 So delighted to say I'm joined by MMA fighter, Dara Kele, who's got a very, very exciting time ahead. He's going to tell us all about it. Dara, good to see you. Good to talk to you. Welcome to Highland Radio once again. Yeah, thanks for having me. Listen, Dara, I suppose we'll start maybe on a disappointing note. You were to make your pro debut towards the end of last year, but that didn't materialize with your opponent, Junior Morgan, pulling out just hours before the fight. Have you got over that disappointment yet? Because it was something that you are really, really excited about and really, really looking forward to. I know following you and the lead up to it that you were bouncing to get into action, but it didn't happen. Have you parked all that disappointment now? Have you, Dara? Well, of course I was disappointed, devastated. There's a lot of hard work put under that, but I'm using it as fuel in a way for this training camp. I'm more motivated. I've got a reason to go in and grind. I'm going to put it on on this time when he shows up. So what's the intervening period been like then, between then and now? Has your training differed on it, or have you just been challenging yourself all the time? Has you been under training sessions, Dara? Yeah, well, last year was disappointing. I was hoping to get three or four fights. I went through five fall fight camps, so training for eight weeks at a time, and I only got to fight once. Four of them fell through. I was meant to fight at the World Championships last year, and I ended up doing my ankle. So I had to get an operation, and that was eight weeks before Bellator. I only got about four weeks of training before I was meant to fight Morgan the first time, so maybe this happened for a reason. This time, injury-free, fresh, and I'm ready to go. You had a difficult 2021. What's the overall plan now for 2022? Yes, the immediate fight is Morgan. Is it a case that you want four or five fights now in the coming year, Dara? Yeah, I'm looking for a quick turnaround after this. Get two out of the way, maybe in April. We'll say I'll go again, and then I would like one early summer, and then one more before the end of the year, so I'd like my plans to go forward now. Yeah, okay. What do you want out of this first fight? What do you want to see yourself take out of it against Junior Morgan? What sort of opponent is he going to be, Dara? Well, in all my amateur fights, I finished everyone, nine fights, nine finishes, so that's the one thing I'm looking for. I'm going to finish him whatever way it presents itself. I think my pressure, the usual style and pressure, heavy shots, take him to the ground, and I want to finish him either submission or TKO, a ground opponent. The bulk of those nine and O's was all submissions, if I'm right in saying so. Yeah, I think I had seven submissions and two TKO's. Yeah, so what was your background before you decided to take MMA really, really seriously? Dara, what sort of style of fighting were you under at the time? What variation of the sport? Well, I started training in a club in Lerner County, Helene Gracie, under Brian Coyle. So that was it, yeah. Yeah, primarily Jetsubist. And obviously you're taking that through now to the professional ranks with all the submissions, and it's been a journey that you've enjoyed from those days starting off in Lerner County, Dara, to where you are now. Oh yeah, it's a rollercoaster sort of, it's a mad game, like, you know, injuries, the highest the highs, the lowest the lows, all the victories. There's been a lot happened in the last five years. Yeah, three time Irish champion in such a short period of time, there's nothing wrong with that, Dara. Yeah, well, I said you have to stuck in. Yeah, and obviously John Kavana had seen your potential, particularly when you were coming through the amateur ranks, and I'm sure you watch a lot in your early days. How have you found it been around the camp of John Kavana? Obviously the link there to Conor McGregor is the trainer to Conor McGregor as well. How has John Kavana altered the way you look at the sport now? Oh, massively. My style is completely different, although my previous style worked very well for me in the amateur game. It was too heavily jujitsu based, and John highlighted that right away, that, you know, I was more of a jujitsu player rather than an MMA fighter. So John's changed my style dramatically. I'd be a bit more wrestling based now. I think it suits him a bit better, and he showed me the amount of work you have to put in to reach the top, you know, and with his facilities and over 85 professional fighters from all over Europe on the mats every single day, you know, you're forced to level up. So training under John has been brilliant so far. Do you feel lucky that you're in such an environment with a sport that you loved, Dara? I'm grateful day in, day out for it. Obviously, I love it. It's challenging. It's tough. Sometimes you think, you know, maybe I'll look for an other job, but at the end of the day, that's just because it's that tough. And I love it day in, day out. Grateful for I am. Yeah. And when you get a reward, if you can get that reward now at the end of February, it makes all the hard work so much easier to look back on. Maybe there is difficult days and there is tight days in the gym, but when you get those ones, Dara, it's easy to look back on them then. When your hands raised, it's all worth it then. Yeah. And obviously, what's the local support like? Because you're going to Dublin, so you are Dara. And I'm sure you'll be hoping to get as many Donny Gull supporters down the road as possible. Oh, the support, I guess, brilliant. I think last time I sold roughly 300 tickets and I think it would have been more if it wasn't for the restrictions last time. But now that there's no certs needed or anything, I'd say there would be more than 300 coming down. So it'll be great. It really does spur you on that bit more when you have them all cheering for you. We've seen, of course, MMA events before there, be it the Bellatar, be it the UFC, the Irish bring a special atmosphere to big events like that, so they do. Yeah, that's what a lot of the people, from last time when they all came down, the fight was cancelled that close to the event. They didn't have time to, you know, they've already left. And a lot of them would never have been at an MMA event before and they were shocked about the atmosphere. It's nothing they've ever seen before. So you just have to experience that double crowd. That's the MMA's in the blood, it's in the family. Younger brother Ryan's at this crack too, is it? He's following the footsteps now. Does he have potential like what you had through those early days, Dara? He does. He gives me tough rounds as it is and he's only 17, so he was that bit younger when he started that. He'll be one coming through to watch now. I'm sure he loves sparring his brother, so does he. He's joined up with the Klan Wars, is that right? Aye, so he's fighting the Klan Wars, you're based in Belfast. He fought there maybe three months ago and he fought very well. He stopped as a opponent in the second round, so that was a good test for him. Good test. Well listen, just finally then, Dara, I was to say to you in three years time in the MMA world, where would you like to be? Three years time. Well, I have to say, I think I'll be knocking on the door of the UFC or there, thereabouts, that's my plan. Yeah, is that the end game, is it, to get to the UFC? Because at the end of the day, that really is the biggest promotion worldwide, isn't it? That's where the elite goes, that's what I'm planning and fingers crossed with hard work and guidance from John and I'll get there, so, bit by bit. Hopefully so, hopefully we'll see you and you'll be able to achieve your dream and get in there at some stage in the future, but in the meantime, the best look, Dara, with the fight against Junior Morgan coming up in February and I'm sure you'll enjoy the occasion and no doubt you'll get that, TKO or get the submission one as well, the best of luck with. Thanks very much.