Shane Dunne | Evolution Fighting Championship

Summary

Experience the roar of home support with Shane Dunne at EFC11, main event winner, as he captures a hometown title in front of family and friends! Shane shows how staying well-rounded and trusting your training pays off. Hear about his balanced camp, mental prep, and more…

Transcript (youtube_captions)

All [Applause] right. Yeah, that's more for you. How how does that first of all, Shane, John? Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you. How does, you know, hearing that feel? Like you got so many people here that are just here for you, you know, like how does that make you feel? It's just close friends and family like Tulmore is a very uh GA heavy place so they get big support for offly in Tmore and no matter what you do in terms of sports people are going to come behind you and support you especially in the bridge house here it's local it's only 5 10 minutes down the road for most of these people so they're going to come and support which it means the world because we're always going up to Dublin Belfast and even Birmingham and England to have a few fights there so it's nice to get a hometown fight for once. Heck yeah. Um so there's a bit of a wait in between uh the your previous fight here like 45 minutes to an hour there. Um like what how does that affect you kind of coming into your fight here? Try your best to kind of keep negative thoughts out. So every day people are complaining oh sake this is happening that's happening. You can two choices. You either suck it up and get on with it or you sit there and complain and let all the negative thoughts get into your head. So, I h I just basically got home with it, kept walking, did my warm up, stayed stayed ready, kept the sweat going, and uh doesn't matter. I'd be here. I'd be waiting in there 12:00 midnight. I don't really care, you know. I know. Schedule a fight. A fight's a fight. I'll wait. I'll go first. I'll go last. I don't really care, you know. Heck yeah. Um Okay. So, like coming into this, like did you prepare specifically or did you prepare anything uh specifically for this fight or did you kind of keep yourself wellrounded? Keep myself wellrounded as I always do and focused on myself. Uh, I think I kind of kept the same game plan for my last couple of fights. You know what I like to do. Nothing really changed. But at the same time, I think it was Mike Tyson that has the famous quote, "Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face." That kind of did happen a small bit. I took one wrap and I was like, "Okay, not the game plan went out the window completely, but few things had to change and I kind of met him for power and met him for um the punches and it worked out in my favor thankfully." Absolutely. Yeah. Um, so what what's a what's a takeaway from tonight? What are you going to work on, I guess? showing up every day in the training, do my two, three times a day to have a chat with the coaches. If they want me to go training tomorrow morning, tomorrow evening, I'll be in there, you know, keep keep going and whatever comes around the corner. I know I've had another title fight in Birmingham in 5 weeks. Excellent. So, I'm getting ready for that. That's a bit of a 57 kilo drop. Birmingham, who's that with? That's fight series that they place in Birmingham. Kind of a new enough promotion. They're kind of getting up now. They're fairly decent like, you know, doing well. So, they are and uh that's my this will be my third fight. So, it's a straw weight 57 kilos of straw weight over there. So strawberry title fight is in five weeks for me. Excellent. Yeah. Okay. So talk talk to me about like the the lead of like this week. Like what have you been doing this week to kind of stay mentally prepared? This week's been fairly fairly light in training. Okay. So not much training at all. Uh doing like maybe an hour in the mornings and bring my dog for walks and stuff like that. My dog's a great excuse to go to get some fresh air outdoors and stuff like that. What kind of dog you have? Uh Rottweiler. Oh five. She's the the baby the house. So yeah. And uh just getting the weight down. Getting the weight down as well. How much did you have to lose? Um about 3 weeks ago I was about 66 66 and 1/2. So about 4 4 and a2 kilo drop which is you know not too bad. I've done stuff like that before. Just slightly shaving it down day by day. Kind of taking your time. Don't do dramatic you know. Yeah. Yeah. And a bit bit discipline with food. I like I love food. I love pizza. I love everything but uh that had to kind of be put to the side for the few weeks. Excellent. So speaking of food and then you had to do a bit of a weight cut like what what what are you what are you going to eat tonight? Eat tonight? Uh there's a few nice places in Tammore. Uh, I might go to maybe a local pizza restaurant or something, get something handy. I I don't know actually to be honest or not. I'm not not that my appetite's lost after fighting, but I might go for one or two drinks maybe my friends and family and stuff like that. Don't stay out mad in case we are training in the morning, you know, that kind of way, but it's important to enjoy these things as well because not every day you get to win a title in your hometown. And uh thankfully I'm that guy tonight, you know. 100%. Yeah, man. Okay. So, like um how long have you been training all together? Uh I started when I was about 14. Uh I left for two years to play soccer. Yeah. And then co I kind of left as well. Uh but probably fulltime flat out come up to three year mark. So just every day no excuses in two three times a day trying. What what do you do to try and stay you know motivated or disciplined? Like what's your what's your secret to showing up every day? Showing up every day. Um number one get a good coach. That's that's there's a lot of great coaches out there, but there's also um as we say cowboy bites and stuff like that that maybe don't want the fighters the fighters best interests aren't at their heart in their heart. Uh if you have a good coach, stick with them, trust with them and uh follow their instructions. You also have to be your own coach. Be watching fights, studying, h doing the official and unofficial practice. Official is showing up training every day. Unofficial is what you're doing, which is nearly more important outside of training. going for walks, reading books, meditation, whatever you want to do. What? Um Oh, yeah. We cannot forget that bad boy on there. Oh, no. You know, I was just about to ask. Should be should be him putting arm to be honest. I was just about to ask where it was. Hey, I seen it over there sitting on the chair. I didn't want to grab it, but hang on. Right on. Uh, looks good on. Appreciate that, man. Thank you. Um what's the rest of the year have in store for you? I want to get as many fights as possible. I said to Kieran there maybe 8 to 10 amateur fights this year. That is this year that's my plan anyways that this is my third and five weeks I go again. Might take two or three weeks of break. Might go on a little holiday or something like that and then straight back at it, bang out a few and uh fingers crossed um hopefully push for the team or something like that late this year, early next year. Whatever uh whatever we can get going, I'll take you know as I said I believe in my coaches and all my teammates. So stick with them and see what they have uh have in store for me. Okay, man. All right. Look, I don't want to keep you too long. I know it's late already. But look, I appreciate you talking to me. Congratulations. Like I said, it looks good on you there. One more thing to say if that's okay. Absolutely. Two years ago, one of my best mates passed away. His name is Tier. Uh when I said my final goodbyes to him, I promised that every fight is dedicated to him and uh I told him that I'm going to win two three belts this year and this is the first one and we're going on the hunt for number two in 5 weeks. Hell yeah, man. It's beautiful. Thank you, man. Awesome. Look, man. Congratulations. I hope to see you again. Hope to talk to you again. Um and until then, uh enjoy yourself. Absolutely, man. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Thank you. [Applause]