The Second Captains member speaks to us from Vegas.
Ken Early is in Las Vegas this weekend covering Conor McGregor versus Jose Aldo at UFC 194 for Second Captains.
Ken wrote a brilliant piece on McGregor rise in the Second Captains Annual, which is highly entertaining, so we decided to get his thoughts ahead of the big fight in Nevada.
After a few minutes of talking about how bad the films he watched on his flight (Mad Max: Fury Road, Mission Impossible, San Andreas) were, we got stuck into it.
JOE: Ken, let’s start back at UFC 189 in July. It was a huge night for McGregor, what are your memories?
Ken: “The things that I remember from that night are the bloodiest bits. Blood is like memory juice, I didn’t realise this before but if you see a load of blood, it sticks in your memory.
“Thomas Almeida’s knockout that night was such an impressive piece of athleticism. The strength, the power, the timing to do that isn’t easy to pull off. Neymar was there and he looked pretty impressed. I had never seen something that violent happen before my eyes.”
JOE: We watched it on telly with the volume up high and the atmosphere seemed incredible, the UFC really know how to put on a show?
Ken: “The production on these events are huge, the noise is ear-splitting. It’s physical, it’s so loud that you can feel it vibrating your ribs. The screens are gigantic and they’re all showing these images of violence, and it’s always the most violent bits. It’s geared towards sensory overload. It makes a Champions League final look really sedate, you know, a tea on the village green type scenario.
“I guess they have to make the shows like that because sometimes these fights can be very short or turn into a rather dull affair with two fighters grappling on the floor. UFC 189 actually didn’t need any of that, it could have taken place without the big screens and Martin Garrix blaring through speakers and still been spectacular.”
JOE: We saw the weight cut and both guys looked OK, not great, but not too bad. Is it going to be an advantage for McGregor that Aldo hasn’t done one in 14 months?
Ken: “I mean McGregor always finds the weight cut hard because he’s a big guy and he’s not designed to be that light. He was like a scarecrow for the Mendes fight`but he seems to be in better form this time, there’s no knee injury for instance, but getting down to 145 is never easy.
“It may be that Aldo struggles because he hasn’t done this in a while, it’s a big challenge and McGregor is more used of it. On the other hand, I just think it’s generally harder for McGregor to get to that weight so maybe that balances it out.”
JOE: McGregor’s mind games have been on full power for the last few months and he seems to be able to get under everybody’s skin (Go Big press conference), what makes him so good at that?
Ken: “You know who he reminds me of, Robbie Keane in MLS. Keane is playing against these college boy defenders and it’s so easy for him. He can almost score/win at walking pace, it’s just ridiculously easy for him even though his legs have gone but he’s just got that guile about him.
“I’m reminded of that sometime when I see McGregor and he’s up against guys like Mendes or Uriah Faber in The Ultimate Fighter. They just don’t have the ability for that back and forth trading of insults that McGregor is so good at. Then there’s Jose Aldo who doesn’t speak English so it’s not as though he’s going to be trading barbs that will have any effect in the English-speaking UFC world.
“McGregor is bullying these guys, he doesn’t have any worthy opponents in that sense. He might say stuff like “peanut head” and “midget” a lot, which you mightn’t think is very clever, but it’s still better than anyone else can do.”
JOE: That trash talking bravado has seen some people compare him to Muhammad Ali, what did you think when you heard that?
Ken: “The important difference between McGregor and Ali is that I don’t remember Ali ever saying the point of his career was so he could go and buy loads of Louis Vuitton shit. He was engaging with some big ideas – religious ideas, political ideas, the future of the races in the American experiment, whether it was morally justifiable to go to war in Vietnam. This is the stuff Muhammad Ali was wrestling with.
“You can’t compare the two when you consider that sort of dimension to Ali and so far really all McGregor shows an interest in, aside from the sport itself, is the boring material trappings that anyone with a lot of money can buy. He’s never more boring that when he’s posting a video of him out shopping and all that.”
JOE: A lot of people say that McGregor’s talk is about convincing himself he’s going to win.
Ken: “Well, McGregor has been saying he’s going to win every day for the last 14 months so if you believe him it’s already in the bag. But there’s the small matter of Aldo never having been beaten before and being the champion. Nobody can really tell what kind of level Jose is at at the moment, he’s always been so formidable in all of his fight but the problem is he hasn’t had one in so long (October 2014).”
JOE: Who is going to win this fight?
Ken: “McGregor is the slight favourite with the bookies but that might be a reflection of the money that’s being placed rather than the expert opinion. That’s why England are, or at least were, always such short odds at the World Cup because English people bet so much money on them in the lead up to the tournaments.
“There’s no way to tell who’s going to win the fight, we’ll just have to wait and see how it goes. McGregor says he knows he’s going to win, but he doesn’t, I don’t believe him when he say he can tell the future. I don’t believe in magic so I have to wait and see if he can justify what he’s been saying.”
Read more from Ken Early and the Second Captains team in the Second Captains Annual: Volume 1. Buy your copy online here.
