Cathal Pendred fears no man, but he had no answer for on over-zealous member of the cleaning staff in his Mexico hotel.
The next, biggest fight of the welterweight’s UFC career goes down in Mexico on Saturday and he gave a lengthy interview to Three Amigos Podcast this week and had to do battle with a noisy hoover for the hosts’ attention.
Midway through his chat, Pendred was forced to take evasive action. ‘Someone’s in here,’ he revealed, ‘in the hotel room, with a hoover so I’ll move away… I don’t know what to do here. There’s a hoover coming my way.’
No confirmation, yet, if the hoover was called Henry, or the Mexican equivalent, Enrique.There has been a lot of focus on the fact that Pendred is not included on the main card for the event. He commented, ‘I have been asked about it and then the media spin it. The reason I am getting asked about it, I suppose, is that other people are surprised I am on the Fight Pass pre-lims.
‘I am a little bit surprised as I was flown out here for the pre-fight tour, but it makes no difference to me… It doesn’t matter whether it is the first fight or last.’
Then, the dreaded hoover came back.
A flustered Pendred was heard addressing the hotel staff member: ‘Can I have a few minutes without the hoover please.’ He told the show’s hosts:
‘I just told the cleaner to feck off.’
Hoovers well and truly out of the room, Pendred was free to focus on the fight.
‘I treat each fight as if I’m fighting for a world title,’ he explained as he was asked about his intensive preparations for the bout.
Having read up on the best ways to counter the affects of fighting at altitude, Pendred decided to travel to Mexico six weeks in advance of UFC 188. The decision pretty much cancels out his nominal purse for the fight so it is win or bust in more ways than one.
Pendred’s original training plan, he said, was to train in Las Vegas with Straight Blast compadré Conor McGregor until the decision was made to head along to Mexico.
As opposed to McGregor’s trash-talking of his next opponent, Jose Aldo, Pendred has mostly good things to say about the man he will face in the octagon – Augusto Montano. He describes him as aggressive and exciting but feels he has ‘a better all round game’.
‘I train with higher calibre guys, I’ve fought higher calibre opponents and I feel I am the higher calibre fighter,’ he declared.
Asked about his close associations with McGregor, Pendred claimed that his fight record stacks up by itself.
He said, ‘I already get called out because people associate me with Conor. People claim I am hanging off Conor’s coat-tails, which is ridiculous when you look at my record. Conor doesn’t come into the fights with me. I am where I am today because of the fights I have won.
‘Conor has done great things for the sport in Ireland, and globally… but I am not interested in tours that are concentrated on him. I want to build my own path.’
Pendred also spoke about his hopes of a UFC Fight Night card coming to the 3 Arena, in Dublin, this October. It would not involve McGregor, he said, but would still attract a huge crowd. “I’ll be high up on the card and I’ll hope, going into that card, I’ll be 4-0 and will get a big name.’
Finally, Pendred played down the stories of him slamming UFC commentator Joe Rogan for what many believed to be biased commentary during his last bout. ‘I got asked these questions… I’m not thinking about my last fight or the commentary of it… I was a bit disappointed watching the last fight. Obviously, Joe Rogan does his job, I do mine.’
You can listen to the whole Pendred in full here:
https://soundcloud.com/three-amigos-podcast/number-003-brian-stann-cathal-pendred
