In 15 short months, Paddy Holohan has gone from card opener to card closer at the 3Arena.
The Hooligan was promoted to headliner after both the main event and co-main event were scrapped in the last week due to injuries to Joe Duffy and Stipe Miocic respectively.
While hardcore fans feel that Holohan probably deserved the main event slot at UFC Dublin all along, there are a small portion of people who are seeking a refund after the UFC failed to replace two stellar fights in Duffy v Poirier and Miocic v Rothwell.
But Holohan claims that he doesn’t need those “fans” in the arena on Saturday.
He said: “I hear a lot of people are not happy about it but then again the real people, the people I personally want there, we’ve been grinding towards this for 10 years.
“If it’s €85 a ticket and you know about this sport for six months then get your money back and go on about your Saturday night somewhere else because there are people in my housing estate and from where I come from that couldn’t get their hands on tickets.
“The people who have these tickets and who are fans for three or six months, they don’t really deserve the tickets as much as the fans who’ve followed me all the way from little broken down GAA clubs and tiny events where there’s 100 people at them. They’re the people that I want there and they’re the people that deserve to share this atmosphere because, by the time that main event comes, this is going to be a festival atmosphere.”
. @PaddyHolohanMMA on those fans who are thinking about a refund for #UFCDublin pic.twitter.com/4wluSpgTma
— SportsJOE.ie (@SportsJOEdotie) October 22, 2015
With Holohan, Neil Seery, Aisling Daly, Cathal Pendred and Norman Parke still on the card, The Hooligan is disappointed that the Irish fans haven’t really gotten behind the Irish contingent who have put so much into the promotion of the UFC’s return to Dublin.
“All the stuff that’s gone on in Ireland… the media tour that we’ve just done, visiting children’s hospitals and prisons, all the stuff that I’ve been doing on the ground and these guys are bringing their tickets back.
“We’re doing this here in Ireland, we’re making the change. I am here, I am a resident, I still live here. It’s where I was born.
“If you want to go back and make a refund and not join in this night, I would suggest you don’t. I’d suggest that you come out and support your countrymen.
“It’s not just me. It’s not just an Irish main event. You have Neil, you have Norman Parke, you have Cathal Pendred. This is something that has grown up in Ireland.”
You’d expect the furore about refunds and disappointed fans to have distracted Holohan but the SBG flyweight maintains that more important matters are on his mind, primarily the chance to make his son proud on Saturday night.
“That’s something that I can give him that, when I’m dead in 50 years and he’s a 50 year old man, this is something that he’ll never forget. He’ll never forget that and it’ll never go away.
“These are the things that I’m thinking about when I go out there to fight. I’m not thinking about people’s €85 ticket. I’m thinking about what I’ve done for ten years and now my son gets to witness it live at seven years of age. Can you imagine what that must be like?”
