If, in the calming wake of Conor McGregor’s latest and largest step toward fighting superstardom, you thought you were done hearing about Irish MMA fighters for a while, you done thought wrong.
The Irish are just getting warmed up. Have you got a minute? Let me fill you in.
Because as it happens, you don’t even get a full week off. This Saturday afternoon, welterweight Cathal Pendred—he of The Ultimate Fighter 19 and the rescued dolphin and so on—will try to run his official UFC record to 2-0 at Fight Night 53, where he’ll face Gasan Umalatov on the undercard.
The mild-mannered 27-year-old is the ice to McGregor’s fire. (Both train at Dublin’s SBG Ireland gym, fast becoming a mecca for Irish MMA talent.) Pendred’s a large welterweight with a methodical, clinch-heavy style. Whether it strikes your fancy or not, you can’t quarrel with the results he’s achieved; he’s 14-2-1 as a pro and hasn’t dropped an official match since 2010.
A few hours after Pendred takes the cage in Sweden, Paddy Holohan will make his walk all the way across the Atlantic. I know, I know. Who figures a guy named Paddy Holohan is going to be Irish? But it’s true.
The flyweight submissions ace returns to action for the first time since his stirring UFC debut in Dublin, when he choked out Josh Sampo in the opening bout of Fight Night 46.
Saturday, he’ll be in Nova Scotia, Canada, to take on late replacement Chris Kelades and is expected by most to run his pro record to a perfect 11-0.
On de way Canada http://t.co/sjplB63Tq3 pic.twitter.com/Q8fXBVMsst
— Patrick Holohan (@PaddyHolohanMMA) September 30, 2014
And let us not forget the ladies, either. Any week now, Aisling Daly will face down Angela Magana in the strawweight season of TUF, currently airing on Fox Sports 1. She’s 14-5 and has at times been considered a promising prospect, though she went on a three-fight losing streak in 2012 before taking a year off and then winning her return match in December 2013.
Like Holohan, Pendred and McGregor, the 26-year-old Daly is a member of SBG Ireland. But Irish MMA does not begin and end at the doors to that gym.
Assuming that would be to forget about Dublin native Neil Seery, who the UFC announced just this week would face Richie Vaculik in November at UFC Fight Night 55.
At 35 years old, Seery (14-10) is a veteran of the sport and a former champion under the banner of Great Britain’s Cage Warriors promotion. The well-rounded Seery is 1-1 thus far in the UFC, so getting to the right side of the ledger would be big for him against Vaculik.
With MMA exploding in popularity on the Emerald Isle, it’s likely this is just the start of a new influx of Irish fighting talent. As a group, with McGregor at the helm, they could be set to regain Ireland’s combat-sports glory days of yore.
The next six weeks will tell us a lot about whether, when and how such a movement might unfold.
Scott Harris covers MMA and other things for Bleacher Report and other places. For more like this, follow Scott on Twitter.
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