Adam McDonagh interview

Summary

Adam McDonagh Is an amateur MMA fighter representing Sligo combat He competes for the Elite Fighting Championship Flyweight title and speaks about his transition from Jiu jitsu and karate to MMA plus more

Transcript (youtube_captions)

Okay, so it's my absolute pleasure to have for the first time Mr. Adam McDonagh. I watched him at Elite against Aris Myrie and he was very, very impressive. Brian Coile was someone who kind of put me on to him as well and now he's going to be facing Sean Carmody, which is a another step up. And going into someone's backyard again, fighting for a title. Thank you very much for joining me. How do you feel and how do you feel getting a title shot after like it was a fantastic performance and fantastic finish at Elite. How's it feel to get the title shot so quickly? >> Oh, it was unreal. I was actually at work the morning that I got the text from the lads at AFC. Ask It was just a straight text. It was like, "Hey bro, do you want to fight Sean for a belt in November 14th?" And I was like, "Fuck yeah, that sounds class." Like it was just a it was just a such a open your phone, see a cool text and suddenly you're excited for the rest of the day. You're like, "This is unreal." Then I looked it was 14 weeks and I was like, "Oh, that's a long time." >> Well, at least it's 14 weeks and not 14 days. I've seen I've seen that happen. Um >> Yeah. >> Obviously, after having your first fight, did you did you envision having a title shot so quickly? Was that something that was just you wanted to get in and get a couple of couple of fights and then see where the land lays? Was it a surprise to get it? >> It was definitely a surprise. I originally thought it was going to be Sean and Kevin Walsh. Kevin Walsh, yeah. >> Yeah. >> Uh for it, but I think the IMMAF's came up around the same time. But still happy enough with it. Like it was definitely a surprise though. >> Yeah, no it is good like I said that you quite impressive, but you you have a background in combat sports. It's not as if you've come in you're you're one and all and there's no experience. You have a an extensive jiu-jitsu and kick like kickboxing record as well. Do you want to expand on on that? Like how you got into each of those sports and then the transition over to What made you transition over to MMA? >> Um so I started with karate when I was about 9 years old and I competed through that for years up until I'd say I was 18, 19. Around that same time I switched over to kickboxing in a gym in town called McGettigan's Sligo under Michael and Niall McDermott. Um, throughout that entire time, I started jiu-jitsu when I was 15 and was training with Atlantic Sligo. We Sligo's very uncentralized with MMA, so you have jiu-jitsu gym, you have a kickboxing gym, you have this and so there's a lot of cross-training goes on. But, and then my head karate coach was actually a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, so when I was training as a kid, he'd always be like, "Right, this is all your kata's and stuff. Now, here's an armbar." He'd be just showing you how to throw people and it would to small kid, it was the coolest thing ever. >> I can imagine and I like I like the kind of cross-training because I know there's a couple of even in MMA, obviously Sean has his own kind of grappling and uh gym now as well. He's got his own jiu-jitsu gym. But, like the likes of Taylor Hearn and he cross-trains as well as doing jiu-jitsu and MMA. A lot of people I think it's good to to get different bodies all the time as well because if I'm training with you every day, when I zig, you know when to zag. Do you like I I like the concept of cross-training? Obviously, you've kind of it's been forced upon you, but do you like Do you like that? New bodies, new people, new faces every time you train? >> Oh, I really enjoyed it. It's makes it more fun and like in this last camp, I've been going up to Charac challenge to Gary Morris's gym a good fit and I've been doing rounds with Toby McElhinney. Like >> Yes. >> And he's he's fighting on chaos for the bantamweight title and been brilliant rounds and there's been unreal rounds going on up there, so cross-training is definitely I'd something I'm a big believer in myself. >> Yeah, and I think he got I love Gary Morris. Great time for Gary. I ended up he was refereeing at Elite and then I ended up drinking with him and having staying his room cuz I had nowhere home to go to Clare, which is like 2 and 1/2 hours away. Um, had a rental car. I was going to sleep in that, but he said no, you can stay in the room, but it's it's good to get it in. Like I think and I don't want to sound disrespectful when I say smaller gyms, but no one has the like you've got SBG and NFAI. No one's going to have that amount of bodies and I think the the gyms that don't have the huge amount of members or fighters, you see it C Mac of course trained with Tulamore and and stuff like that. I think it's highly beneficial. You're going to see different styles and different bodies, but with [snorts] with that with that background, what was the reason for transition to MMA? Was there a fighter or was it just kind of like okay, I want to try this. >> Yeah, um, when I was about 15, 16, there was a competition that was put up. It was a novice one in it's now Honey Badger Martial Arts, but it was SBG Portarlington at the time. And myself and the now head coach and owner of Sligo Combat Academy, we were like 20 he was like 25 and I was like 16 and we just like [ __ ] it, we rock up the road, signed up online, went in, uh, had a fight, first fight in cage. I was wearing like four oversized 4 oz Everlast gloves that I bought the week before in Sports Direct and it was completely fine. Show up and the lads were like, "Hey, so we'll do head shots as well." So, everyone was milling the heads off each other. I won the fight by standing guillotine which would get me disqualified now at any novice teen fight. And brilliant experience came into school the next day with a big black eye and everyone asked me if everything's okay at home. And it that was just how it started. It was done a bit of karate, bit of jujitsu and I was like, "Ah, give it a go." And went [snorts] well and it was fun. I may I mainly train martial arts just cuz it's fun, not cuz competition or anything. I could train the rest of my life, never compete and just love martial arts. >> That's good though. And I think that that that's that's a good side as well that you go in and and the fact What made you want to compete though? Was there was there something like cuz you said you could keep going and training and not compete, but what was it about the competition? Was it you wanted to test what you were training and seeing live competition how you would fare against another competitor? >> Yeah, definitely a bit of that. Um I have a lot of people telling me to compete, and every time I'm all I used to always be very like, "Ah, we'll see." And then every time I do it I do do well. It was I used to have very low confidence in myself for competitions. Now it's just a case of like, "Ah, I'll do that." But uh every time I sign up for one, I'm like, "Well, brilliant. Another Another challenge." It's just amateur at the end of the day, so you're able to go in have a bit of fun. >> Yeah, I love that. You're You're very laid-back in the whole You're just like, "Yeah, I'll go fight. Yeah, I'll go fight." But I love your attitude towards it as well because it is only amateur. If you lose, you lose. If you go pro, you can't get that back. It's not a sport where you can't reset it, whereas I would be on the like Kieran Clark. He's going to kill me cuz I keep mentioning him. But he was 13 and 10, so you're looking at nearly a 50-50 record. He went 11 and all as a pro. So, get those hard fights in now and like you're fighting someone that's extremely dangerous as well for your sake fighting Sean Family. Would you know him from the jiu-jitsu scene? What Like when you look at Sean um obviously you know his jiu-jitsu's good, your jiu-jitsu's good. Do you think your striking might be the difference there or have you kind of noticed anything about his striking that you're like, "Okay, I didn't realize maybe he was was that good at striking." >> [snorts] >> Um most of his fights he's like his condition like his last fight there like I had a watch of it, his conditioning's very good. He shoots the entire fight like he spends 9 minutes like on the gas pedal. I haven't really gotten a chance to see much of his striking just cuz his grappling is as strong as it is. But I feel like striking-wise like straight striking without the fear of the takedown, I would have the edge there. >> Yeah, and I think like that see as well when people don't strike you're always wondering what level is it at. Joe cuz there was a a everyone knew him as a wrestler. So, people tried to catch him on the feet and then when he was on the feet, he started lighting people up. I was like, "Oh, this is this is a surprise." So, um when you're preparing for someone, uh do you look much into them yourself or do you let your coach into it or do you just like to get the basics of what they do and not worry too much about them, but worry about yourself and your own style and and put a stamp of your own style as a fighter? >> I do I do like to watch what people do like any kind of footage I'll have on them I'll always watch just just for just for my own sake cuz I know Sean's southpaw like unorth- unorthodox striking really good wrestling like he's a he'd be a difficult sparring partner to find anyone to make get him to mimic, but just kind of know those little things, but not in too major. It's just like you watch it you once or twice and then you're going like, "Okay." You just train the way you normally would like have good spar- sparring partners for a range of different things. >> Yeah, and the card itself we were talking about this before we came on. The card itself elite you've got I think it's nine pro fights it might be down to eight, but even even at eight I think would be a record for I know six is the kind of with what I've seen as the most pro fights. Potentially nine, 10, maybe seven depending on what happens, you know, with fight week or when fights come around. How does it feel because you were saying obviously you're fighting for a title, but you're like like a good bit down the card. Usually you'd be like you definitely like you usually fight for a title you're definitely on the main card at a recent so. How do I know that you're down so far, but that just goes to show the level of talent that's on the card and the pro fights. How do you feel about being part of this card cuz I think it could be historic. >> Oh, it's insane like I was counting they've been posting like the like two fights each day and I was counting counting back from like the main event. So, I think we're like 12th last fight of the night which I think was similar to what me and Alex were last time we were like the head of the prelims or something. So, we could be fighting at around 6:00 6:00 7:00 and that's completely fine by me. Like in fight then watch some absolute scraps. I'm I'm looking forward to it as a fan of the event as well. Like there's some unreal fights going on. >> Yeah, I'd say that I'd like totally a show with a lot of fighters a lot of fighters might stay a lot of fighters might go. It depends on their journey home. Do you know what I'm saying? But I have a feeling anyone that fights in this card is going to be staying for this card. Like you've got Ryan Shelley, you've got Amy Scully, the domain and co-main, Sarah Eddie Sheridan, Barry Kennedy, Jake Knight, Tommy. Like just man, I can't even Ross Kearney. There's so many pros on it. Is Ireland going to be raising that I'm going to be missing it? Then you have chaos the same day. They have five pro fights. How does it feel for you as a fighter to have these level of shows to have the options around? Hopefully they cannot do them on the same day next time and spread them a couple of weeks apart. But how does it feel to have those options around as like as you've come into MMA that there's maybe eight to 10 shows that you can jump on at any time throughout the year? >> It's absolutely brilliant. Like there's like EFC would definitely be like being from Sligo, it's about a four four-hour drive. So it's definitely the furthest distance. But every time like anytime we've gone down to Cork, we've always had a brilliant time. Like the lads like I always end up fighting lads from MMA Cork. But the lads from there are always dead on. Like we always got on well. I fought two lads previously from the gym. So we know a lot of them. And yeah, it's a brilliant time anytime you go to Cork. I'm mates with Barry Kennedy. He's from Sligo himself and he started like we started in Atlantic Jiu-Jitsu together years ago and he made the move down to Cork. But anytime I see him like I'm really rooting for him on this one. >> Yeah, but I love Barry Kennedy. He's he's a really good guy. But in terms of you're saying that you fought him and you get on with him. For people who don't watch combat sports and they think it's crazy. But what is Is that creates a bond between two people that have fight, that have fought? Is it because you both know what's going into it? Because like if you say that to someone outside, they're like, "What do you mean they're friends after they punch the head off each other?" Can you explain what it is that brings fighters together after a fight? >> I I think it's just it's hard like in a competitive sense it's if you go in both you go tooth and nail at it you win win lose or draw you're going to have that little bit of respect for each other like afterwards. Like I've never had a fight with anyone that afterwards didn't shake their hand or there was any hard feelings like I don't talk [ __ ] or anything like that or don't really do any of that stuff so it's just a case like win lose or draw shake hands chat a bit of [ __ ] go go off have fun like but it's hard like if you're still angry at someone after punching them in the face for 9 minutes straight there's something underlying going on. >> Yeah, no I do get that. It is mad when you see I think there was two UFC female fighters and one got whooped for like the 15 minutes she was held down and beat and then as soon as she got to her she goes, "I'm going to follow you home." And the commentator was like, "And do what? Like get just get mauled for 15 minutes on the ground?" I think it You know what it is it's a fighter who didn't get a game plan properly going and couldn't basically outdo what they were doing. But look, I'm really looking forward to your fight. You're a really exciting fighter like I said with Brian telling me about the stuff before Brian put me on to you when he's when I was like, "Who's that?" And I I hadn't really seen you before and then was like, "Just watch this guy." So he was he's been giving you a lot of lot of shout outs to me and other people around the scene. So I'm looking forward to it. I want to wish you the best of luck going into it. I'm going to let you go. Is there anything you want to say before you go or anyone you want to shout out? And thank you so much for your time. >> I'd just like to shout out my main sponsor my strength and conditioning coach NK Fitness. He's been doing all my work for my last I think four or five fights at least over the last year just with weight cutting and everything so he's been a huge help and everything. Obviously, my team Sligo Combat Academy, Atlantic Jiu-Jitsu, and Sligo Megendo, and big thank you to Gary Morris for bringing me in for sparring with all the boys and everything. >> Yeah, no, 100% like I said, it's good to have you there Toby. Someone who's actually from Thailand. Uh, he's and he's he's very good. That's That's That's like see then, that's why you can't split yourself in two to go to these two separate shows. So, I'm just going to go to one. >> [laughter] >> I'll be as like as soon as my fight's done or just after my fight before my fight, I'll be on my phone going like, "How's Toby getting on?" Like just cuz watching the all events you'll be there look up, watch one fight, look down, watch the other. It's going to be hilarious. >> I'll be like one of those people that plays poker online. I'll have all these screens around me with all different fights. Cuz you know, there's PFL on that night as well in Dubai with Reece McKee and Benda. Oh, no, Benda I think is December. Uh, but look, I'm going to let you go. Thank you so much for joining me. I wish you the best. It's a really, really exciting fight and hopefully we will we will have more chats going into 2027 as well. Um, and hopefully we'll see you with a belt. Enjoy the rest of your day. >> Thanks so much. Thanks so much. Have a good one. Best of luck.