paul mcveigh mixed martial arts fighter interview

Bio - Droc got me started. I entered an mma competition not knowing what I was doing, I was a trad jits guy with no real skills apart from being able to armbar from the guard, which I did a couple of times that day I saw Droc's SFUK hoodie and talked to him for a while he convinced me to join the Forum . From there I developed an interest in the sport and have met the people who have made me the semi descent fighter I am now.

I used to be pretty lazy with regards to training, if i could get away with doing less I would. Fighting was a way of motivating myself to train harder, because if i didnt i would get bashed. The thought of fighting Chin, Leigh, Neil McLeod, Dave Mc or Ian Butlin is a good way of making you train more intensively.

Current training program - . For my last few fights I've been training 3 times a day as I haven't had much uni stuff to do. I do hill sprints twice a weekand do 15 reps 1 for every minute of the fight. as well as that I do one session of takus interval training programme and another sprint programme around a football pitch.

Sometimes I jog to the gym we train at which adds a 45min run a couple of times a week as well. I go to the uni circuit training class 3 times a week I grapple and work my clinch every day for about 1-2hrs.

During the week I also do thai maybe 3 times, mainly padwork and sparring, and ground and pound 4 times a week hitting people and bags for about an hour.

To be honest i have been overtraining for my last two scheduled fights. Mainly because I was disgusted with my cardio against Neil McLeod. last week I went from being the fittest I've ever been in my life to having the lung capacity of a 3 year old chain smoker and had to pull out of CWN. Im taking time off for a while as I feel a little burnt out and havent been spending enough time with my girlfriend. That and uni are riding my ass about my project that I havent been doing.

SFUK : First of all, I want to say that you (with perhaps, Dave Roche - someone else Droc had been on about forever) have been the most impressive new fighters I've seen. It's like you arrived on the scene 'fully formed' if you know what I mean, and had the quality to mix it at the top level here in the UK. You have, quite rightly got a reputation of not being scared to fight anyone by forgoing the usual start-at-the-bottom-work-up career path of a fighter, and jumping right in a the deep end. What's your thinking behind that then?

Paul McVeigh : I did have a pretty extensive amateur career back in Ireland fighting in shows put on by guys like Davy Patterson and Paddy Mooney. Those sorts of events are great when you are starting ourt as you can easily get 3 or 4 fights in one day. I got a lot of experience quickly that way.

I watched a lot of tapes of the uk shows and I reckoned i could hang with most of the guys competing, so why wait to make the transition from semi pro to pro. Dougie (Truman) has helped me a lot with my motivation, there were times when I didn't think I was ready to fight Leigh Remedios or Neil McLeod. He gave me the "he's only human speech" (although with Neil I'm not actually convinced of that I reckon hes some sort of cyborg killing machine from hell) and it helped me out. Fighting guys with big names doesnt bother me now as I've sorta learnt that nearly everyone (including myself) is overrated if you pay attention to net talk to much.

SFUK :Rewinding a bit - were you in the same Trad JJ club as Droc then?

Paul McVeigh :Nah he was from Dirty Dub and i was from up North

SFUK : Who's been you toughest opponent so far and why?

Paul McVeigh : Neil McLeod easily, mainly because I had shit cardio for that fight and he's such an athlete, hes really fit and powerful and he weighed in lighter than me, thats why I reckon hes a cyborg.

All the guys I grapple with had exams during the time i was training for that fight, so all I could do was thaiboxing. I had really good stand up cardio, but no grappling cardio. On the day someone told me he was an ex pro boxer so I thought "feck standing up with that guy". It turned into a grappling match and I got tired and sloppy and didn't preform very well. I was getting my ass kicked in that fight apart from the flying triangle at the start and maybe the last round. But I took away the positives from that fight I managed to catch the best guy in my weight class despite being knackered after the first round.

I think I owe it to Neil and myself to do that one again.

SFUK :You've must have had a rapid and steep learning curve with each fight, how did each fight effect your training?

Paul McVeigh : Each fight is like a revelation, theres always that D'oh moment when you realise you should have been working on something else. In my first fight i had no ground and pound or top game, actually all I really had was an ok guard and leg locks and got smashed by Ash Grimshaw. From that one I learnt I needed to work on my top game and stop being so submission mad and actually try and control posistion bit.

I think I showed those skills in my next fight against Chin (Weerasinghe) , but he showed me that my stand up was pish and i needed to work on that.

Fighting Leigh taught me that I could compete with an athlete of his level and to stay in my own fecking weight class.

Didn't show any stand up against McLeod as i thought my best bet was grappling, that fight showed me that being able to do 6 5min rds on thai pads doesnt mean your fit to do MMA and that I needed to work on my ground and pound.

Dave Mc was a good fight for me as I got to work all the stuff I'd been training over the past year and even landed a punch standing which is a novelty for me. He was one of the guys I'd watch when I was only training part time. He was the first guy I was a fan of in the UKMMA scene. It was an honour to fight him.

SFUK :How would you describe yourself as a fighter?

Paul McVeigh :Dunno, my strongest area is my ground game and it all comes from BJJ, but i think the fact that I have better than average clinch and takedown skills is one of the reasons I'm doing ok at the minute. A lot of guys in the UK seem to neglect clinch work which I reckon is the most important range in fighting as thats were you decide where the fight takes place. Id also like to think im exciting as ive had a few good fights, but thats also due to getting the chance to fight aggressive guys like neil mc leod and chin.

SFUK :How much training to do get with JK? So who does your submissions training when you're not in Ireland?

Paul McVeigh :I bring JK over to Glasgow every 3 months and he gives me stuff to work on and corrects my mistakes. I also try and get over to his gym every time im in Ireland. Its a great atmosphere for training theres no ego's everyones just bashing each other and hes got some scary good guys over there and not just grapplers. Jk is the best coach I've ever had the chance to train with.

In Glasgow we have sum really good grappler but they don't fight much. The Dinky Ninjas are the illest if i can stop someone like John Nicolson or Daddy Sweg from bashing me I know I've got a good chance against anyone my weight. Its a really tough club I used to not like getting hit before training there now I kinda like it.

Doug Macmaster and James Thaison Doolan are two of the best kept secrets up here and I probably train with them the most. James has savagely assulted a few guys now in MMA and will be a big name in the future. Doug on the other hand is a rampaging homosexual who despite having gnarly groundwork and being a unis champion boxer doesnt want to fight. I belive this would be due to him not being able to control himself around men in hot pants.

I get great guys like Ross and the Butlins staying up here from time to time who have taught me a lot. Ross taught me that it is possible to eat 98 clemintines in a 12hr period.

SFUK : Do you do that Crazy Monkey stuff that JK now teaches? If so, what the hell is it? LOL

Paul McVeigh : Nope know idea what it is ask me in Two weeks thats when Kav is coming over next, if you would like to attend this course on the 22nd and 23rd of nov let me know on maccavelli39@hotmail.com.

SFUK : LOL, Good plug. What's the MMA scene like in Scotland now?

Paul McVeigh :Pretty good, I get e mails from people all the time asking about training. There's a few shows every year run by Duncan James that are very successful. They're tonnes of fun cause the Ninja competition team usually bashes everyone. Thaison managed to knock his opponent out twice in the last show while spraying the judges with blood.

SFUK :Is it true that Widge Milward wants to fight you after he's fought Marios Demetriades? ;+)

Paul McVeigh : Widge has been talking about fighting me forever, I know hes got a bunch of injurys but hopefully we can get something sorted. Preferably before he fights Marios as he wouldn't be surviving that one. I'm heading down to Ian Butlin's gym soon so maybe we can have a spar then and when I give him a taste of Mac Jitsu maybe then he won't shout at me everytime I win a fight :)

Hes a cool guy and i hope he shows his potential, I reckon he's gonna do John Waite in style.

SFUK :You're already in the top handful of fighters in your weight category in the UK - do you have any ambitions beyond the domestic scene?

Paul McVeigh :Yeah I've always said I wanted to do Shooto in japan, I really like the culture there. I think I'm too small to fight in big US shows like UFC and KOTC, But in Shooto I could be a weightcutter which would be a novelty. I think its an achievable goal but I guess time will tell.

SFUK :You've mentioned that you were a fan of Dave McLaughlin - are you a fan of any other UK fighters? Which fighters have had the most influence on you?

Paul McVeigh :There are tonnes of fighters in the uk who are great to watch. I like watching different fighters to see different things.. For striking Adrain Degorski, Sol Gilbert and the Butlins are fun to watch, in clinch guys like Ross, Leigh, Tengiz and that Abdul guy are very impressive. On the mat ive been really impressed by JK, Jean Silva, Dave Elliot. Jenkins and Cooper are great fighters too with silly amounts of heart, and any show that has them fighting will benefit from it.

SFUK :Give us McVeigh's tips for the top. Who do you think will dominate UK MMA in 2004?

Paul McVeigh :The Butlins- we already know about there great standup skills (well we know about Andy and Dave's), but from there boxing backgrounds they are experts in dieting and weight cutting this is a huge part of the game. Theyre getting their BJJ honed by Roberto and they've just got a wrestler guy teaching at the new gym so they pretty much have everything covered.

Dave Roche - amazing fighter easily the best ground and pound I've seen close up, complete fighter and a great guy.

James Doolan and Sean Wight- both monster stand up fighters with great ground skills, both are around my weight and i think id shite myself if someone told me i had to fight them.

Abdul Mohammad - when he gets some submissions or effective ground and pound hes gonna be terrifying.

Theres tonnes of other guys out there that have really impressed me but thats all I can think off at the minute. I can see who are good at weight cutting, wrestling and ground and pound being the future of UKMMA because very few people are doing any of these.

SFUK :That's it. Thanks Paul. Is there anything else you'd like to leave SFUKers with?

Paul McVeigh :Spending 3 hrs a day on internet forums messes you up, go train youll be happier.

SFUK :You mean only only spend 3 hours a day on forums? LOL. Thanks again for the interview and good luck for the future.

SFUK is always looking for interviews, so if you'd like to write an interview, or would like to be interviewed, or contribute in any way to the site's content, please let us know.

details

please email us for permission to use any info or graphics on this site