Conan Mccaughan interview

Summary

[Music] okay so I have a competitor that's going to be fighting this weekend inore it's going to be close to their own gym as well so I've got Conor with me H he trains under Kieran Davin out um out of air grapple formerly SBG SBG to L more K and D DAV for me is one of one of…

Transcript (youtube_captions)

[Music] okay so I have a competitor that's going to be fighting this weekend inore it's going to be close to their own gym as well so I've got Conor with me H he trains under Kieran Davin out um out of air grapple formerly SBG SBG to L more K and D DAV for me is one of one of the best coaches whether it be technically or on a personal level as well H one of the best rappers within the country and this is one of the many kind of talents coming out it's the second fight I want to thank you so much for joining me I know obviously this fight week there's a lot going on how are you and and what are your feelings come fight week what are my feelings come fight week well first of all thanks for having me on but fight week I don't think uh it doesn't really reflect in my record my record being one in one at this stage that uh this is actually become quite a regular process for me I think what we've done really well out of air grapple and that I see a lot of other gyms starting to get into a lot more now is doing their novice comps so there's the likes of the national MMA league and then that was the big one especially the one that I started with uh and there's millions of other ones I believe uh Honeybadger MMA still runs one every now and again and there's many other ones going around the country just all these little novice comps that people hop in and out of I've had I want to say 12 or 13 novice fight fights at this point before I even went amateur so uh the nerves that a lot of people might talk about going into fight week just it's just not really something that phases me much anymore at the risk of sounding arrogant it's just it's just another week it's just another week for me I now I uh do take very long hard gazes at the fridge and all the nice stuff in there and uh have to settle for my rice and chicken but uh but other than that it's uh it's just another we get the office it's a small price to pay to do what it is that I love doing and sorry there's another part to that question uh er no no sorry no I I I think so but I actually like how you explained that because the how you look at it Kieran will probably tell you I I've had a sit down if few Wick here on and and we went back into the days when he started there was n it was straight into professional you no one really knew what they were doing so you can see obviously the advancement and and the national MMA leagues is is fantastic and you have shows like verus up north which you fought on as well I believe yes yes chaos a lot of them are doing a because there is so many novices around what was it like for you doing your first novice like so what was your first ever kind of fight like like talks about the nerves on that day and and we'll bring you back in time oh that is chronic uh my first novice fight that was oh God what age was I I think 19 or eight sorry 19 or 20 at that stage uh uh I had a bit of a weird thing in the gym like uh whereas I actually started off at the gym as a really scrawny skinny lad but just for whatever through all these circumstances I was doing the leave insert and everything at the time really overeating it was weird as I got into the gym weirdly enough even though I was doing all the gym work I was getting astronomically fat and so I I got uh up to I think I was up to about 100 kgs out a at a point and then uh uh which for me is quite larger you know different frames and all that but for me it's enormous and I just remember seeing Ronin and there was Jamal at the time Jordan Skully as well they were doing this uh gamma thing and I was like I fancy I go with that and then uh I think I got down to 92 and I'd only really done kickboxing at the time and something possessed me because I saw everyone else doing it to shoot a double leg and uh yeah i' th I threw I think two punches it's see Ronin and uh Ronan Degan if he even remembers this but I remember shooting that double egg and just getting my the world's worst double leg mind you I didn't know how to shoot a double leg but I just I just felt like something I was supposed to have done shot that double leg got my neck wrapped up and I think in a minute or so afterwards I was asleep with a referee over over the top of me and I think it's got It's uh been a long bumpy road since then a lot of UPS lots and downs mostly UPS it has to be said but yeah just just getting my weight down learning you know getting an increase in fight IQ all that sort of stuff and oh that's a weird memory to think back on now just uh the Worlds Apart that that's been just uh that little show it was run by it was run by Honeybadger I don't think they were honey badger at that stage I don't think they had become that yet but uh yeah it was being run by those guys it was a very good show especially for what it was and uh yeah no it's uh long old way and I definitely think doing those novice fights is the best way to go I know a lot of people get two or three or four but myself and a lot of the other guys saying the J J mccortney and Joe o uh Shane dun as well we did loads of those fights I think yeah I had 12 or 13 I think a lot of the other Lads had a similar number as well and I know a few Lads have done you know around the 20 Mark and I think that's definitely the way to go if you're looking to do this MMA stick as a as a career as a long-term thing yeah because because you see the the like if you look back at Fighters 10 even 10 years ago the skill levels of the guys like yourself at these ages coming through the noice competitions are like you said astronomically bigger like the the skill levels are bigger everyone's more well-rounded it's MMA classes now not striking grappling so it's MMA everything's kind of merged into one I know obviously you do have the separate kind of striking and stuff but there's a lot more MMA classes now and yeah the only thing that gets you more better and like provides you with a good platform is experience and like that with those competitions you've kind of set yourself up right going into amateur like you said you've had so many before when you look at because they're not actually recorded so when I go look for stuff like that I can't see novice um that's an idea for someone not me because I don't have the time to be doing that but it would be nice to be to see the novice competitions um and and the records in it but um what made you actually bring you back even before that mad story that you told me what brought you into MMA what made you kind of join MMA what was it about so yeah what actually got me into MMA that yeah again there's there's a very multifaceted answer I think and I think if you ask me again tomorrow I might even give you a slightly different answer but what's coming off the top of my head now was uh uh I was a very I what was it I had a very like high uh I had a pro I a lot of problems in school basically not necessarily like bullying or anything I was fairly Lucky in that regard but I was just I was never good at just sitting down getting stuff done and just keeping my head focused on anything for any given amount of time and my mother blesser would take me to all these different places trying to figure out you know ways to help me out and I just uh remember one I don't know if doctor is the right word or therapist maybe but I remember being it being brought up that I had a very high uh uh very high uh uh stimulus threshold for like uh you know adrenaline and stuff like this just uh it just stuff that it made me it made it very hard for me to just keep focused on any one given thing because it it just didn't get the adrenal and go and didn't get any stimuli going and I just burn out fall flat on whatever it was I doing and I they suggested something they suggested that I do something High adrenaline and I think they probably thought more along the lines of you know rugby or rock climbing or Motocross something like that I don't know and uh uh I think I had just by pure coincidence on the day look saw like a you know top 100 MMA knockouts March 2020 sorry 2016 or something like that and to my mother's horror that was what I discovered first I looked up uh uh MMA gyms awfully look and found uh yeah what was at the time SBG tore wandered and wandered in there took a kickboxing class and now here we are like that um I think everyone's muts and stuff when they want to go to to MMA because I think it's still it's still viewed in a bad light by people I don't think people see and this is why I want to talk to people like yourself and other people that have come up to it because most people I've met from it are are probably the nicest people 99% you're always going to have 1% of people that are but that's in every Walk of Life not just MMA it's boxing but well if you want to go ga it's probably about 50/50 if I want to be completely honest and let's ourselves let's not kid ourselves we know know they are what they are but like um you I get to see and I get to see what you go to well I don't get to see but I know what you go to on a daily basis and and what I can do actually then to lead over to your personal life do you find that with the likes of the discipline the stuff that that help lead into your normal life or did it have no effect were you always kind of quite structured or or did it have any effect on your personal life this was just your new thing you were going to do H Str yeah structure I would say uh I would say the gym is probably what I structure everything around again uh again before F finding the gym it was all you know I was very all over the place again I uh it would be remiss of me to claim that I had you know huge Str Les I've had I've been very lucky to have a very nice upbringing and uh all that sort of stuff I've had a good home life all this sort of stuff I can't try to pull that card in anyone but like any other teenager I think I found uh yeah I found those uh mid to late teenage years incredibly difficult and I would I'll be bouncing from you know one thing to the other I drinking quite a fair amount as well I just found it really hard to be committed to anything to enjoy anything all that much and I was never big on big on school wasn't good at it didn't particularly like it either and the gym just gave me something that I could structure my life around and I did find that once I you know once I got my hour a day in the gym say you know going into at the time especially Andrew Barrett's kickboxing class I would you know even just knowing that I would have that in the evening now it might have been a little late bit little too a little too late but it did I did find it helped me structure everything else in my life you know I knew okay look I'll be going into kickboxing six to seven can do whatever I want then just knuckle down for an hour or two here you'll be fine you'll get to blow off all the steam afterwards and you'll be good no and that's good see like it just shows that when you had something that you wanted which was MMA and that was your thing you then kind of like you said you knuckle down you kind of structure things too to go towards that but it's not just you and and like you said a lot of people do grow up like myself I never had bad childhood and stuff but I found myself I think at that age in the the late teens you it's very hard for young men and especially with obviously you've hormones you've got school which I think is there's a lot of pressure on you going you think about you going to school from first year they want you to pick the subjects that's going to define the rest of your life and yes sir which is mental like I still don't know what I want to do I'm 38 know um I think it is time but the fact that you found that and and like that you said Andrew bar class that's what what kept you going and it just shows that MMA is good for people and what it does for people but when you first walked into the gym because like we just said people don't look MMA in in a good light a lot of people wouldn't or or you think or my myself would think going in this gonna be a a club full of killers it's going to be big Lads it's going to be this and then you get in there they the nicest people lever what was your kind of what were you expecting going in and what was actually the expectation of when you got there or was there a difference did you know the atmosphere would be like what it was when you got there yeah no I uh I remember yeah like I said I you know after that sort meeting with this therapist doctor whatever you want to call her I looked up you know MMA gyms toore and I looked through a few different places but SPG T more as it was then now air grapple was the one that stood out to me now it had a very friendly family uh family uh what's a family friendly looking website but I've learned like anyone else not to pay attention to that sort of thing so I I did walk up expecting something out of uh you know oh what's the movie uh Never back down and all that sort of stuff that's exactly what I was expecting and it didn't help that I think uh Kieran O'Donnell was teaching a class at the time an absolutely tearing Slayer of Metallica in the background as I came in the door but I just uh yeah no I when went through those doors anyway I went up to the reception thing it was Sharon Davern at the door at the time told me what I needed to do and I just remember thinking like an hour or so into the class and just as I was finishing up I was just wondering how how in the hell I ever thought that the class would ever be like anything I I remember I went with uh my first ever training partner it was I remember it was uh Autumn Kelly he's a he's a lad out of JM uh I hope you'll forgive me saying possibly the most unassuming individual I've ever met and I just remember he hadn't been there long either but he handed my ass to me and I just remember thinking yeah n if I need this in my life if uh if these uh these little Lads like this can absolutely Maul me I don't even need to worry about the big guys it's the little guys I need to be terrified of and it's definitely something I need in my life and and you bring up a good point there as well because I think every whether it be male or female needs some sort of of you don't need to go compete but I think you need some sort of a combat experience or or some sort of self-defense because like you said these small Guys these small guys can wrap you up and we've seen it we've seen it up nor in chaos Andy Chapman ran it thing it was like Emanuel Prospect MMA went against Leon Davis 16 years old I think there was 30 kilos in the difference Emanuel new basic Jiu-Jitsu Leon is quite high up but Lee Leon subed him a couple of times in a five minute nine times I want to say in five minutes it just goes to show it's not all about strength if you know how to manipulate people's bodies and and stuff like that you could you could do it but um yeah you went on from there you've done all the novice you've done the amateur and that brings us to obviously you're one and one you're going into your third fight you're going on in this weekend and what I like to see is more shows in in the Republic and I I don't want I'm not trying to put divide into North and South but the Del likes of you Del likes of people from hway Place cork you have to travel quite far to the likes of these shows in Belfast H dairy stuff like that how good is it to have one literally on your doorstep you have no idea I I I'm a man of many virtues but patience isn't one of them I don't like sitting around be it on a plane on a car you know outside a doctor's office I hate sitting around waiting for things to happen so yeah having a show this close is just a Dre come true to uh for me um yeah as for like you know Lads and go Lads and cork God bless them going up to Nuri and whatever like now there I now I'm no bureaucrat I do know that there is a bit of a mess going on with uh uh the likes of safe MMA and what have you just in terms of actually getting through paperwork insurance and all these sorts of things for fighting in the Republic and even with all this travel involved I believe for a lot of people it's actually just easier to compete in the UK norn Ireland included in that but with that said with that said once you get the paperwork out of the way yes 100% having this show so close and especially in a little town like tore it's a great little thing to have going on I think it is it's fantastic and it's in the the bridge house I actually work as a bid man I collect glass bottles and the bridge house is one of the customers we don't have them anymore but that place is busy it's big it's a really nice hotel um unfortunately I won't be there because it's my birthday weekend on my birthday on me land a r i told Kier and I it and then I to ring him and say I can't make it we're have to booking to go away but um like we have being so close are you envisioning that you're goingon to be able to bring more of your friends and and family and you spoke about your mother being horrified you pick an MMA has she gone to your shows can she watch the shows and how has the her perspective of what you do changed or has it changed over time oh my poor mother man uh she uh her perspective has changed I think she had the same vision that everyone has of MMA which is you know the big lad who you know maybe is you know as thick as two stump uh thick as two short planks uh you know as wide as he is tall uh dense as a brick uh covered in tattoos bad tattoos I should emphasize uh just absolutely clobbering the heads off each other and she's met a lot of the people down the gym she's uh met K Kieran DAV of course and see she seemed to like him enough she's uh met an Andrew she's met Ronan she knows we're pretty decent upstanding folk what she refuses to do though she will not watch any of my she's not watched any of them she has uh she's looked at all the promo stuff she loves all that stuff she she saves it all to her phone bless her and but n i she hasn't watched any my fights I doubt she's going to watch any of my fights she won't be at this one but uh it'll be great to have some of the mates down there as well you know got a few of the lads coming in there he'll get me beer afterwards that'll be fantastic brother will be there yeah it's going to be it's going to be a good all night Al together yeah because like that to traveling is a lot to like you said you don't like even having to travel and then wait around for for the show so and especially with the cost of living being so high even to get up there and back and and cost of tickets and and the day out is quite a lot so to have it this close and people be able to go like you said you can just finish the fight you can have a few drinks in wherever you choose and then you can just go back home it's not too far it's not like you're up in Nori or you're up in Belfast but uh it's going to be a fantastic show it's something I wish I was going to this weekend um I'm going to let you go I want to thank you so much for your time and I want to say one thing obviously your mother obviously she changed her perspective but the fact that she saves the promo stuff I could I can understand the m not wanting to watch the the son's fighting but you like said obviously her her opinion has changed and like her saving stuff to the phone is just it just shows a change in in what she thinks about what you do and but like that if I could imagine no mother really wants to watch that so fair play to her but I'm Gonna Let You Go is there anything you want to say or anyone want to shout out and again thank you for your time best of skill this weekend Yeah well yeah well frankly I want to thank everyone I want to thank you know my mother and father who been who yes despite their initial reservations and possible continued reservations have been incredibly helpful and supported for me my brother I'd imagine he he's living a relatively normal life certainly in comparison to mine I can imagine it's a bit of an odd thing bringing up what I chose to do my spare time and with my career uh all my friends who again I don't expect them to understand what I'm doing but they very much respect it and I can only thank them a lot for that then of course the people that make do all the work with me there's you know oh my God obviously uh main aspiring Partners we got Andrew Barrett Jason mccortney Ronan Degan Shane Dunn Shane Smith H Joe ly so many guys and then of course Kieran DAV up at the helm there uh just keeping the ship on the straight and narrow I and I think that's about everyone oh also I'd like to thank Shane dun's mom for fixing my gloves she's done that two or three times for me now I'm a very Sentimental Man I don't want to throw those gloves out those girles sound like they're going to be with you forever but oh yeah they will one more question before you go Kieran DAV what does Kieran DAV mean to you as a coach and as a mentor because Kieran DAV comes across from me and I've had this conversation with him he like he's probably one of the best technical coaches you can get but as in a personable and on a human level he seems to have that kind of empathy and S of sort of he has that relationship with his Fighters what is K like what does Ken D mean to you and to Jim as a whole here and de and he is a very complex man I have nothing but the most utmost respect for him he's anytime I've ever had a question for him I he always just has a just bang at the top of his head and I have no idea how someone can retain that much information that quickly and that yeah recited that quickly and what he's done you know with the business that is is air of grapple raising a family building a house like he's doing it's yeah know you can only you can only really admire it and I've always appreciated how he's helped you know me personally with my fights whenever I've lost and when I've uh how he's empathized with me and been real supportive whenever I've lost how he's uh helped me keep myself within myself whenever I've won my fights making sure that I know to be you know happy with myself but not let it get all get to to my head uh and the thing is as much as I know that any time I've ever asked him anything he's had an answer for me just like that but at the same time I do know that if he didn't know he wouldn't try to lead anyone on and try to give people answers that he doesn't have which again I can only respect and and imagine someone more Adept than me might be able to uh ask a more in ask more interesting questions for him stuff that might get the gears working a little harder but I just yeah nothing but respect and I yeah think I'll be working with him for as long as I'm doing this sport I can't imagine being able to work this well with anyone else yeah no and he's a fantastic person and like you said the knowledge that's just years of of of what he's done and and learning new things and trying to put them onto team and like you said he actually said to me before it's very rare that he doesn't know the answer but if he didn't he he would say I don't know that right now but I will find out for you was what he said 100% he won't come he said there's no point in trying to spoof people because then if you try spoof people they lose respect for you they don't think you're speaking the truth the whole time but no he's a fantastic coach it's a fantastic event this weekend you've been a fantastic guest I want to thank you so much and best of luck this weekend and I I won't see you then but I will be talking to you after the show uh just to see how everything went all right yeah now thanks very much for having me and yeah we'll see you after see you on the on the other end perfect thank you