John Kavanagh

After the fight, Conor went out of his way to thank me publicly: ‘John has changed our lives. He’s been an inspiration to us all. He is a master of human movement. He’s a genius at this game.’ It was kind of funny that he said I was changing my fighters’ lives, because the way I saw it was that they were changing mine. I guess that’s when you know you’re doing things right as a team.

The situation reminded me of something former world boxing champion Steve Collins once said to some of my guys when he visited the gym: ‘I’d rather be 75 per cent physically ready and 100 per cent mentally ready than 100 per cent physically ready and 75 per cent mentally ready.’

At SBG, our training doesn’t really change, regardless of whether the athlete is preparing for a fight or not. We don’t tend to do training camps in the same way other teams do. In many gyms, fighters might take a few weeks off after a bout, during which they’ll abandon their diet and do absolutely no training. Then they’ll head back into a training camp for their next fight, starting from scratch, going from one extreme to the other. We prefer to keep ticking over at a similar, steady pace throughout the year.

Bullies are like predatory animals. They can sense when somebody is, or is not, going to be an easy target. We aim to make sure that our kids stand tall and exude confidence.

We took a gamble and this time it didn’t pay off. That won’t change how we go about our business. We will, however, continue striving to make sure that we’re as well prepared as we can possibly be. That’s what gives us the confidence to face any challenge. We’ll take that risk again if we need to.

If you want something badly enough, never let anyone tell you that you’re not capable of attaining it. You’ll eventually reap the benefits of possessing that kind of attitude.

As long as you’ve worked as hard as you can, you should be at peace with the result, whether it goes in your favor or not. Luck also plays a bigger part than we’d all care to admit, so don’t be too hard on yourself when you lose and don’t go overboard with patting yourself on the back when you win. That’s been my approach from the start and it will continue to be until the end.