He’ll often pull his teammates aside in the gym and give them his assessment. Conor is a great guy to have on your side, a really good teammate.
At the TD Garden in Boston for Conor’s second UFC fight, I could tell that some of the other fighters in the locker room were sizing Conor up. Diego Brandão was one of them. He’d have to wait for his opportunity.
This fight was the first time that a huge convoy of Conor’s fans made the journey to the US. When I think of the lengths people go to just to be there to lend their support, it’s pretty overwhelming. The Irish fans are incredible. With each fight, their presence grows larger. They certainly know how to enjoy themselves, too. Sometimes they’re criticized for going overboard with the craic, but I’ve only very rarely encountered guys being irritatingly drunk. The atmosphere is overwhelmingly positive and the support is brilliant. People are spending their life savings in order to be there. That gives me a boost and it gives my fighters a boost.
When it was time for Conor to walk out to the octagon, we had no idea what the UFC had planned. Ordinarily, you’re brought as far as the curtain that separates the backstage area from the arena. Then you emerge from behind it when given your cue. But this time, after leaving the changing room, we were stopped in the security area in the corridor. His apparel was now sponsored by Dethrone Royalty sportswear, but Conor still had the tricolour draped over his shoulders. Conor waited to be prompted forward, while Tom Egan and I stood behind him. There seemed to be a lot of UFC crew running around, then a bunch of cameras appeared in front of us. It still didn’t dawn on me at the time, but the UFC were giving Conor an extended walk-out and the lights-out treatment that’s usually set aside solely for the fighters in the main event of the night. Another unprecedented move.
When Conor appeared, the noise from the crowd was deafening. It seemed like every person in the arena was waving an Irish flag. I tried to play it cool by acting as if it was no big deal, but my stomach was performing somersaults.
Conor had only fought in the UFC once before. Even the biggest stars and legends of the sport rarely received a reception like this. We’d soon discover what it was like to experience being involved in an actual UFC main event, but this was a perfect introduction.
I have no idea what was going through Max Holloway’s mind as he witnessed Conor’s entrance and realized that, despite being an American fighter in America, he was effectively on enemy territory. It must have been an intimidating prospect for the twenty-one-year-old Hawaiian, the second-youngest fighter on the UFC roster at the time. I do believe from early on in the fight that he looked like a guy who was just trying to get to the finish line. He never seemed to be chasing the win. And I say that as a big fan of Max Holloway. Max is usually really aggressive, coming forward with a very high output of strikes. Against Conor, he allowed himself to remain on the back foot from the very beginning. He was extremely elusive, intelligent defensively and made himself difficult to hit. But he never once threatened to win the fight. If you watch that fight and compare it to his others, the difference in his approach is very evident. Conor is at his best when he can encourage his opponents to come at him because he’s a great counter-fighter. I’m not sure if you’d say Holloway was smart or afraid, but it seemed like his only priority in there was to survive. It’s hard to put away a guy like that.
Conor was totally comfortable as he out-struck Holloway for the first round and a half, before taking him down and continuing his dominance on the ground. At the end of the second round, when Conor stood back up to walk to the corner, I thought I noticed his left knee buckling. He sort of wobbled as he returned to his feet. However, he didn’t mention anything during the break so I didn’t ask. Instead I just encouraged him to continue where he had left off.
‘You look beautiful,’ I said. I wish I hadn’t, because it was picked up by the TV mic, and people have shouted that phrase at me randomly ever since. I’d like to think they’re complimenting me, but unfortunately they’re just poking fun.
Early in the third and final round, Conor once again opted to show off his takedowns and grappling ability as he remained in control all the way to the end. But he didn’t look himself. His mobility seemed to be impaired and I could only assume that an injury was to blame. As the fight ended, with Conor comfortable in top position in Holloway’s guard, he looked right at me and smiled.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘My knee is gone.’
I stood up to walk into the octagon. As I entered, Joe Rogan was going in to do his post-fight interview. In the interview, Conor explained to Joe that he felt a pop in the knee when he was trying to pass Holloway’s guard. Afterwards, Rogan turned to me and said: ‘That sounds like it’s his ACL.’
An anterior cruciate ligament injury is one of the most serious a fighter can suffer, but I was probably in denial because I just brushed it off: ‘Nah, I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.’
Deep down, though, I had a strong feeling that it wasn’t going to be good news, and in the changing room afterwards, I grew very concerned. An ACL tear generally kept fighters out of action for at least a year. Such a long layoff would be a crushing blow to Conor’s progress. I asked Stitch Duran, who was working as a cut man that night for the UFC, if he wouldn’t mind strapping an ice pack to Conor’s knee.
‘You know what, if anybody else asked me to do something like that I’d tell them to get out of here, but anything for my favourite Irish boys,’ he said. The doctor then came in and performed some preliminary tests but it was impossible for him to tell exactly what the problem was. Conor would require an MRI scan to reveal the full extent of the damage.
I was scheduled to fly home the following day, so while I was heading east to Dublin, Conor was going west to meet a specialist in Los Angeles. He was confident.
‘I think it’s only a minor injury,’ he said. ‘Three or four weeks out and I’ll be back in time to fight in Manchester at the end of October.’
I didn’t share his optimism. When I arrived home, I had resigned myself to the fact that it was probably going to be a long time before I made that walk to the octagon with Conor again.
11
The history books will recall that August 2013 was when Conor McGregor recorded his second win in the UFC, but it was also the month in which I found my dream gym. The premises on the Long Mile Road had served us well but it felt like it was time for an upgrade. Conor’s success was starting to have a positive impact on our membership and I was confident that the numbers would continue to increase. The opportunity to train in the same gym as Conor McGregor was an attractive proposition.
It was a sign that things were going in the right direction that I could now consider relocating the gym on my own terms, instead of being forced out as I had been on previous occasions. While I wasn’t actively looking to move with any great sense of urgency, I was keeping my eyes peeled for suitable places. That’s when I came across a vacant unit on the Naas Road, a five-minute drive from where we were based and just around the corner from my apartment. It was spacious – almost 10,000 square feet – and bright; the perfect place for a gym. Of course, it was completely empty when I first saw it, but I already had the entire thing planned out in my mind. It was everything I ever wanted from a gym.
The problem was that I really didn’t think I could afford it. If I relocated SBG Ireland to the Naas Road, my monthly financial outgoings would multiply by seven – and I was still paying that €40,000 loan back to the bank. After viewing the building one afternoon, I went home and resigned myself to the likelihood that it was beyond my reach. But I couldn’t get the place out of my head. I wanted it so badly that I went back out that evening, walked up to the unit, stood outside for a while and just stared at it. I did the same the following night. And the night after that. Yeah, I stalked a building. A couple of weeks later, my dad came with me to take a look at it.
‘It’s a great place, John,’ he said. ‘But you can’t afford it and you’ll never fill
it. It’s massive. Just forget about it and keep an eye out for somewhere else. You’d be crazy to take the risk.’
But I refused to be diverted. I had become a little bit obsessed with moving the gym to this unit. It sounds cheesy but I had a vision for how the gym would look in there and I couldn’t shake it off. It was exactly how I had always pictured my ideal gym. Even though the interest in SBG was growing, I still only had just over a hundred members. But that fact wasn’t enough to deter me. All logic seemed to suggest otherwise, but I really believed the move could be successful. I was convinced there would be a goldfish-bowl effect – that we’d fill whatever space we were in. As soon as I returned from Boston after Conor’s win against Max Holloway, I began the paperwork for SBG Ireland’s next move.
It was early on the Friday after Conor overcame Holloway that I received a call from Audie Attar, Conor’s manager. He seemed to be in a bit of a panic.
‘John, Conor has gone missing,’ Audie said. ‘He’s taken my car and isn’t answering my calls. He’s been gone for a few hours now.’
‘Hang on, Audie,’ I replied. ‘What’s the problem? Why did he disappear like that?’
‘He found out earlier that he’s torn his ACL. He’s going to be out for a long time.’
Conor had been for an MRI scan in Los Angeles on the Wednesday. On Thursday night he received the results of the scan … via Twitter. Dana White had given an interview to Fox Sports, who then revealed to the world – including Conor – the news that he had ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament. Nobody at the UFC had thought to notify Conor, myself or his management about such an important development. Instead, Conor found out that he probably wouldn’t fight again for a year via social media, just like everybody else. This was a potentially career-threatening injury that would require reconstructive surgery. I was furious that Conor learned the bad news from the internet. He wasn’t happy either, which is why he’d lost his temper and taken off in Audie’s car.
An ACL tear, while it’s a relatively common injury, can be very tough to recover from. It’s a long road back. After years of hard work, Conor’s career was finally beginning to take off. Now it had ground to an unexpected halt. If his initial thoughts were overwhelmingly negative, it was understandable.
I called Conor and he answered. He was angry at first, so I allowed him to get that out of his system. Then I sought to calm him down before discussing the reality of the situation. He was injured. He needed surgery. Then he’d face six months of rehabilitation. There was no getting away from that. No alternatives. That’s what he was faced with. Conor had two choices: he could feel sorry for himself, throw in the towel and forget about his goals, or he could embrace the challenge that came with the injury and vow to come out stronger at the end of it all.
‘Conor, champions conquer all adversity. That’s what separates them from the challengers,’ I told him. ‘There’s been adversity in the past, there’s adversity right now and there’ll be even more adversity in the future. But you’ve overcome it before and you’re going to overcome it again. Why? Because you’re on the road to becoming a UFC champion and this is just a minor obstacle along the way. This time next year we’re going to be laughing about all of this.’
In a scenario like this, appealing to Conor’s competitive side is the best way to get through to him. So that’s what I decided to do. We made it a competition. He might not have been able to fight for a while, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t compete in other ways.
‘You’re going to shock people with how fast you recover from this. And if they thought you were good before, they’re going to be blown away by what you show them when you come back. You’ll recover from this injury quicker than GSP did.’
Stuff like that really struck a chord with Conor. The chance to take on an MMA legend grabbed his attention. Former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre sustained the very same injury in 2011 and was lauded for returning just 322 days after surgery to beat Carlos Condit. Conor latched on to that.
‘Yeah, fuck it. I’m going to break records with this. People have seen nothing yet.’
That was the beginning of his journey to recovery. On 7 September, Conor was operated on in Los Angeles by the renowned Dr Neal ElAttrache, who had previously worked on some of the top stars in US sports, such as Tom Brady and Kobe Bryant. The UFC ensured that Conor was given the very best treatment. He spent the next five months in LA, going through a rigorous programme of rehabilitation under the guidance of Heather Milligan, an outstanding physical therapist who would play a vital role in Conor’s recovery.
That was the longest we’ve ever been apart, but we talked on the phone every day. I knew LA was the right place for him to be during his rehabilitation. He had access to world-class medical treatment there every day, and the little bit of sunshine that Dublin unfortunately can’t provide helped to keep his mindset positive. He even made a few celebrity friends while he was there, with Arnold Schwarzenegger – Heather Milligan’s boyfriend – paying him a visit during a rehab session.
There were ups and downs along the way, which is to be expected when a professional athlete is confined to the sidelines with an injury like that for such a long period of time. There were a few occasions when Conor would call and tell me he was finished; that he didn’t want to do it any more. But I knew he just needed some encouragement and those thoughts were soon forgotten about. As his coach in that situation, that’s all I could do: play my part in keeping Conor in the right frame of mind. He missed the day-to-day routine of being in the gym and training alongside his friends. While Conor was restricted to simple things like calf-raises and an exercise bike, his teammates were sparring and preparing for fights. I often sent him video clips of the guys sparring in the gym to ensure that he never began to feel detached from the team. Despite the bad days, Conor’s updates were mostly positive. ‘Another good day of work here,’ he’d say. ‘Making progress every day. I am a machine.’
I never had any doubts about Conor’s ability to ace the rehabilitation process from a physical point of view, but the key to making a success of it was how he handled it psychologically. Conor kept his mind active. He didn’t sit around feeling sorry for himself, eating ice cream and watching TV. He used the opportunity to learn. Even though he couldn’t spar, I used to send questions to him by text message about how he’d respond if he were to be caught in a certain position during his fight. That kept his mind sharp and in the game.
I would challenge any medical professional to take on Conor McGregor in a quiz about the anatomy of the knee. During his rehab, he studied it intensely. Conor became obsessed with knowing every detail of how the knee works in order to have a clearer understanding of his rehab. There’s not a thing he doesn’t know about it now. He also examined in detail the recoveries of other professional athletes from similar injuries.
Heather Milligan taught him a lot about the movement of the human body, and that had a significant influence on Conor’s approach to training and how to get the best out of himself physically. It also encouraged him to embrace the concept of light sparring even more. Heather told Conor that his muscles were too tight, so he became fixated with making sure that he was always loose and supple. He learned the importance of massage, and came to understand that lifting heavy weights really isn’t necessary for building strength. It was all about focusing on soft training.
Conor competed for a long time before he saw any financial rewards, so when he reached the UFC, maximizing his earning potential was one of his priorities. Thanks mainly to the ‘KO of the Night’ bonus he was awarded after beating Marcus Brimage, he had gotten off to a pretty good start on that front. However, the injury layoff provided him with a good opportunity to ensure that he was ready to take things to another level. When he wasn’t in the gym or receiving treatment, Conor devoted plenty of time to learning about how the UFC is run as a business and the role of a fighter in the media. He recognized the importance of promoting himself effectively, par
ticularly given that the injury could very easily have pushed him away from the spotlight. The majority of fighters are only in the news when they’ve got a fight on the horizon, but Conor had different ideas. In spite of the injury, significant commercial offers were starting to come in from companies who were keen to be associated with him. That only served to encourage Conor to sharpen his business acumen. He didn’t fight for almost a year, but Conor managed to become an even bigger star in the interim. During Conor’s time on the sidelines, people were constantly asking me how his recovery was going. Even the elderly woman behind the counter in my local shop would ask: ‘How’s his knee? Is he going to be okay?’
He couldn’t train or fight for a long time, but Conor improved in absolutely every area during his recovery. As he inched closer to full fitness each day, his mind gradually became bulletproof. In hindsight, the break was a blessing in disguise, in that it gave Conor a chance to take a step back and clearly assess the opportunities that were in front of him, which meant that he was prepared to make the most of them when they came along. His handling of the injury was a perfect example of the ‘win or learn’ philosophy I’ve encouraged at SBG. For 99 per cent of people it would have been a negative experience, but Conor turned it into a positive one. Instead of losing during his time out, he learned.
In December 2013 I finally got the keys to the unit on the Naas Road. The process of securing the lease had dragged on for months, so it was a relief to have it signed and sealed. During some complications with solicitors, for the first time I played the Conor McGregor card. They’d quiz me about my plans for the building and I’d just say: ‘You know Conor McGregor? Well, this is where he’ll be training.’ After that, things were a lot smoother.
Again, I couldn’t have relocated the gym without the incredible contribution of the members. So many of them sacrificed their weekends to help with the move. Jimmy Donnelly, in particular, invested countless hours in getting the new premises kitted out. Their assistance was hugely important in keeping the costs down, because I was already feeling the pressure financially.
Win or Learn: MMA, Conor McGregor and Me: A Trainer's Journey Page 11