UFC CHIEF DAN WHITE hailed Cathal Pendred’s dogged victory over Mike King as ‘one of the greatest comebacks I have ever seen’.
Pendred endured a torrid opening to his UFC debut against King, a fellow contestant in The Ultimate Fighter [season 19] that first brought the Irishman to the attention of the general mixed martial arts public. He survived the first round and, cheered on by a vociferous home crowd, won the biut with a rear naked choke.
“If you look at my fights,” he said in the post-event press briefing, “I never give up in a fight. I know a lot of people said it was done but at no stage in that fight did I think I was done. I was in a bad position but I was always coming back to win that fight.
Pendred admitted he was briefly worried that his bout would be stopped and he paid credit to referee Marc Goddard as ‘he knew I was still in the fight and he could see I was trying to defend myself’. He added that victory, and the $50k winners’ cheque, had changed his life. White, Pendred explained, was not impressed with the fights in TUF 19 so he wanted to change his mind by beating King during the allotted time.
“That’s why I packed my Louis Copeland suit,” he quipped, “as I knew I would put in the performance of the night and [would] be sitting here taking questions at the press conference.”
Pendred also paid tribute to his SBG trainer, John Kavanagh, for seeing him through tough times when he did not ‘have a pot to piss in’. He continued, “John has let me stay in his apartment, free of charge. I’m not paying any rent… I will now. well, I’m not living there any more.”
Here is the press conference in all its [55:08 mins] glory. The fun begins from the 25-minute mark.
