HOW do you step out of a shadow the size of that cast by MMA superstar Conor McGregor? It’s a question Tiernan Bradley mulls over from time to time.
Every interview conducted in the three years since ‘Notorious’ brought a 20-year-old amateur boxer from Tyrone onboard as a sparring partner for his multi-million dollar showdown with Floyd Mayweather jr has leant heavily upon Bradley’s brief flirtation with the top end of the fight game.
The Omagh puncher gets it, and he isn’t complaining. But that was 2017, this is 2020.
“It’s a massive thing for your marketing, and I have to be thankful for that, and for the experience - but in every single interview you get asked the question. That’s what people want at this moment, I understand that side of it, but it can be annoying.
“Eventually I’d love them to talk about something other than ‘you sparred McGregor however many years ago’; I want to be talked about for getting knockout of the year, or for being a European champion or a world champion.
“I want to be known for my own achievements and not for anybody else’s…”
Last month, Tiernan Bradley made his professional bow, boxing out of O’Rourke’s Gym in Dublin.
The small city of Walcz in north-west Poland and a dinner show venue called, somewhat fittingly, Korona, was a far cry from the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas.
A first round stoppage win over Kornel Cendrowski left him frustrated, Bradley craving more bang for his buck after a 16-week training camp and an arduous journey back from tipping the scales at 92 kilos in the spring to 68 kilo by the time he stepped between the ropes on October 10.
“I was in great shape, really sharp. My diet was perfect, my training was perfect - it was as if I was training for a world title fight, so I was a bit annoyed it finished so soon.
“I’d probably gone into hibernation mode once lockdown came. I’d moved back to my home house in Omagh, I didn’t go out much as we were advised, and that’s where I started putting on the weight. Around the start of May my mates just grabbed me up out of bed and said ‘right, let’s go training’, and we started going up to the Gortin Glens.
“We kept training and just gained momentum, and then when the gyms were opened up back in Dublin so I got back in with the lads in O’Rourke’s.”
On his first day back, still far from optimum condition, stablemate Victor Rabei dragged him out for a 20km run. It was hell, there were times he wanted to stop and catch the bus, but he didn’t. All those little mental and physical hurdles eventually brought him back to a position where Bradley could return to doing what he does best – although, typical of the pro boxing world, he had to wait a little longer than expected.
“I was supposed to fight on the ninth of September in Spain but there were no spots left, then September 26 in Spain again but it was cancelled because of a rise in Covid cases there. Then we got word of a date in Poland on October 10 – even it was meant to be on the eighth but Ryanair changed a lot of the flights so we had to change the whole show.
“Travelling over was really weird, there was no social distancing on the plane, every seat was full. When we got there we were tested so it worked out for the best, and I got the job done.
“But if that show had been in Ireland in normal times, there would’ve been loads of tickets sold because there were seven lads from O’Rourkes, a couple who are with Conor Slater, you had the likes of Tony Browne making his debut too so it would’ve done well.
“Instead it was in front of 70 or 80 people in Poland, but that’s where we are the minute. I was just glad to be able to get out at all to be honest.”
Indeed, at one point post McGregor-Mayweather boxing couldn’t have been further from his thoughts.
A decorated amateur who had lived and breathed the game from no age, Bradley suddenly felt as though he had run out of steam after moving to New York in May 2018.
“New York was a bit of an awakening; I went over there trying to find a way to start my career but ending up taking a step back from my career.
“My body needed it, my mind needed it, after giving so many years to the sport at amateur level, then the whole thing with McGregor, it was just a constant treadmill of events, training – then there were tragedies, injuries, stuff messing with my mind.
“I was asking myself do I actually want to do this for the rest of my life? I wasn’t completely out of the gym, I was coaching in a boxing club over there, but it took me a long time to realise I needed the rest.
“Now it feels like I’ve got that out of my system, answered those questions, and I won’t need to do that in three or four years’ time when hopefully I’m at the peak of my professional career.
It gave me clarity that this is what I want to do in life and what I want to achieve.
“Those thoughts that were there previously are now gone.”
The 23-year-old is in as good a place now as since he bid Las Vegas and the madness of the previous months farewell, that brush with celebrity ultimately sending him along a different route and around the back roads to reach this point.
He can’t change the past - nor would he want to - but shaping his own future, and his own career, is much more important than living off old associations.
“One day I’ll create headlines of my own,” he smiles, “and hopefully one day you’ll be writing articles about my sparring partners.
“I don’t think that day is too far away.”
