9

I was in Iceland helping Gunnar Nelson to prepare for his second UFC bout when I received a couple of interesting phone calls.

It was 3 February 2013. Gunni was scheduled to face Jorge Santiago in London a fortnight later, so we were in the final stages of his training camp.

The first call that morning was from the gym back in Dublin, informing me that Conor McGregor hadn’t shown up to coach his striking class the night before. That didn’t come as a huge surprise to me.

On the surface, everything was going great for Conor. He held two Cage Warriors belts. The video of his KO of Buchinger had gone viral and everybody seemed to want a piece of him. Some of the biggest names in the sport, including UFC commentator Joe Rogan, had reached out to Conor via social media on New Year’s Day to let him know how impressed they were.

‘I just caught your fight, Conor,’ Rogan tweeted. ‘Congratulations, you looked sensational! Hope to see you in the UFC someday. Best of luck!’

We were inundated with interview requests from MMA media. Even the mainstream press in Ireland, which hadn’t yet really embraced MMA, were finally beginning to show some interest in the guy from Dublin who was being hailed as a potential UFC star of the future.

Conor was eager for his chance to prove himself in the UFC. It was the only place where his career as a full-time fighter could be financially viable. His teammate Gunni Nelson was preparing for another outing on the biggest stage in the world, having earned $16,000 for his UFC debut a few months earlier – over six times what Conor had been paid for his last fight. All the while, Conor was broke, and relying on Dee, his girlfriend, to get him from A to B in her old Peugeot, which needed to be push-started. As the weeks passed by without a call from the UFC, Conor was losing hope. Dismayed and disillusioned, he started to wonder if there was any point in going on. It didn’t help that his coach was in Iceland. Conor was beginning to drift.

The second call I received that day put paid to any thoughts Conor might be having of throwing in the towel. I was eating dinner at a restaurant in Reykjavik when my phone rang. It was Halli Nelson, Gunni’s father. While I was helping his son prepare for his next UFC fight, Halli was helping me with management duties related to Conor. Double-jobbing as Conor’s coach and manager was becoming increasingly difficult, now that Conor was in such demand.

‘I’ve been speaking to Sean Shelby about Conor,’ Halli said.

I liked the sound of that. Sean Shelby was the UFC matchmaker. ‘They’re offering him a place on their card in Sweden on 6 April. It’s for $8,000 plus an additional $8,000 to win. Are you happy to accept that?’

‘Hang on, Halli,’ I said. ‘Are you telling me the UFC are offering Conor a fight?’

‘Yes. So, are you interested?’

‘Of course we’re interested! It’s the UFC. We’re in, no doubt about it. It doesn’t matter how much money they’re offering.’

I was so keen to tell Conor the news that I hung up on Halli without asking for any other details, such as who the opponent was going to be. I dashed out of the restaurant, into the snow, and dialled Conor’s number.

No answer. I tried again. And again. And again. It then dawned on me that Conor was probably avoiding me. He would have been expecting a bollocking for not showing up to coach his class. But I kept calling and finally Conor answered.

‘Look, John, I’m sorry I didn’t take the class last night but –’

‘Conor, just shut up and listen! How would you like to fight for the UFC in April?’

‘Are you serious? Fucking hell, let’s do it!’

The timing of Conor’s UFC call-up couldn’t have been any better. If he had drifted any longer, he might have ended up passing the point of no return. Instead, Conor immediately began the preparations for his UFC debut.

SBG Ireland received a couple of significant boosts during his training camp. Gunni Nelson picked up another UFC win before Cathal Pendred dethroned Gael Grimaud to become the Cage Warriors welterweight champion. In the space of nine months, SBG had won all four Cage Warriors titles from featherweight to middleweight.

It was only when news of Conor’s UFC contract broke in the media that I learned his opponent would be Marcus Brimage. He was an American guy who had already gone 3–0 in the UFC, so on paper it was a tough task for Conor. But fights aren’t contested on paper. I didn’t know anything about Brimage and I didn’t look into him in any great detail either. What I did know was that when Conor faced him in the octagon, the world was going to be blown away. With his range of skills, Conor was going to bring something completely different to the table. Even though Conor hadn’t yet made his UFC debut, I already felt that there was nobody there capable of troubling him outside of the top five guys. And since this guy was still on the preliminary card in his fourth UFC fight, I had no concerns about him at all. In my view, most of the guys on UFC prelims were a level below the likes of Ivan Buchinger and Dave Hill anyway, so this wasn’t a step up for Conor, despite how it was being billed by fans and the media. All I had ever wanted was for him to get one shot on this stage to show the world what he was capable of. Now that the opportunity had finally arrived, there was almost a sense of relief. We felt we had already completed the toughest part of the journey – getting to the UFC.

Following Conor’s Cage Warriors exploits, both in the cage and in interviews, there was a lot of excitement among the MMA community as the fight approached. It peaked during an interview with well-known reporter Ariel Helwani live on his show, The MMA Hour. Conor had never been exposed to such a large audience, particularly in North America, so it was going to be intriguing to see how it all unfolded. His charisma and sense of humour had already made him popular with fans in Ireland and the UK, but would that also translate across the Atlantic?

I watched the interview and what I saw was Conor just being Conor – no act, no gimmick, what you see is what you get – so I wasn’t anticipating the incredible reaction that followed. The internet exploded. I really didn’t expect people to be so captivated by him. They thought he was hilarious and were intrigued by his confidence. I already knew he had the ability to fight his way to the top, but as I observed how people were so taken by his personality, I thought: This isn’t going to do any harm at all. From there, the media couldn’t get enough of him.

Conor was also keen to point out that this wasn’t just about him: ‘When I get to the UFC, I’m going to kick the door down for my teammates to follow. We’re going to take over.’

Conor may have been the one garnering all the attention, but helping his friends in the gym to realize their dreams was just as important to him as his own success.

Conor’s UFC debut was set to take place on Saturday, 6 April 2013, at the 16,000-capacity Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm. Conor and I left Dublin on the Tuesday morning before the fight. His clash with Marcus Brimage was buried deep down in the prelims of the thirteen-bout fight card, but it was being billed as ‘The People’s Main Event’. I met Conor at his family home in Lucan, where I had organized a little surprise for him. We had spent most of his training camp in Iceland – a place where Conor and other SBG fighters could prepare away from the distractions of family and friends – and in the evenings we watched episodes of the Irish crime drama series Love/Hate. Before we headed for the airport that morning, I managed to arrange for Peter Coonan, who plays the role of Franno in the show, to pay Conor a visit. Peter came in to wish Conor all the best. Conor obviously wasn’t expecting it, and it gave him a nice little boost before we left.

We were actually cutting it tight if we wanted to make the flight – Conor was running behind schedule, as usual – so we quickly hopped into Dee’s Peugeot and she eventually managed to get it started. As we were pulling away from the house, Conor asked Dee to stop at the post office in Lucan.

‘I need to go in and collect my dole,’ he said. Conor was getting €188 per week in unemployment benefit.

‘Conor, I can loan you the money,’ I said. ‘We haven’t got time.’

But Conor insisted on stopping. For weeks leading up to the fight, he had been all over Irish TV, radio, websites and newspapers, as they reported on the much-hyped young Dubliner who was aiming to become the first Irishman to win in the UFC. Yet here he was, queuing up in his local post office en route to his UFC debut, waiting to collect the €188 that he couldn’t afford to be without. While I was panicking in the car, certain that we were going to miss the flight, the other people in the queue were asking Conor for photos and autographs. Thankfully, we just made it to the airport on time.

When we arrived in Stockholm I was surprised to bump into a familiar face. Back in 2003, just after Matt Thornton welcomed me into the Straight Blast Gym family, I had to travel to Oregon in order to attain my SBG instructor’s certificate. Part of that process involved a fight in the gym, in which my opponent was a guy called Chris Connelly. We had a good scrap but I never saw Chris again … until I was passing through the lobby of the hotel in Stockholm. I knew Chris had previously coached Marcus Brimage in Alabama, but Brimage had since moved to American Top Team in Florida, so it never occurred to me that Chris might be in his corner for the fight. It was good to see him after such a long time. Given that we were about to be on opposite sides once again, we had a quick chat and agreed to put friendship aside until after the fight, when we’d have a proper catch-up over a beer. We left it at that, but there were still some awkward moments around the hotel as the week went on. That’s the nature of MMA: while the sport has grown significantly in recent years, it’s still quite a small community. I’ve become well accustomed to ensuring that competitive rivalries don’t get in the way of friendships.

When I woke up on Wednesday morning, Conor told me he was in a lot of pain from a wisdom tooth. It had kept him awake for most of the night. The combination of that and the tough weight-cut down to 145lb meant that he wasn’t exactly feeling on top of the world. All the while, he was putting on a brave face as he dealt with his various media commitments. By late afternoon the pain in his tooth was really bothering him, and I was concerned that it was only going to deteriorate further if we ignored it. An injury is something a fighter can often push on through, but a toothache is the sort of pain that can drive you crazy. We went off in search of a dentist.

The guy we found assured us that it was nothing to worry about. There was a bit of an infection in the tooth, so he’d remove it. Conor would be back to normal in seven days.

Seven days? With Conor’s fight now just seventy-two hours away, that wasn’t going to work for us. We explained the situation to the dentist, who suggested cleaning the tooth in order to reduce the infection. It wasn’t going to be a long-term solution, but it managed to provide enough relief for Conor to get through the next few days.

It’s at the weigh-ins when Conor really begins to go into animal mode. In Conor’s mind, at this stage, he’s about to compete against somebody for his next meal. Add in the fact that he’s already feeling abrasive from the weight-cut and it usually makes for a tense staredown. More often than not, someone needs to step in to prevent things from boiling over. Overseeing his first weigh-ins since joining the organization, UFC executive Garry Cook was thrown in at the deep end with this one. Conor towered above Brimage and they butted heads before being separated. The crowd loved it. Backstage afterwards, Brimage and Chris Connelly smiled in our direction as they remarked that the incident would serve to ‘hype the fight up’. But Conor wasn’t playing games.

‘Get the fuck away from me,’ he said. ‘I’m going to destroy you.’

Reinforcements arrived from SBG for fight night, as Owen Roddy and Artem Lobov flew over from Dublin to join me in Conor’s corner. With the exception of some of Conor’s family and friends, I wasn’t expecting there to be many Irish supporters in the crowd. But when we walked out, Conor was greeted by a massive roar. I looked around the arena and there was green everywhere. To see that so many people had gone to such effort and expense to be there for Conor’s UFC debut was quite overwhelming.

Although there had been a significant increase in mainstream media coverage of Conor in Ireland, we hadn’t attracted any sponsors for the fight. Most fighters in the UFC walk out for their fights with sponsored hats, T-shirts and shorts, as well as a banner displaying all the brands they’re endorsing. Conor made that first walk with just his own shorts and the Irish tricolour. But struggling to find sponsorship would very soon be a thing of the past.

Marcus Brimage was game for the battle and came forward without fear. But as the occupants of the UFC’s featherweight division were about to discover, trading punches with Conor McGregor is a strategy that will never end well. Just over a minute after the contest began, Conor was celebrating his first win in the UFC while Brimage was on the canvas, wondering what had just happened.

In his post-fight interview in the octagon with UFC commentator Kenny Florian, Conor had the audience eating out of his hand. Given the manner in which he put Brimage away, I was confident that Conor would be in with a good shout of being awarded the ‘Knockout of the Night’ bonus worth $60,000 – a significant financial boost considering that his pay for the fight was $16,000. As the interview was drawing to a close, I mouthed to Conor: ‘Ask for the money.’ UFC president Dana White was in attendance, and I thought he might be persuaded by a cheeky young Irish newcomer asking for the bonus. Conor grabbed the microphone and shouted: ‘Dana: 60 Gs, baby!’

Conor had put on a beautiful display of striking and evasive footwork. People hadn’t seen striking like it before. Most guys in the UFC come from a grappling background and then they add the striking to that, so it’s very basic and rough around the edges. But with his wide variety of crisp shots, his angles and his movement, Conor was already light years ahead. I knew he only needed one chance to show that, and he had grabbed it with both hands.

When we got back to the changing room after the fight I looked at my phone and was blown away by the reaction to the result. A small number of people were already talking about Conor as a potential opponent for UFC featherweight champion José Aldo. The majority of fans laughed at that thought. It was far too soon to be even mentioning Conor in the same sentence as Aldo, they said. But nobody on the SBG team was laughing. Conor was heading for the summit, and if Aldo was the man occupying top spot, then that’s who we were aiming for.

Conor was brought straight into a private room at the arena to meet Dana White, who asked him for a photo. Dana couldn’t contain his excitement at having a new star in the UFC. He recognized that Conor was something special. Irish fans had been tormenting Dana for a long time on social media about bringing Conor to the UFC. Now he understood why.

‘Welcome to the UFC!’ Dana laughed. ‘There’s been a lot of hype. I guess the hype is real … People are going crazy on Twitter, man. People are going fucking crazy. Ireland’s going nuts! We’re pumped!’

In the post-event press conference, Dana couldn’t praise Conor highly enough: ‘I’m blown away. First of all, it’s his first fight ever in the UFC. He walked out tonight and got into the octagon like it was his hundredth fight in the UFC. From the minute the bell started, he was nice and relaxed … and even after he gets the knockout, it’s like he’s been here before and done it a hundred times. The kid is totally relaxed. He’s a beast. I’m impressed.’

Conor’s win really felt like the conclusion of an emotional rollercoaster ride. Five years earlier I’d been sitting beside him on his bed in his parents’ house as he was in tears due to his life’s apparent lack of direction. Yet here he was now, the talk of the UFC, with the president of the organization falling at his feet. It was hard to take it all in, so I had to escape and find a quiet room where I could have a few minutes to myself. I lay down on the floor and let the wave of emotion sweep over me. I just needed a chance to allow it all to sink in. Taking that little bit of time to myself has become a ritual that I follow after every big fight.

‘To be honest, I don’t know what’s going on here,’ Conor said later. ‘I’m just after hearing sixty thousand dollars and I’m thinking of what I’m going to spend it on. I’m going to buy myself a car, anyway, and maybe some nice custom-made suits.’

On the way to the fight in Sweden, Conor had collected the dole. On the flight home, there was a cheque for $76,000 in his pocket. I sat back, closed my eyes and smiled. Now that the public had been introduced to Conor McGregor, things were never going to be the same again.