshuffling with Gunni’s opponent for his UFC debut after Pascal Krauss was forced to pull out. Then his replacement, Rich Attonito, withdrew too. Ten days before the fight, the experienced DaMarques Johnson – who had already fought nine times in the UFC – stepped in. Originally scheduled to be a 170lb fight, the late notice saw it amended to 175lb. However, Johnson ended up tipping the scales at 183lb on weigh-in day. Amid the calls for Gunni to compete at lightweight, we were now set for a UFC debut at middleweight. To those on the outside looking in, the odds were stacked against Gunni. But there was never any doubt in my mind that he was about to surprise everyone.
This was my first time back in the UFC since Tom Egan’s defeat in Dublin three and a half years earlier, so you might assume that there was pressure and nervousness. However, I was totally relaxed throughout the build-up. This time I knew we were there on merit and not due to circumstances. Gunni had earned his place among the elite of MMA by virtue of his performances. This was where he belonged. The only thing I was actually nervous about was meeting Jeremy Horn, who was in DaMarques Johnson’s corner. Having fought well over a hundred times, Jeremy is an MMA legend and also one of the very few guys who I’d ask for a photo.
When the time came for Gunni to enter the UFC’s octagon, it was business as usual. He put on a beautiful performance, doing exactly to DaMarques Johnson what he had been doing to guys on the European circuit all along. He was able to get a takedown quite early in the fight, and after that it was only a matter of time. Gunni took Johnson’s back, locked in a rear naked choke, and it was all over after three minutes thirty-four of the first round.
It seemed like an occasion to celebrate: Gunni’s first UFC win, and mine too. Pop a few bottles of champagne at an after-party, perhaps? Instead, we celebrated Gunnar Nelson style.
‘Should we get a steak and head back to the hotel?’
And that’s exactly what we did, but not before I got my photo with Jeremy Horn.
Gunni’s victory capped a very satisfying September for the team. Three weeks beforehand, Chris Fields had put in a brilliant display to win the Cage Warriors middleweight title against the Ukrainian fighter Pavel Kusch. At the time, winning a Cage Warriors title meant you were basically the European champion in your division, so it was a big deal. But that wasn’t SBG’s first Cage Warriors crown. In fact, that had arrived just a few months earlier.
After his impressive defeat of Aaron Jahnsen in Jordan, Conor McGregor’s next outing was at Cage Warriors 45 in London on 18 February 2012. His opponent was an English fighter, Steve O’Keefe, who was a very capable grappler, so it was another opportunity for Conor to showcase his improvements in that area.
As we waited to be summoned from the changing room at the HMV Forum in Kentish Town, Conor was watching the fight before his own on one of the backstage TV monitors. The guy who won had done so via some vicious elbows to his opponent’s head. Conor turned to me and said: ‘That looked good. I’m going to do that in my fight. Watch.’
Conor defeated Steve O’Keefe in just ninety-three seconds. The manner of victory? Elbows to the head.
I’d eventually get used to Conor’s ability to accurately predict the outcome of his fights. He got pretty good at it.
When he signed his five-fight contract with Cage Warriors in 2011, Conor set himself a target of winning the promotion’s featherweight belt, which had just been vacated by Danny Batten – the same Danny Batten who beat me ten years earlier. Following the win against O’Keefe, Conor was rewarded with a shot at the title. Cage Warriors announced their first ever show in Ireland – Cage Warriors 47 – which was to take place at The Helix arena on the Dublin City University campus on 2 June 2012. With my fighters in title contention in several Cage Warriors divisions, the event had a strong Straight Blast Gym influence. Half of the bouts on the main card featured SBG fighters – Cathal Pendred was paired with UFC and Pride veteran David Bielkheden, Aisling Daly was to face a pioneer of women’s MMA in Rosi Sexton, while Englishman Dave Hill stood in the way of Conor’s bid to clinch the vacant Cage Warriors featherweight title.
From early in the eveni
ng, there was definitely a sense that something special was brewing. The Helix isn’t a massive arena – it can barely hold 1,000 people – but it sounded like half of Dublin had managed to squeeze in there. The noise was incredible when I made the first walk to the cage with Cathal Pendred. An enthralling back-and-forth battle ended with Cathal deservedly being awarded a victory which sent a message out to the welterweight division that he was a guy capable of going all the way to the top.
There was no time to reflect on Cathal’s win because I was straight back out again for the next fight. Aisling Daly’s bout against Rosi Sexton was a brilliant contest which could have gone either way, but Rosi managed to pip Ais narrowly on the scorecards. Nevertheless, Ais could still hold her head up high after a very encouraging display against an experienced opponent who has fought for the biggest promotions in the business.
Then came our opportunity to bring a Cage Warriors belt back to SBG Ireland for the first time. It was a big fight for Cage Warriors and they had promoted it accordingly. That gave Conor scope to show that he was as entertaining in interviews as he was in the octagon. Still, I didn’t truly realize the extent to which Conor had captured the imagination of the MMA world until he began his walk to the cage that night at The Helix. The reception for Cathal and Aisling had been loud, but it went to another level when Conor appeared. People were going crazy. I was genuinely shocked by it. This is something very different, I thought. It’s a cliché, but there was an electricity in the air as Conor entered the cage. Dave Hill is an excellent fighter; solid and well rounded. His grappling is his main strength. He was Conor’s toughest opponent yet. But having seen how well Conor had trained, I was absolutely certain that he was going to be victorious. The atmosphere only strengthened that belief. It seemed that Dave Hill wasn’t just fighting Conor; he was taking on the entire arena.
As the referee, Neil Hall, brought the fighters together for their pre-fight instructions, Conor was busy having his own conversation with Hill, letting him know in his own inimitable way that he wasn’t going to enjoy the next few minutes, while chants of ‘There’s only one Conor McGregor’ filled the arena. Inspired by seeing how well his teammates had performed earlier in the night, Conor was very pumped up and determined to put on a show.
What followed was another complete performance by him. It took Dave Hill only four seconds to shoot for his first takedown. The manner in which Conor responded was a perfect illustration of how his grappling had developed. Instead of simply looking to sprawl, he actually pursued a guillotine-choke finish. Realizing that the submission wasn’t there, he played guard, then easily got back to his feet when Hill sought to pass the guard. From there, Conor dominated in both the striking and grappling exchanges and it soon became apparent that this fight was all about how long Dave Hill could hang in there. He was extremely durable and took a lot of punishment, but Conor was never in any danger. Conor was taken out of the first round for only the third time in his career, but it was just a matter of time before he sealed the win. It came with fifty seconds of the second round remaining: he took his opponent’s back and secured a rear naked choke for his first ever submission win. Grappling dominance against a grappler who had never been submitted: not bad for a guy who was supposedly no more than a boxer with a good left hand. I’d consider myself to be primarily a BJJ guy, so I was a very proud and satisfied coach.
That night was when the Conor McGregor phenomenon was born. He celebrated by jumping out of the cage and running into the crowd, who absolutely mobbed him. In all my years of involvement in this sport, I had never seen people connect with a fighter like that. Conor’s popularity among MMA fans had been building gradually, but this was more than just support. This was a movement – albeit on a small scale in the overall scheme of things, because MMA was still on the periphery of the Irish sporting landscape. People recognized that the confidence Conor had wasn’t forced or manufactured. It was authentic and he backed up his pre-fight promises when the time came to perform. He also displayed an ability to use that confidence as a means of getting a head start on his opponents during the build-up. Mind games, mental warfare – call it whatever you want, but for Conor, the battle begins long before he stands across the cage from his opponent. I do my utmost to impart my own knowledge and experience to all my fighters, but that’s one element of Conor’s approach for which I can claim no credit whatsoever. That unique personality is all Conor McGregor. Back in the changing room after the win over Dave Hill, it dawned on me for the first time that Conor was not just going to be a successful fighter. He was going to be a superstar.
I met up with Conor’s parents later that night. They were relieved as much as they were proud. Conor had been working as a plumber, but quit the job in order to train full-time as an MMA fighter. Cage Warriors might have been a top promotion in Europe, but it’s still not a lucrative place for a fighter to ply his trade. Unless you’re in the UFC, being an MMA fighter is generally a loss-making business. Still, that night was reassuring for Conor’s parents. No Irish fighter had ever earned enough in MMA to make a career of it, but observing the adulation their son received, they finally started to believe that Conor was on course to be the one to buck the trend.
The morning after the night before, I looked back on that Cage Warriors event as SBG Ireland’s best night yet. Cage Warriors was the number one European show at the time, so winning a title – not to mention Cathal’s big victory and Aisling’s excellent performance – was a validation of everything we were doing. A lot of people involved with the biggest gyms in the UK and on the continent, gyms I had always admired and looked up to, were mentioning on social media and in interviews about how they believed SBG Ireland was now the top team in Europe. That gave me an enormous feeling of pride. Whenever we attended events after that night, I could sense the increase in respect from the other teams towards us. Coaches I had a lot of time for were now approaching me, asking for advice and feedback. For me as a coach and for SBG as a team to receive that level of recognition from our peers who shared the same objectives really meant a lot to me.
In the aftermath of nights like that one at Cage Warriors 47, I always took a moment to remember the highs and lows of the journey – but mostly the lows, because without them my appetite would never have grown big enough to strive for the highs. I looked back at the tough nights of working on the doors, the struggles to find places to train after we left Harold’s Cross and Rathcoole, the disagreements with my parents … and I smiled, knowing that it was all worth it. Sometimes I won, sometimes I lost, but every time I learned.
It was a really positive time in the gym. The belief in what we were doing was growing all the time because the guys’ hard work was manifesting itself in the form of positive results.
My fighters had been cutting their teeth on the domestic stage in Ireland, winning fights and making progress. When they made the considerable step up to European level, the results stayed the same. For us, Cage Warriors was like a mini-UFC in Europe. It provided a perfect introduction for when the time eventually came to move on to the big show. The way the events were run, from the medical exams down to the media schedules, was a small-scale replica of how things were done at the UFC. Sometimes you see new teams coming into the UFC and they’re completely overwhelmed by the size of it all. But that transition would prove to be pretty seamless for us.
After Conor’s victory against Dave Hill, there was a lot of speculation over his next move. Many believed that a contract offer from the UFC was imminent, but there had been no contact from them, so we focused on a defence of Conor’s Cage Warriors title. A bout against American challenger Jim Alers was fixed for 1 September 2012. Alers came from a grappling background so – yet again – it was claimed that he was an opponent who could cause problems for Conor in that area. But I didn’t see Alers as a step up in competition. In fact, in terms of skill, I didn’t rate him as highly as Dave Hill. Alers had a record of 8–1, but it wasn’t as impressive as those numbers suggested
. Outside of the UFC, it’s much easier to build up a good record on the US circuit than it is in Europe. Many of the professional fighters over there are the equivalent of good amateur fighters in Ireland and the UK. Getting your first few wins as a professional in the US isn’t very difficult at all. In my view, one of the reasons a fight with Alers got people talking had nothing to do with the strengths and styles of the fighters. It was that until then, Conor had been fighting white Europeans. Alers was a black American, and perhaps for Irish MMA fans there was almost something exotic about the match-up.
Unfortunately, Conor and Jim Alers never got the chance to lock horns. Two weeks out from the fight, Conor was hurt in a sparring session. He and Artem Lobov often used to train together behind closed doors. When the gym was empty one Sunday evening, they locked themselves in, strapped on their gloves and went toe-to-toe. Their sparring sessions weren’t for the faint-hearted. Conor and Artem are the best of friends but neither of them took a step back when it was time to trade blows. I wasn’t a fan of that method of training and I had told them so on many occasions. Whenever I did, they’d look at me blankly.
‘This is how you train, coach,’ they’d say. ‘You have to train the same way you fight.’
Despite my attempts to moderate their private sparring sessions, the guys continued to do things their own way. I knew it would take something drastic to alter their outlook – and that’s what happened just a fortnight out from Conor’s scheduled fight with Jim Alers. As they went through round after round of heavy sparring, Artem cracked Conor with a shot on his upper jaw. They finished out the session but Conor knew something wasn’t right. He was in pain and there was even a dent visible in his cheekbone, just in front of his ear. After having it examined at the hospital the next day, Conor discovered that he had fractured his zygomatic arch, and to repair it would require surgery which would keep him out of action for at least six weeks. He still wanted to fight, but that was never an option. It was the first – and, as of the time of writing, the only – time that Conor has been forced to withdraw from a bout.
Win or Learn: MMA, Conor McGregor and Me: A Trainer's Journey Page 8