Issue 030

October 2007

Profile by Jim Page. Portrait by Rebecca Lai

The charismatic Paul McVeigh (11-4-0) has been a professional MMA fighter for the last four years. Fighting out of Glasgow, Scotland, the bantamweight fighter (135lbs / 61kgs) has been on a tear of late that has seen him cruise past his challengers on the national and European scene and finish three consecutive opponents in less than one standard round. combined. “My last three opponents, I’ve done what I’ve needed to do, I’ve put them away in a combined time of like four minutes. I just do what I need to do – keep going, picking up fights and experience at the weight class, getting more experience at cutting the weight.”

In his last fight, the jovial Irishman caught a neat first round submission over the experienced Italian, Christian Binda. “We thought it would be a good fight for me, so I beat him up!” Unfortunately for Paul, there was a twist in the tale which came back to sting him. He laughed as he explained; “Basically I picked him up over my head and dropped him and ended up kneebarring him. I got ripped so bad for that because the week before someone went for a kneebar in one of my MMA classes and I cussed the guy out, ‘Man, what are you doing, putting a kneebar on someone in an mma fight, that’s retarded!’ Then he just looked at me right after the fight and I was like ‘aw shit…’”

Paul is one of a few UK fighters who demonstrates a talent that promises a good chance of success in the bigger leagues. Considering his local opposition, Paul explained why he think it’s time to move on to the bigger shows; “I can’t think of anyone else who I haven’t already beaten.

“I’ve been watching some of the WEC stuff and it’s brilliant. I found out they had a bantamweight division and I was like, ‘Right, let’s see what these guys are like… ah shit, they’re really good!” he laughs.  

Aware of his limitations but growing in confidence, the ‘Dinky Ninja’ shared his thoughts on his chances in the organisation; “I reckon I’m competitive. I’m mentally pretty strong, I think that I can beat pretty much anyone I’m faced against. I need to work on things specifically for some of the bantamweights they’ve got in there, they are at a high level, but I think I am as well – I think I’ve proved that in my last couple of fights, I just went through people.” 

Paul spoke about the team that is responsible for his success, the ‘Dinky Ninjas’, a fight team based in and around Glasgow that have developed an array of ‘secret ninja techniques’. “People hear us cornering and they’re like, what the hell was that? What’s a Shoulder of Justice? What’s a Gimp choke? We do a lot of interesting stuff from an MMA perspective.

“We’ve got this ground and pound system, it’s really good – I don’t hit that hard but I think I hit well. I was sparring with one of the guys and he said, ‘That’s the first time I’ve known fear. That was horrible.’ We don’t even spar stupidly hard or anything, it was just that he felt completely helpless when it was happening, and if I can make somebody feel like that in a fight, that’s good.”