Paul Hughes | Cage Warriors 134 Countdown | Energized Show

Summary

What is up and welcome to the Energized Show! On this episode Paul Hughes joins us to discuss his Cage Warriors London Featherweight World Title matchup on Friday the 18th of March Live on UFC Fight Pass, Training in FAI & More MMA craic. Like, Comment, Subscribe & Hit the…

Transcript (youtube_captions)

[Music] [Applause] okay what's going on guys welcome to a brand new episode of energized for us introduce the guest man today we have the cage warriors interim featherweight champion of the world mr paul hughes paul you did not like that interim party you just planned that didn't you oh [Music] how are you getting on how's life how's that how's training been and how are you feeling fantastic fantastic i'm living the dream ever and i've been more locked in than ever it's been it's been a really special camp i'm in a really good place i'm happy content and i'm just counting down the days now it's how many i don't know whatever it is friday is one week right that's what i know and we're on the last the last week push of heart training so yeah feeling good and ready to put the last wee bit of hard work in yeah paul we're actually going to be there yeah in the indigo wearing the glasses we'll have a pair for you as well [Music] glasses uh we can't wait for it and does this voice feel any different to any other fights cause it is being billed as one of the biggest if not the biggest fight in cage wire's history yeah i mean i don't know if it feels any different to me it's like to me obviously every fight is the biggest fight of my career but the the last one was massive the last one was massive for sure bigger than i guess we we all expected with the crowd and how things sort of went but i think this is the potential to be timestamped to be completely honest i'm absolutely i'm buzzing to see the sort of scenes that that my fans bring in my followers and my supporters bring so it's uh it's very very exciting i must say yeah paul obviously the bill for this has been a bit different from yourself like usually i mean the back and forth you've had with jordan like change your thumbnail pictures like putting on t-shirts like uh is there is there bad blood really here um i mean i respect jordan of course we we've been in there together he's a nice guy um it is what it is but at the end of the day that this is this is now business it was it was fine it was good fun at the start i'm promoting the fight it is what it is but things are completely different now this is business and at the end of the day he's trying to take my dreams up he's trying to take everything away from me everything that i've been sacrificing in my life all the adversity i've conquered to get here he's trying to take that away from me so it's as personal as it is and it's uh yeah it's it's business now well when you fought morgan chariot um in york hall you made that walk out it's probably the most iconic cage warriors walk out in a long time you had the irish flag and you threw it to jordan lieutenant on the way in did you say anything to him as he threw him the flag i don't know i can't recall if i said anything specific but the the gesture was enough i mean it was it was all my flag watch this um and he took it like like yeah it was uh that's what that's when the main games began i didn't actually know he was going to be in the venue so that was that was completely off the cuff i seen him and that's just where my mind went the main games began there and and he took that flag and he better held it yeah we had a great bowling on in the build-up to next weekend's cage warriors 134 in london live on ufc fight pass so make sure to check it out but paul he said like graham every time he watched the fight he said you won then he said jordan won like what way do you feel after after that fight and like were you expecting to get your hand raised oh i mean absolutely i won the fight very very clearly it's i don't really think there's a debate around that um i think the narrative sort of skewed a little bit from on the night it was uproar that how the hell was my hand not raised i think the narrative got skewed a little bit throughout the time passing that it was it was a much closer fight and that it could have went either way i don't believe that at all i think was a clear robbery um and that's my thoughts in the face and that's me being completely honest is it just to follow up on that is that how is that why um you're like full of emotion after winning the title after if was that oh yeah for sure this is a this is a hard game a lot goes into this and to finally reach a massive goal it's it's it's incredibly emotional and yeah there was a lot of a lot of things released in when i got my hundreds a lot of a lot of build up so yeah there was a bit of a love triangle uh well i don't know if you call it that but a love triangle at the top of the featherweight division between yourself jordan and morgan obviously yeah jordan got his hand raised against morgan as did you and this is the only one really left i think uh this is this is where you know we'll find out who the real king of the featherweight division in cage workers is when it came to your first fight look i'd scored round one three for yourself i had two for jordan that's the way i saw i don't know but maybe paul hughes might tell you that he won all three rounds who knows uh it was a close fight but i thought definitely positionally anyway i thought you were definitely better in the first and then i thought what's called when push came to show i gave you the turret as well but um what are we going to see different from that fight to this fight paul i mean what we're going to see different is jordan's going to be finished within two rounds and i i truly truly believe that i've said that since the very very start that he will be he will be in sleep inside that case within two rounds i i truly truly believe that i am i'm completely completely on a different level right now like it's it's it's just different it's just completely different going in there and i know my level i know what i'm capable of i could i've got knockout power in both hands and of course we see my grappling displays as well and this this one is just different i i feel like something just special is coming again i know the last event was special but this time it's going to be a special finish and things are going to go to the moon after this how many people are you expecting to bring over which of all the handsome i'd say well we're well over 500 we're well over 500 there's people coming in of course we've got so much coming for you from belfast from the rest of ireland but i've got people flying in from around the world never mind my fans and and my supporters in uk and european mma that have been so loyal to me since since my professional debut which was actually just over five years ago i've had an amazing fan base and people have been supporting so i'd say we'll not be too far off a thousand to be completely honest um i mean when the tickets went on sale i think the venue's capacity is about two thousand we're almost sold out straight away so i think it's pretty clear but we can't we can't believe the weight man like yeah it's definitely gonna be a special man yeah we're gonna turn up more that more than the morgan fight the morgan fight was it was amazing because i guess it wasn't expected in the sense that we we didn't know if the fans were actually going to be there covert restrictions were changing we didn't really know if it was going to go ahead and then when it came to fight night they put out the irish put out the french put out whereas this time is going to be it's it's going to be times 10 i really feel that one thing i will say when we did have grain bowling on he touched about uh he touched on cage wires returns to ireland and is that something that you're excited about and do you feel like you next time cade writers come to ireland you'll be a spectator because you'll be talking to the ufc yeah i mean that's something i'm so excited about it's been it's been a couple years they've been trying to get back here and obviously with colbert it's it's been tough but yeah i mean my monster for this camp has been undeniable i'm going to be undeniable to to get that ufc contract after i finish george in here and i mean that's that's how i'm thinking about it i make a home in the first round and still not get the ufc it's just it's out of my control so i mean if the opportunities there i mean i would definitely definitely love to fight i would love to fight at home again it would be it would be i just couldn't even imagine how crazy it would be judging how much we're selling like shoes in london and going crazy there never mind if he brought it to belfast so yeah it's it's not something i'm thinking too much about i mean my my task is focused on on george next week and yeah we'll see what happens after that yeah we just did an exclusive on uc bypass within gary and we asked him who does he think would be the next irishman into the ufc and he said yourself pop when you hear that like did you even take notice of that or you just slowly focus on what you're doing um i didn't hear that but i i mean it's quite self-evident at the end of the day like it's it's pretty clear that i'm gonna be the next guy so yeah it's nice to hear though is is there anyone who you know i know you don't overlook jordan but is there anyone in the ufc who you'd look at and be like i'd love to fight them to be honest i watch every every ufc featherweight fight that's on the cards and i want to fight them all i'm going to fight them all i'll do the same thing i don't engage whereas i'll i'll start from the bottom and i'll clear out the entire division that's that's just how i look at things and yeah everyone's a future opponent regardless of who they are whether it's the champ or whether it's a vet whether it's an up-and-comer i've got my eyes and all them yeah paul from like following your career uh the stuff you do in the background obviously doing the sunday service i'm really enjoying the vlogs uh then like the way you're putting all the stuff you're promoting yourself and take talk on on twitter instagram facebook everything man you're like a new breed of of mma fighter like covering all aspects of the game like did you just sort of go with that with yourself or does your paradigm team tell you what to do but like look from the outside looking in it just looks like you just love creating content and love training yeah absolutely i'm very fortunate i've got a great team in roscoe who's been following me since five years now and actually speaking of that we've got a movie coming out next on saturday here so exactly just under one week from the fight we've got a 45 minute movie coming out from from what we've a lot of what we've got for the last five years me talking as a young kid saying i'm going to be the best i'm going to be a workshop in the next three years i don't care if i've just got surgery in my hand nothing's putting towards it and we've got that right up until getting the world title so watch out for that first of all and yeah i mean i've got got an amazing team i've got actually a couple of friends helped me with the tech talk shout out to johnny and david who are very good on there i'm sure you've seen some of them have been fantastic doing a quarter of a million views and then of course part of them have been helping me in every way they can as well i'm sorry rory as well he does my vlogs great guy and great content so yeah we we've got a good team going here and and we'll continue to build on that throughout my career and yeah we're we're thinking netflix documentaries to be completely honest so yeah we're just we're starting so russ like for for ufc seeing someone like paul who's actually doing all this by himself but well i know he has a team around him but he's doing it and he's promoting himself and he's putting off out there in the shop window i think they think going to see someone like ross look i think first comes first you have to be able to do it inside the cage and i think paul has ticked off that box and you know i mean there's very few people who can go out there and lose all the time and still have uh capture attention paul goes out there and he wins and more times not he actually also finishes fights and i think that's what people look for first people look for people to go in there and get to finish and once they get to finish then they start to throw the interest and when the socials are on point like paul has them at the moment that's when you really start first and that's when your stardom really grows well like i always say it starts in the cage and once you have been in the cage boxed off like paulo's then you can start to grow outside and it looks like he has those people help him out which is great which means he can focus on doing him and then they can help him out on the side so i think that's unbelievable paul fair paid you thank you thank you and thanks to my team yeah we did it for me yeah there's no interim in that in that work great part [Laughter] full circle but yeah paul you basically next to i think maybe borrow one cage conflict but you've nearly had your entire career in cage warriors is this is this the pinnacle of the cherry on the top this fight headlining one of the biggest shows ever in the o2 in the indiegogo yeah i think for sure when i when i get this finished i'll i'll have completed cage warriors to be honest i think i've taken out i've taken out everybody i've taken out all the best guys in the division when i finished george i mean i will be undeniable like that is the mantra for the reason because who else is there to fight i've taken them all out and that's why they want to finish as well i want to beg a big statement and really really solidify this one are you expecting do you see you see obviously in the o2 the next night expecting dana white to be there because i'm sure if there's a big if it's a big win for you to yourself or jordan like he'll be there to hand over a contract i'd say i mean that would be amazing if diana was there that would be incredible for sure i'm sure the ufc is going to be there for sure whether it's sean shelby whether it's hunter i'm sure somebody will be there but i guess it would be cool for dana to come out and say yes you got the contract like they do i think what do you call looking for a fight i mean something like that would be sick but i guess it's out of my control i can only focus on getting that ko next week and as i say i think it will make me undeniable so whether or not he's there in the building the ufc contract should be as i say undeniable yeah everyone's gonna be watching that fight like we'll be there ross as well we'll be there with the sunglasses we'll be there for the after party i better believe let's go yeah yeah let's have let's have a first round of the guinness is our north paw thank you lads thank you no worries paul before we wrap things up is there anyone and you want to say to the people that are going to be tuning in next friday on the 18th of march whether it be at the event or on ufc fight pass is there anyone to say to the people to look out for thank you for the support has been every fight is just times 10 and the support has been unbelievable for this one but yeah i mean i'm actually and i i can't be more grateful for the support it's been incredible and yeah just thanks thanks and tune in and i hope i do everyone proud i will do everyone proud for sure represent where i come from lavi and derry representing belfast who and the country of ireland northern ireland yeah i want to do everyone proud i truly truly do i take great pride and be in from where i'm from and yeah i'll do everyone proud um before we let you go jeff any messages for jordan vucenic no no message paul it's been it's been great following your work like obviously coming back for the injury then like doing what you've been doing now performing on the highest stage possible young cage warriors on youtube pass when the whole ufc is over in london it's uh it's going to be like a full circle basically but it is bro it's going to be a special event that that weekend i think i i truly want to steal the show from the rc if i'm being completely honest i want the errors to mod the place to get that big finish and as i say steal the show don't worry we'll be conducting the orchestras from the stands paul thanks million for jumping on us um best of skill on the night we'll be there can't wait to see it give the best version yourself as you always do and as always [Applause] you guys a couple of times i've seen a couple of clips i think you're doing some interviews with dylan moore and then that i i saw so keep going keep up the good work guys