THIRTEEN SECONDS WAS all it took for McGregor to capture the UFC featherweight title when he floored Jose Aldo with a devastating shot that made just the right connection with the champion’s chin.
But the precision of that hit wasn’t borne from luck, nor can it be solely attributed to the toil invested in the camp preceding the fight. You need to go all the way back to McGregor’s days spent in the Crumlin boxing club to find the building blocks of his craft.
And Phil Sutcliffe Jnr, the man who introduced McGregor to the club, can still see flashes of those homegrown skills in The Notorious.
“In our club, you’re taught to punch correct. You carry most of your weight behind your punches. It doesn’t matter how hard you throw the punch, if you throw it correctly, it’s gonna hurt.”
“He (McGregor) brings a lot of his boxing ability to the MMA. You’d see a lot of hooks or uppercuts or big overhands in the MMA whereas Conor throws most of his punches straight and correct. Every shot seems to hurt and you have to remember that those are four-inch gloves. And then people don’t realise how much weight they cut and then rehydrate to put the weight back on.”
McGregor was a novice boxer for a time and became a champion in that grade before making the transition into MMA. The purist fighter might appear to have the advantage over McGregor but certain characteristics gave him an edge that goes a long way to explaining what he means when he talks about “freedom of movement.”
“His novice style made him awkward,” Sutcliffe tells The42. ”A novice will hit you from any angle or any position. He’d know what he was doing but you wouldn’t know what he was doing whereas if you were boxing against someone better than you, you kinda get a feel for what they’re doing.”
Sutcliffe and McGregor were teammates on a local soccer team during their youth with Sutcliffe playing on the wing while ‘The Notorious’, unsurprisingly, was a striker. But as the years went by, life intervened to send them onto different paths. McGregor switched to MMA while Sutcliffe pursued professional boxing.
When McGregor’s career was in the formative stages, Sutcliffe went to see his friend fight and watched his career blossom as he climbed the ranks.
“From the time when he was doing all the shows, there was a huge hype behind it. UFC all of a sudden just blew up overnight and Conor was doing really well in it.”
Sutcliffe harbours no sense of resentment towards his childhood friend. They might not see each other as much as they use to but the bond is still strong. Ahead of the rematch with Nate Diaz, McGregor sent Sutcliffe a text inquiring about recommendations for sparring partners and Sutcliffe was happy to oblige. As for any lingering regrets about whether Sutcliffe feels he’s missing out by not getting on the MMA gravy train, he’s pretty much content with his choices.
“If I had started when he started, you never know, but I’m set in my ways about the professional boxing. Professional boxing is very hard to break through, especially if you’re from Ireland. Conor’s making a lot of money for himself but he’s making the bigger people a lot of money and that’s why he’s the main attraction at the minute. He’s got the hype and he seems to grow with every camp a little bit better which is good for your body.”
“In professional boxing he would be big, no doubt but the stardom in England and Ireland takes a lot to get to America whereas the UFC is based in America so he’d have that vision and the crowd. In boxing it would take a lot longer, it’s a long game and you don’t have that long as a professional because it damages your body all the time.”
Sutcliffe, the son of a two-time Olympic boxer, had ambitions of tracing out his father’s steps in his early years. Injuries hampered his progress, however, and took four years to settle. He made the decision to go professional and a landmark opportunity to fight the European number two fighter Anthony Yigit came his way last May.
What could have been the crowning moment of his career was ultimately compromised by miscommunication and poor organisation.
“They kind of messed us about. The fight was on and off for three weeks. I was over (there) training but I wasn’t doing much. They rang us up two weeks out from the fight and asked us if we wanted to take the fight so we naturally said yeah but I had let my weight go back up high.”
“If I had the full eight weeks training and all the preparation and the sparring, I would have bet him easy,” he says with confidence. “I’d like another shot at him. If I get something bigger, I might not even become a European champion, I could have a World title level fight and it could work out that he’ll want to fight me.”
That defeat effectively put his hopes of contesting the European light-welterweight belt on pause but he has recovered since then. Victory over Chris Jenkins in Belfast last weekend puts him in contention to fight Tyrone McKenna for the Celtic Warrior and Irish titles. That bout could potentially take place after Christmas.
Meanwhile, Conor McGregor is back in the Octagon and one victory away from becoming the UFC’s first simultaneous dual-weight champion. As expected, Thursday night’s press conference produced some sparks between the featherweight champion and his opponent Eddie Alvarez. McGregor’s animated choice of attire along with his customary tardiness added another layer of energy to the occasion but Sutcliffe can see past that glamorous persona.
“I still see him in tracksuits,” he laughs. “It’s all a show and he loves that but he still talks to you like you’re normal.”
Theatrics aside, McGregor is a focused competitor and Sutcliffe backs his friend to win the battle against Alvarez.
“I think Conor will be too slick for him. He’s (Alvarez) very robotic and tries to throw big shots but I think if Conor lands early, it’ll be a first-round stoppage. His boxing alone will stop him.”
You can’t beat homegrown tricks.
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