Shane Carmody

Summary

Shane Carmody joined me to talk about his upcoming fight

Transcript (youtube_captions)

in Cork. Um he fought at Akuma and before that he fought at Chaos. Um how are you? Thanks for taking this so close to the fight. How are you? How's fight week? >> Oh man, I'm good. Fight week's gone well. I've got very little weight left to cut. It's much better than like like it was on Akuma. Akuma was a rough cut. >> Yeah. So like obviously you learned from Akuma coming into this one. Um was it was it that bad that like how bad was it? like talk to people what weight cut consists of cuz a lot of people don't realize what you go through. It's it's a it's a tough process, isn't it? >> Yeah. Like with the weight cut, it's like you come in and like you need to start dieting roughly 8 weeks before your match if it's the day before weighins. But the fight weeks really hard part where you have to start drowning your body in water before you start cutting it all out. Like the first day I do it for water uh loading is like I do 10 liters on my first day and then I do eight 6 4 2 and then nothing and just sauna. So that for Akuma it was a bit mad. I came in way too heavy. I was I was like 11 12 kilos overweight for Akuma and I had to cut all that fight. That was harsh. >> It doesn't sound fun at all. But this one obviously is better coming into it. Other than obviously the weight cut, you're training right up until like a week before the fight. How hard is it to just switch off? Because obviously you kind of taper down. You've got the wake up, but you don't really do much hard training. What's it like to be able to shut go from going 100% to having to taper off like that? >> I think I think it's very hard to do that because I'm always in that in that mode like two three weeks before the fight where it's go go go. Like my last training session was tonight. I might do some positional tomorrow, but I to be honest, I doubt it cuz then I want to go sparring. But tonight was the last hard session. So now it's just like waiting doing the finishing the water cut out and doing a little bit of sauna and then we're good. But like I can't really train. Like if I'm not training for a fight, it's fine. I can train calm, nice and relaxed. But when I'm training for a fight, it's then like go go go the whole time. >> Yeah, it's intense. And to like go from one to the other, I think would be very hard mentally to do, but obviously you have to do it. But you're fighting in Cork. Talk to us what that's going to like cuz you've been you were in Cork. You were competing in BJJ, I believe, the last time I seen. Would I be correct? >> Yeah, on on EFC. Yeah, I was last time I was on I did two I did both EFCs on grappling, but I didn't do it on MMA. >> And how do you find the crowd and how do you find it? How how you feeling about fighting MMA there as opposed to BJJ cuz you've got the strikes and all involved and the crowd do get a little bit more into it. Um, how you feeling about fighting MMA this weekend in Cork? Sorry. I I'm very excited to fight in court because it's like the f it's like the first time I've ever done like an MMA fight where I actually have a home crowd. Like it's different going up to Northern Ireland. Like when you go up north for a fight, it's like you get there maybe three or four guys like are there in the crowd but everyone's basically there for the other guy and then it makes it kind of difficult because like everyone's being drowned out and you only hear the cheers for the other guy. I think being in Cork this time is going to be exciting. It's going to be different. >> Yeah. And for us, you don't have that long drive as well. It's it's only going to be a short one. What's it like for fighters in Cork? Cuz you do travel a lot and it's probably the furthest away from most places. Is that going to make a huge difference to your preparations on the day because you don't have that drive? I think so because like if you do most uh tournaments or shows, you have to end up getting up at like 4:00 a.m. and then you're doing the traveling the whole time. Even if you're like because like I'm I don't drive up there on the day I fight, but even if you're doing even if you're just sat in the car, it's like mentally draining. So I think the idea of just like for me to get to the uh show to to uh on Saturday, it's only like an hour's drive. So for me it's still like an hour but that's beats six hours up to up to the north, you know. So for me it's nice and relaxed. I can literally just sit there, wait, go in there. It's not like I have to wake up 4:00 a.m. and go. I can wake up just for weigh-ins, do my weigh-ins, go back, wait it out, maybe take a nap, and then we're good to go. >> Yeah, 6 hours is is a long long time. But yeah, with this weekend you've got with your opponent, do you study them much? What way does that work? Or do you not look at them? Do you let the coach look at them or or how do you prepare for a fighter? Both me and my coach, we both we both look at them. I like to look at it in a different way. I like to look at what he does good and I like to utilize that against them. So if for example like my last fight on Akuma, I noticed that Shay was very good on the body lock and he was taking a lot of guys down off the body lock. So I was going to try and force that scenario as I did in the fight and I used it to set up the knee bar finish. So I like to look for their best area and I like to work ways to use that against them. >> That's a that's a very brave move and obviously it paid off. Um, is this something that you've always been cuz obviously BJJ is very technical and like that. Would you study like that for uh BJJ competition or just MMA? >> I I do that. I do it more so in BJJ because like I understand it to a higher level than I understand MMA. So for me, it's easier to understand people's tendencies and why they do what they do. So, it's easier for me to build a game plan around someone in jiu-jitsu than it would be to build a game plan around someone in MMA. >> Yeah, because obviously you've got the grappling and submissions. You don't have the other elements of striking and stuff like that. So, you can really zone in, but like this is going to be your third fight. Talk to us about >> where when you started and why you started. So, how I first started uh my first fight in MMA, like I wasn't training MMA. I was just offered a fight on the on a show on Chaos and I was like, "Yeah, you know what? Sure. I'll take it. We'll see how this goes." And then that's how my first fight happened. And I had a break there for about two years, but that was down to a bit of stupidity. I was at at street party. I did I did a back flip off the curb. I slipped as I did the back flip and I broke my neck. So that led me to be out there for two years and then I I started training with MMA Cork in last August and then it's been go there since and then it was just recently we started looking for a fight probably March and then we found one on the Kuma show and then I was in ready to go. >> Well, you just kind of breezed past the part where you slipped and broke your neck. Um, wow. That's like I don't even have like how did like did you realize at the time straight away it was broken or >> no because like it was it was like a festival you know I was kind of drinking a bit so I didn't notice at time I just knew it hurt a lot and then it was like a week later I was like oh this isn't getting any better. It sucks like my arm I could I couldn't close it. I couldn't um move my right arm properly and I was like this this sucks. So then I got the MRI and then it was like I crushed my C4, my C5 and I and I uh popped out my C my C6 vertebrae in my neck. >> Wow. >> And let's >> and >> Oh, sorry. Go ahead. >> And then it was like basically okay the the doctor told me, okay, you either need to take the surgery, but if you take the surgery, you can't fight again, or basically you just need to suffer on. And I was like, all right, thank you. Bye. >> So basically no surgery, just kind of let it heal naturally and then you were able to fight again. >> Was it like having that conversation that or was fighting always going to be the case or was it like which one am I going to choose here? >> For me it was never a case of which one I was going to choose. Like I thought okay if I got the surgery you know it would put me out for a little bit but then I'd be able to come back and everything would be normal. Right? this was my idea going into the talk, right? But then when they told me that, I was like, "Okay, so I'm not getting surgery." >> Wow. That's that's a hard decision or not, but obviously you made it very quickly with with BJJ like is like you said you were out for two years. Do you not get worried when you're in certain positions with your neck or or what's the kind of health of it now? Is it like does it feel like it always did before it happened? >> Now like it's not so much my neck that's the problem. It's now so much my arm. Like I don't have the same squeeze that I used to. But at the start it was very much worrying about it. Like at the start like I did my first Europeans. It was like a couple months afterwards. Did my first Europeans back and like the panic going into the fights. It was high level. It was at a much higher level. Now at this stage I'm just like it's calm. I know it will hold up. >> Wow. That's you're very very brave cuz like that a lot of people would have been scared and walked away but you seen it through which shows a lot of resilience uh to it but um your first like amateur fight when you did compete because like you said you hadn't competed before you just got off for the fight. What was like the nerves going into it like cuz you weren't expecting you weren't looking for a fight it just kind of happened. What was that like kind of leading into it then? Were you just like how has this happened and what were your emotions? the way I was like I was like, "Okay, it's a fight. I've done like over at the time I've done like over 200 in jiu-jitsu. So, I was like, a fight's a fight. So, I'm going to go in there and I'm my goal is to take him down and then try and finish him." But then, you know, it turns out that the cardio that you need is completely different for MMA and jiu-jitsu. And the third round was bad. It was a rough rough third round. I had literally zero zero st I had no cardio by the end of the third round. Hands are down and I was just praying I could get that taked down. is so obviously you need a better cardio because I would have thought jiu-jitsu was very like it would have taken your energy as well but obviously there's a different factors kicks like trying to defend and stuff like that but then once that was over obviously you had the accident how like and when you came back for that first uh the first fight back what was that like after the injury coming back to MMA >> see the first I probably wouldn't have ever come back to MMA if it wasn't for my friend, his name is Shane Kalahan, and he he happened to take me up to MMA Cork, and he was like, "Oh, come on. We'll only do jiu-jitsu. We'll only do jiu-jitsu." And I was like, "Yeah, okay." And then we got there, and he just threw the gloves at me, and he was like, "No, you can't be the only on the mat not fighting." And I was like, "A." And that's basically I did one I I did the one session back there and I was like, "You know what? I can do this and I will do it again." >> Wow. And then once you made that decision, was your goal then to try and get a fight match or was it just to get back in training in MMA? And and what it like going into training in MMA Cork? The guy the guys in MMA Cork, they were always like they're always very nice. Then it's always is it was nice light sparring, you know? It wasn't like they were going in there with something to prove trying to kill you. They were always very nice, very relaxed during the sparring. And when I first came in, I was I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted to go and back and compete because I didn't know if it was a case of okay, will this hold up in proper training? Then after I was training there, training there about 6 months, I was like, you know what, it's holding up. It's not failing me. I can do it again. >> Yeah. No. And then Yeah. So once you made that decision, were you actively looking for a fight or were you just going to let it happen when kind of Aaron or Jack and someone said, "I think you're ready for a fight." Or once you decided you did want to compete, did you seek to fight? >> Yeah, once I decided did want to compete, I did seek to fight. I tried to get on the EFC show. I think it was in June. Uh but unfortunately, we couldn't get a match. So, I took the grappling match from that and then because I was just looking to get a match at just at the show, just at show. It didn't matter to me at the time if it was MMA or jiu-jitsu. It's just the experience in the cage to get more familiar with it, you know, >> and what's it like grappling in a cage? Cuz obviously it's usually open space. Did you find it better for your style or worse for your style? What's the advantages and disadvantages for people that if they've never grappled in a cage? I mean, generally speaking, the advantages come if you're the worst grappler because you can stack someone against the cage and then they're not able to grapple as effectively. Like the big cons for it is if you're attacking if someone's attacking your legs and you roll into the cage, you have no way of escaping. you're just kind of stuck there and you either will like manage to kick out, slip out or like it is going to glue you to the um it's going to glue you to the cage and you're not getting out. Yeah. No, I I've watched a couple. They look very interesting. But um I'm going to let you go. I want to thank you very much for your time. Is there anything you want to say before you go or anyone you want to shout out? Best of skill this weekend. I hope to be there. I'm not sure if I will, but if you want to shout out out anyone, now is your time. Yeah, I just want to say thank you to MMA Cork and thank you to Studio Glare and my gyms. Thank you for having this interview with me and let's hope let's hope I get the finish cuz I don't want to go three rounds and and have a decision. I want to have the finish. >> Yeah. No, 100%. Hopefully the finish will come. Hopefully I will be there. Uh thank you very much for your time and I will see maybe see you Saturday, maybe not. But best of skill. >> Thank you very much.