Win or Learn: MMA, Conor McGregor and Me: A Trainer's Journey

by John Kavanagh

  A week or so after the Siver fight, I mentioned in a radio interview with Newstalk in Ireland – another one where the presenters seemed surprised that I wasn’t bigger and scarier-looking when I came into the studio – that nothing had been confirmed as regards a date for the fight, so fans should not take the risk by booking. But some were unable to contain themselves, and I’m sure it unfortunately cost them a bit of money. Just a few days later, the UFC confirmed that José Aldo would defend his UFC featherweight title against Conor McGregor at UFC 189 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on 11 July.

  Another subject of fascination for the fans was Conor’s earnings. People asked if I was worried that the money would go to his head and distract him from the task at hand. Will he start to slacken off now that he’s rolling in the cash? Will you lose him to that?

  I’m sure that has happened on countless occasions in the past to athletes in many sports, but I had known Conor for long enough to realize that this wasn’t a concern for us. Sure, now that he was earning the kind of money he could once only have dreamed of, he was certainly making the most of it. But Conor is astute enough to recognize that it could all disappear in an instant if he were to take his eye off the ball. Ultimately it comes down to what motivates you. If money is your only incentive, your determination to succeed in competition will fade as soon as you start admiring your bank account. Conor has stated publicly that money is a motivating factor for him, but only because it happens to be a consequence of learning, improving, competing and winning – which is what drives him, first and foremost. If an athlete is motivated solely by money, they’ll come unstuck as soon as they start to make it in large amounts. It’s happened many times before. Mike Tyson wanted money and fame, but he was never the same soon after he began to experience it. Some people said his decline was a result of the death of his coach, Cus D’Amato, but for me the problem seemed to be a lack of motivation.

  Another question I’ve sometimes been asked is whether Conor will eventually leave SBG and join one of the big teams in America.

  It’s not something I’ve ever worried about. Conor places a lot of importance on loyalty, but even more so it’s about intelligence. The relationship between a coach and a fighter does not develop overnight, and Conor knows that. As a younger fighter, with his boxing background, he has a lot of friends who would have travelled to places like the Wild Card Boxing Club in Los Angeles over the years. When you go to a place like that as a newcomer, you join the back of the queue for the attention of the coaches. That’s also quite true for new fighters who join us at SBG. They’re welcome, of course, but they’ll need to work hard to move their way up the pecking order and prove that they’re serious about becoming a permanent member of the team. I’m not going to compromise the time and effort I put into fighters who have trained under me from day one for somebody who could be gone again in a few months. If a professional fighter leaves their own team to join SBG, I have to wonder how long it will be before they decide to depart SBG for somewhere else? Particularly in recent years, we’ve had high-level fighters come to the gym to train from every corner of the world. The door is open to them and they’ll be greeted warmly, but it’ll take some time to build up the trust that’s required to consider them as part of the team.

  Conor saw that I gave him everything I had from the moment he first walked through the door, and he gave me everything in return. We rose up together and it has paid off for us both. If Conor had left to become just another sparring partner in some gym in America with a hundred professional fighters, I don’t believe he would have been able to develop in the manner that he has.

  Just from a practical point of view, Conor’s timekeeping is so bad that it probably wouldn’t have worked for him anywhere else! If you’re in a big US gym and you miss the 1.30 p.m. team session, that’s your problem. And that’s pretty much the crack of dawn in Conor McGregor’s time zone. I’ve learned that’s just how he is, and I do whatever I can to accommodate him. He has his own key to the gym and often comes in to train after midnight.

  Conor’s title shot against José Aldo was being billed as the biggest fight in the UFC’s history, as evidenced by the organization’s decision to embark on a twelve-day media world tour in March 2015, with both fighters in tow. Beginning in Rio de Janeiro and ending in Dublin, the tour would take in ten cities across Brazil, the USA, Canada, the UK and Ireland. One of my first thoughts was that I felt slightly sorry for José Aldo, having to endure being tormented by Conor every day for nearly two weeks, but it sounded like a lot of fun for the fans and it was an indication of how important the fight was for the UFC. This was something they had never done before.

  When Conor got in Aldo’s face after the Siver fight in Boston, Aldo didn’t seem too bothered. But over the course of the media tour, Conor poked and prodded, chipping away at Aldo. It was clear that Aldo wasn’t enjoying himself. On the set of a TV show, Conor grabbed Aldo’s neck and snatched his belt while it was unattended. Aldo’s coach, André Pederneiras – asked Dana White to make sure that Conor didn’t make physical contact with the champion. As soon as Conor found that out, he was never going to be able to resist.

  The fighters had a hectic schedule over the course of the media tour, but I wasn’t concerned about it placing too much stress and strain on Conor, especially as the fight was still nearly four months away. He had Artem Lobov with him along the way, so they were training as they travelled. We’ve learned over the years that there’s always time to train, even if that involves moving the beds aside in a hotel room to create sufficient space for a session.

  We also have to allow for the promotional requirements of the game. For Conor, in particular, it’s an area in which he feels like he can gain an advantage. Is it the difference between winning and losing? I don’t believe so. Conor has more than enough physical skills to beat his opponents without putting them under psychological pressure first. Still, it doesn’t do any harm. I knew that being in Conor’s company for that amount of time would wear on Aldo.

  John, bad news. Can you take a phone call?

  My stomach started doing somersaults when I read Artem’s message. He and Conor were in Canada for the final North American leg of the UFC 189 media tour, before it made its way across the Atlantic Ocean for stops in London and Dublin.

  When I got Artem on the phone, he told me news I didn’t want to hear: ‘Conor has hurt his knee.’

  Artem explained that Conor and Rory MacDonald – a Canadian welterweight who was scheduled to take on the champion, Robbie Lawler, in UFC 189 – had been training together that afternoon. Nothing strenuous, just a bit of grappling. But during their session, Rory landed awkwardly on Conor’s left knee – the same knee he had injured against Max Holloway. The knee was already swelling up and Conor was having it looked at by a medic. I was almost afraid to pose the question out of fear that I’d inevitably receive an unpleasant answer. But I needed to know.

  ‘Artem, how bad is it?’

  ‘I’m not going to lie,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t look good.’

  16

  I first came across José Aldo in 2008, when he began to make a name for himself with the now-defunct WEC promotion. He was only twenty-one at the time, but he was already being earmarked as a future world champion, and it was easy to see why. By 2015 he had become the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world, and arguably the UFC’s most dominant champion. He had only ever been beaten once in his career, as a raw nineteen-year-old.

  So it was a big deal when, as part of the tour promoting UFC 189, José Aldo came to Dublin. This was one of the modern greats of mixed martial arts, an icon, and he was coming to my home town to promote a world title bout against one of my own fighters. With the benefit of hindsight I can now appreciate how significant that was, but it’s not something that really registered with me at the time. Then, he was just the next opponent. The final hurdle between Conor and the very top.

  Unlike some of Aldo’s previous opponents, we d
idn’t make the mistake of putting him on a pedestal. Another reason I wasn’t getting carried away by Aldo’s presence in Dublin for the Irish leg of the UFC 189 media tour was that I wasn’t even sure if the fight was going to take place as scheduled. A couple of days had passed since Conor hurt his knee while training with Rory MacDonald in Canada. We still weren’t sure how serious the damage was. I had spoken to Conor on the phone, and the bad news was that his knee was painful and swollen. The good news was that he was certain it wasn’t as serious as the ruptured anterior cruciate ligament he’d sustained against Max Holloway in August 2013. But I wasn’t convinced. If the injury really were serious, I would expect Conor to be in denial about it.

  Conor didn’t tell anyone else about the injury until he returned home to Dublin. Once the media obligations were out of the way, we could decide on our next move.

  According to the UFC, over 70,000 fans applied for tickets to attend the press conference – the final one on the media tour – with José Aldo and Conor McGregor at the Convention Centre in Dublin on the afternoon of 31 March 2015. Unfortunately, the venue only catered for 3,000 so there were a lot of disappointed fans. The lucky ones who managed to get inside the building certainly seemed to enjoy the occasion. Conor was given a hero’s welcome while Aldo received an extremely hostile reception. I watched it all on TV back at the gym. Aldo looked like he had reached breaking point as Conor gave it one last push with his antics, which included snatching the belt again. I couldn’t help but think that there were people looking at this from all over the world, none of them aware that the fight these guys were promoting might not even go ahead because of the state of Conor’s knee. At the same time, I was slightly reassured by how he was able to jump around the stage like a maniac.

  ‘I actually think it’s fine,’ Conor told me when we eventually got together. I was keen for him to have a scan in order to discover exactly what the problem was, but he was reluctant.

  ‘Let me figure this out,’ he said. ‘I don’t think this will need surgery. I can get by without it.’ Given that he was about to begin a training camp for the biggest fight of his life, Conor wanted to avoid being operated on. Having to do so would immediately have forced the postponement of the fight and he was convinced that such a move wasn’t necessary.

  By now, Conor had mentioned the injury to Dana White, who recommended that Conor visit a clinic in Germany which specialized in stem-cell therapy. As a sufferer of Ménière’s disease, Dana had undergone stem-cell treatment at the same clinic and found it to be very effective. Conor took his advice. He flew straight out to Germany and was given stem-cell injections into his knee. Within a few days, he was back in the gym.

  ‘It feels good,’ he insisted. ‘It’s not perfect but it’ll get better over the next few weeks of training. Let’s do this. I’m ready.’

  And that was that. We were going full steam ahead for the biggest fight in UFC history in spite of a knee injury the seriousness of which was unclear. I still wanted Conor to have a scan. If we needed to push the fight back a few months, so be it. But he was adamant. There was no telling him otherwise. All I could do was take his word for it and devote myself to the task of preparing him accordingly.

  Conor had plenty of physical therapy, and more stem-cell injections later on at a clinic in Los Angeles. As I observed him in training, I began to agree with his assessment that he could get by without surgery. What he needed was rest, but we didn’t have the time for that with a world title fight on the horizon. Conor was able to train hard, but his mobility was restricted, which meant that his wide array of kicks was limited and he couldn’t really do any wrestling at all. I was kind of okay with that. When the Aldo fight was first announced, I wrote in my column for The42.ie that I believed Conor would win inside three of the scheduled five rounds. That was a modest prediction: I could honestly picture Conor getting the job done in the first. I thought he was capable of getting an early knockout, so wrestling wouldn’t even have time to come into the equation. My belief in Conor’s ability gave me peace of mind that we could get through this despite the injury.

  The situation reminded me of something former world boxing champion Steve Collins once said to some of my guys when he visited the gym: ‘I’d rather be 75 per cent physically ready and 100 per cent mentally ready than 100 per cent physically ready and 75 per cent mentally ready.’

  That certainly applied to Conor, because there was no doubting that his psychological preparation was spot on. There wasn’t a single question in his mind about wanting to proceed with this, so the best thing I could do as his coach was get fully behind him. But I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t any concern. As we prepared to launch the training camp, I had no idea how things would unfold.

  Because this was our first world title bout, we wanted to leave no stone unturned in preparation for 11 July. The stakes had been raised so it felt like things needed to be done a little differently. We made the decision to spend the ten weeks before the fight in Las Vegas – the idea being that we’d become completely acclimatized to the heat and the time zone. By fight night, the place would feel like home.

  The day before we left for Vegas, I was in my office at the gym when Orlagh walked in and handed me the phone: ‘This is for you.’

  ‘I’m really busy at the moment,’ I said. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘I think you want to take this call. It’s Royce Gracie.’

  When Orlagh handed me the phone, I couldn’t believe it was actually Royce on the other end of the line. I was speechless for a moment before I could actually utter a greeting.

  ‘John, hello,’ he said. ‘My name is Royce Gracie, I’m from the Gracie family.’

  ‘I know exactly who you are, Mr Gracie. You don’t need to introduce yourself to me.’

  It turned out that one of Royce’s private students was in Dublin and needed a gym to train in. Naturally I was delighted to be able to accommodate him.

  ‘While I have you on the phone,’ I said to Royce, ‘I can’t allow you to hang up without telling you that you’ve basically given me this life. I saw you when I was a terrified nineteen-year-old kid who didn’t know where he was going or what he wanted to do, but when I saw what you were able to do, it changed my life. I really can’t thank you enough. You’ve given me an amazing life. None of us would be doing what we’re doing now without you stepping into that octagon.’

  He just laughed and told me that we’re all standing on the shoulders of his father. He wouldn’t accept the credit.

  That was an amazing phone call to receive, especially just before departing for our biggest fight yet. Without Royce Gracie, I wouldn’t be where I am today. For him to send one of his students to me was one of the biggest compliments I’ve ever been paid.

  We secured the use of a luxury, seven-bedroom, 12,000 square-foot house in a private gated estate in Vegas for the duration of our time there; Conor christened it ‘The Mac Mansion’. It was a big commitment for me to leave Dublin for two and a half months and I knew it would be challenging to lead a world title training camp on one side of the world while running a gym on the other. If there was a faulty toilet in the changing room back at SBG, I would get a call about it.

  Conor wasn’t the only SBG fighter preparing to fight in Vegas. Throughout the week leading up to UFC 189, the Amateur World Championships were also scheduled to take place and four of my up-and-coming fighters were set to represent Ireland. Sinéad Kavanagh, James Gallagher, Frans Mlambo and Kiefer Crosbie joined Conor, Artem Lobov, Owen Roddy, SBG wrestling coach Sergey Pikulskiy and myself at the house. Tom Egan flew in from Boston too, and Gunnar Nelson joined us later on. Gunni was ready to return following his loss to Rick Story, and a fight against John Hathaway – the man who’d defeated Tom Egan in Dublin back in 2009 – had been booked for the UFC 189 card. Owen, Tom, Sergey and I focused on coaching. As wrestling coach, Sergey was extremely limited in what he could do with Conor due to the injury. Nevertheless, he used his expertise to prepare him in
that regard as well as he possibly could. A former member of Moldova’s national wrestling team, Sergey had become a key element of our coaching ticket since joining SBG in 2008.

  Artem Lobov was also gearing up for something big, having been selected to compete on an upcoming series of The Ultimate Fighter. At the Mac Mansion, we had a lot of like-minded people under the same roof working together, each with a target to aim for. It made for a very productive training environment.

  Eager to play my part in ensuring that everybody remained on track for the duration of the training camp, I decided to subject myself to a strict diet. My nutrition is pretty good anyway, but here it became extremely rigid. It was all geared towards fostering a world champion mentality. Even Conor said it gave him a boost to see me rowing in behind him in that manner. To maintain a sense of discipline, we pinned a list of house rules to the door of the refrigerator. One of those was that no processed or sugary foods were permitted. Everyone in the house adhered to it.

  In a house full of determined individuals, I felt everyone learned and improved substantially over the course of the ten weeks. We all made big leaps forward, myself included. But that doesn’t mean that people didn’t get under each other’s skin from time to time. There was definitely an element of cabin fever at various stages, which I suppose is to be expected in a situation like that.

  A lot of fun was had, too. We cooled off in the pool in the mornings and enjoyed barbecues for dinner in the evenings. Everyone chipped in with the preparation of the food – one person marinaded the meat, another took care of the salad, someone else would set the table, and so on. It all contributed to creating a family vibe, which was important when we were all so far away from home and for so long.