Continuing on our look at the Irish fighters being featured on Cage Warriors 49 this weekend we feature Paul Redmond.
Paul Redmond (4-3) from Team Ryano doesn’t need much motivation to train. So when Ryoshin Fighting Championship put a title fight scheduled for November in front of him it just gave him something to focus on. Having tasted gold already as the Chaos lightweight champion, winning another belt would not have hurt his prospects to push on to bigger events.
Imagine Paul’s disappointment when he received word that his opponent had broken a rib and his title fight was off. Outside of the actual fighting, the wasted time and effort of a cancelled fight must be one of the hardest things to deal with as a fighter.
Step up
One thing that helps deal with cancellations is getting another fight reasonably quickly.
Even better, if that fight just happens to be on the main card of the biggest MMA show in Europe. Two weeks ago Paul was offered a fight with Lewis Long (6-1) at Cage Warriors Fighting Championship 49 in Cardiff. Of course, he jumped at the opportunity.
Paul’s last outing was a high-paced encounter at Cage Warriors event in Dublin, resulting in a 2nd round TKO win. Check out Paul’s last fight here.
We spent a ‘day in the life’ with Paul back in March and got a good idea of how an MMA fighter trains. “I’m always working on my cardio and I always stay in shape so there’ll be no issue with lasting the pace. Honestly, I could go 5, 5 minute rounds every time I step in to fight that’s how confident I am in my cardio” Paul explains.
Making Weight
With less time to prepare making weight may have been a little more of a challenge. But Paul explains he’s changed his preparation with Dave McConkey from South Dublin Strength & Conditioning to take the weight off earlier and easier before fight week.
Dave was the first guy Paul contacted when the fight was made, “As soon as I got the call from Cage Warriors I gave Dave a shout. We’d basically 2 weeks to shift 10kgs. Dave is amazing at getting the weight off regardless of the time you give him. He texted me every morning asking me how I felt, how my energy levels were in training and he told me exactly what to eat and how often and adjusted the diet a few times if I told him I was tired or really hungry.”
Cutting weight can be a double edged sword. If you don’t cut you may be smaller than an opponent who has. If you do cut weight you can exhaust your body through dehydration or borderline starvation leaving you with no energy on fight night. If it’s done properly, however, you’ll bring the size advantage with the energy to go the 5 rounds if required.
Ironically, the process for cutting weight successfully is not a mystical secret. It does require a lot of discipline and knowledge on the topic. Dave has posted an interesting article on weight cutting on his website, which outlines how he got Paul’s Team Ryano team-mate Patrick Boylan ready for his fight at BattleZone FC 6.
Results
So have the changes to the weight cutting process worked for Paul? I spoke to him 3 days before the scheduled weigh-in. “Basically I reckon I’ll have to do 20 minutes in the sauna on Friday morning and that’s it. Last time I made weight it took 4 hours the day before and 4 hours on the morning of the weigh-in. So yeah, it has definitely worked.”
Paul knows a little bit about his opponent – “I only know a bit about Lewis and I haven’t seen any of his fights. I do know he’s fought a good bit at 77 kilograms (welterweight) so he’ll probably be a big lightweight, but at 5’ 10’’ I’m a big enough lightweight myself so there’ll be no problem there.”
Paul doesn’t make predictions about his fights but he is extremely confident in his abilities – “It’s a big step up for me but that’s what it’s all about. Any good fighter these days trains in everything – training for cardio, training wrestling and takedowns and then your striking and submissions. But the biggest difference in the fight can be how you put it all together. And that’s where having a good solid team around you is real important. At Team Ryano we’ve got an amazing coach in Andy Ryan, we’ve got experienced fighters like Neil Seery and John Donnelly that have seen it all and I get great spars from the likes of Pato Boylan, Ritchie Edgeworth and all the other lads. It’s the support from all those guys that gets you in a position to win fights.”
Paul would like to thank Dave McConkey from South Dublin Strength & Conditioning, head coach at Team Ryano Andy Ryan and all his team mates for getting him ready for war in Cardiff this Saturday.
Photo Credits: Paul Redmond, Cage Warriors and Dolly Clew
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