Issue 014

June 2006

CageWarriors Bantamweight champion and jiu-jitsu wizard Paul McVeigh is known as one of the biggest characters on the UK MMA scene. An absolute live wire, full of good humour away from the cage, you'll do well to find a picture of Paul looking vaguely serious. In competition however, Paul's opponents quickly find that he is no joke, with his last five wins coming inside the distance. Recently sidelined with a fractured elbow, Fighters Only’s Jim Page spoke to him as he recovered at home. Dismissing his recent elbow injury as a temporary set back, Paul took the time to tell us about his ambitions, Scotland's infamous Ninja invasions and the gym where he 'makes fat people look good naked'.

Paul’s interest in MMA goes back to the 1990’s, and began with the inspirational performance of a fighter in the famous Rickson Gracie documentary Choke. 'It was Yuki Nakai, you know, that Japanese dude? He's a really small guy and, even though the documentary wasn't about him, it's him trashing that 300lb wrestler… just thought that was well cool. And you know, the whole Rickson thing, so I was really into Yuki Nakai for a while and that kinda led to a load of other stuff, like the Japanese fighters and their shows as well. So it was that DVD 'Choke' that got me into it, I was doing Japanese jiu-jitsu at the time.'

He was quick to dismiss any idea that his interest in fighting extended to the street, 'I've never really had anything that I could classify as a street fight, I've had minor scuffles with people… but fighting some half-drunk mare is not the same as fighting a guy who has been training five days a week, specifically to cave your head in.'

Paul is no stranger to such specific training himself, as a representative of Scotland's well-regarded Dinky Ninja fight team. 'It's pretty much the most talented guys in Scotland, with regards to jiu-jitsu, wrestling and Thai boxing. It just came together… we've got a lot of James's guys, 'Thaison' James Doolan [team mate of Paul and noted MMA fighter and Thai-boxer]. His guys are all amazing Thai boxers. I have the grappling and they bring the striking. It's a good trade off, we work together, we're kind of spread out, but we've got a lot of good people working with us, like pro boxers who have really been helping us, particularly in my last few fights where I've actually thrown a punch, as opposed to just trying to run in and dry-hump the guy's leg!’ he laughs. 

Renowned for their good humour, Paul pointed out that it's not all laughs at training, ‘It’s tough man, there's a lot of good humour, but a lot of work gets done. The guys are pretty hardcore, like John Nicholson, who's pretty much the most insane guy I've ever met; he'll surpass everyone with what he's doing. If we decide to do six five-minute rounds of MMA sparring, like hard, he'll always do seven. There are a lot of guys like that on the team. It's a lot of fun, a lot of messing about, a lot of camaraderie, but they're always tough sessions, particularly if there are fights coming up.'

Although business comes first, the Ninjas still find time to occasionally share their own brand of chaos with some unsuspecting traditional martial artists. Paul had a recent example of these infamous visits, ‘There was a really big ‘McDojo’, you know 'Martial arts for the people', steal your money if you don't have the proper T-shirt. They'll make you buy a new one if you have a faded T-shirt- there's a sign on the door in this place, it says 'If you have a faded T-shirt you are showing disrespect to your teacher and you'll be asked to purchase a new one'! So we went up there, Gary Christie, one of our heavyweights and me, we went to their grappling class.

For the first half an hour they were just doing technique and stuff, so we were doing everything wrong, pretending we were crap, on the off chance that we could get the instructor to come over and wrestle him a bit! We kind of swept through the class, Gary was helicopter-armbarring everybody! The guy called off the class 15 minutes early, those guys pretty much have an anti-Ninja invasion policy set in place now, and if we hadn't nicked off, I'm pretty sure he would have called the cops.’

Back on the subject of his own fight career, Paul continued 'I was recently scheduled to fight Neil McCleod, who's a guy I'd really like to fight. I fought him before, I beat him, but he's the only guy I've fought who's made me look bad. I think it was my third fight, so I was a load of crap, but of all the guys I've fought I've looked competitive against, every one of them except Neil, who looked like he was tanking me for most of the fight. That's the reason I want to get a rematch with him because I've improved 100% since then. I think it will be good to see where my progress is at, but unfortunately it didn't happen because I broke my elbow last Sunday.' Paul has a workmanlike attitude to all the recent training he had put in, but conceded, 'When you don't get to physically assault another human being at the end of it, it sucks.'

Thinking further into the future, Paul revealed his ambitions in the sport, 'Shooto is pretty much the Mecca for guys about my weight. They've got a lot of lighter guys – I do know my limitations, I know the level I'm at at the moment. Their champion at my weight, one of the guys who has trained with us has trained with him, and he says he's just unbelievable. He fights really, really boring unfortunately!’ 

‘I was actually scheduled to fight him last year, but that fell through. That's another guy I'd really like to compete against. Shooto is like… I do a lot of goal setting, it sounds kinda goofy, but when I originally started fighting the first thing I wanted to do was get a belt, and when I realised I was quite good at it, it was getting into Shooto. I was watching Sato, Sakurai, Gomi, and I thought, “Right. That's where I want to fight,” because I'm never going to be able to fight in the UFC, and if I fought in Pride, they'd probably have me fighting Giant Silva, which wouldn't be great fun!'

When asked about the development of MMA closer to home in Scotland, Paul became animated. 'It's developing really well, we're getting more and more shows, there's Willie Scott, he's promoting his own show in Edinburgh, doing really well, he's putting together really good cards. It's basically going to keep on getting bigger, there's more and more teams sprouting up. We're pretty much the most dominant team at the minute, but I think that's more to do with the training methods and coaches we've got up here. It's just going to keep growing and growing.'

Expanding on the training methods that set the Dinky's apart, Paul explained how he learnt his skills; 'Randomly from DVDs’ he laughs. ‘I've had a lot of help from John Kavanagh, all the Straight Blast Gym guys. We're pretty lucky, we've got a lot of contacts with Brazilian guys like Rodrigo ‘Minotauro’ Nogueira. We've had a lot over helping us out with regards to jiu-jitsu. Also there's a lot of really good guys I'm training with, guys who are pretty much self-taught. It's a really healthy way to be, always looking for new stuff and it kind of keeps us guessing! I think it's a good way to learn- it would be nice to have Mario Sperry teaching us, but we do pretty well without him.'

On the subject of fight preparation, I asked how he seemed to remain so calm before fighting, 'At university, I did a lot of sports psychology stuff- I can recognise the difference between being anxious and excited now, and that helps a lot, plus the fact that with your cornerman ripping the piss out of you the entire time, it's hard to take a lot of that seriously. It's kind of like the atmosphere we've always had at the gym- we made a documentary before the Billy Harris fight and some of the stuff that was on it… The guys were pretty much telling me the entire weekend that I'm fighting a kid, that I should be ashamed of myself and what will my mother think of me now, fighting a guy who's 60 kilos and looks like he's twelve!’ 

Moving on to talk about what his goals are for the coming year, Paul had his priorities straight, 'I would like my elbow back, it's now floating about somewhere in my arm! But other than that, basically, I'd like to get another title defence for my CageWarriors belt and keep busy. Just get in as many fights as I can this year. We've also just opened up and we're pretty much running the only full-time Mixed Martial Arts gym in Glasgow. That's been going well, we want to get a few of our up and coming fighters and that- we got like three or four guys fighting on a show in Edinburgh, representing the team. It's keeping everything going in the gym, in my own fighting and pretty much the gym as a business as well. That's pretty much my main goal at the minute… And if anyone wants to offer me a fight in Shooto, I wouldn't mind taking it, you know?'

Paul finished by reflecting on life as a Ninja and CageWarriors world champion 'It's pretty slick man, it's a world title, but it's not that international when you beat a guy from Portsmouth to win it. It means a lot to me, I won that title in about 2003 originally, the featherweight title, and defended that. Then I won the CageWarriors bantamweight title and defended that. I like it when people see it and they think it's quality and start checking it out, asking me what that's all about. Plus, with guys like Junior [Antonio ‘Pezao’ Silva] being the champion, Jeff Monson being the champion, Mike Bisping in the organisation, when you get to that kind of a level, it's a big thing… with Mike in the UFC and Junior, he's probably going to be smashing people in Pride pretty soon, being on the same pedestal as those guys is pretty good.'