WITH LESS THAN four minutes of the fight remaining, Brian Moore was thrown a lifeline.
Having lost the first two rounds of his Cage Warriors Fight Night 11 bout against Marat Pekov, Moore needed to produce something special in the final frame.
Eventually, his opponent opened the door for him to steal an unlikely win. Moore was in a vulnerable position but kept one hand on the mat, which ensured that he was regarded as ‘grounded’.
But Pekov was unable to resist. The Russian fighter’s left knee took aim at Moore’s lowered head, piercing the Irishman’s flesh with the illegal blow just above his left eye. Referee Rich Mitchell stepped in to temporarily halt the contest.
Moore shrugged the strike off as if it were nothing more than a pawing jab, but the impact was certainly visible, as blood streamed downward with the potential to impair his vision.
The referee deemed it to be an intentional foul, so the best-case scenario for Pekov was to surrender two points. If the effects of the knee left Moore unable to continue, however, Pekov would have been disqualified and the record books would mark it down as a win for Moore — albeit by default.
“Are you sure you want to continue?” the official asked Moore. At that stage in the bout, it was an opportunity to use the rules to his own advantage. And having lost his last fight, another stroke of green would have been a welcome addition to his Sherdog profile.
The two-point deduction may have levelled the scores, but Pekov was still well-placed to finish the job. In addition to the long flight to Amman, Moore had cut a significant amount of weight to make his debut at 135lbs. The result was an uncharacteristically lacklustre performance.
A defeat seemed inevitable, yet when Moore was offered the get-out-of-jail-free card, he didn’t hesitate to turn it down. “Yeah,” he responded, nodding his head to let the referee know that he had no interest in tainted triumphs.
The fight resumed and the claret contents of Moore’s newly-acquired wound decorated the canvas. Pekov continued his onslaught and with just 28 seconds left on the clock, the referee determined that Moore had sustained enough damage, stopping the bout to award Pekov a TKO win.
“Marat did a great job but he didn’t fight Brian Moore. That wasn’t me who fought that night. I always have huge hunger and a never-say-die attitude, but I just couldn’t get out of the starting blocks. I felt like a kitten in there,” Moore tells The42, reflecting on the bout which took place in the Jordanian capital in April 2014.
“I took an illegal knee and decided to keep going. A lot of people in that situation would have said they couldn’t continue and tried to win by disqualification, but that’s not me. I’d prefer to go out on my shield, as they say.
A coach of one of the other fighters on the show was in the changing rooms afterwards and he asked my why I didn’t say that I couldn’t see. I remember thinking: I really hope I never get to a stage where I have that attitude. I’d never want to win on a technicality.”
The fight was Moore’s second with the Cage Warriors promotion but both had ended in defeat. He was beaten by former CWFC title challenger Dave Hill by unanimous decision seven months earlier, so a win against Pekov was essential. But not on those terms. Victory via disqualification would have merely papered over the cracks that were beginning to appear behind the scenes.
A native of Wexford, Moore won titles at domestic level before graduating to the international stage. The hope was that the move to Cage Warriors Fighting Championship would represent the next step on the road to his ultimate destination — the UFC. However, losses against two of CWFC’s top contenders set him back significantly.
It was a challenging time for Moore. In addition to the Cage Warriors contract, he had recently opened his own gym in Carrick-on-Bannow. While those demands competed for his attention, there was also plenty going on at home. He married his wife Noreen in 2013 and their first child was soon to arrive.
As Moore sought to juggle his professional and personal commitments, neither received the time they deserved. Making ends meet was a struggle and something needed to change.
“I came back to nothing after the fight in Jordan,” Moore says. “In fairness to Cage Warriors, they pay more than most promotions but it’s still not enough to pay for your training camp or your day-to-day life. I remember looking at the cheque in my hand when I was on the way home and just saying: ‘What the fuck am I doing? I need to sort things out.’
“It was a big issue and that caused me to be very stressed in my life, especially in the run-up to that fight. My mindset wasn’t how it should have been. I couldn’t shake it off when I was training. As a father and a husband, your priority is providing for your family. If you’re struggling to do that, you’re not going to be anywhere near the right state of mind to be competing in any sport.
It got to a stage where I’d take a fight just to pay an electricity bill or the tax on my car, instead of focusing on the main goal of progressing my career and trying to get into the UFC.
“I remember preparing for fights and not being able to afford the supplements I needed, then coming home to bills after losing. You’re wondering where you can go next and there aren’t many good options there.”
Moore needed to get his new gym up and running, and with his MMA career not yielding the results he required to justify his efforts, perhaps it was time to walk away — at the age of 26.
“I strongly considered it,” Moore admits. “It took me a long time to recover, both physically and emotionally, after that fight against Marat. I was definitely beginning to wonder if it was all worth it.”
Instead, Moore settled for a postponement. For 12 months, his professional life focused entirely on his business and it proved to be a wise decision. By last summer, Moore Fitness had become “one of the busiest gyms in Wexford,” he says. “Getting it to that stage took a lot of time and effort. I needed to take some time away from MMA to make sure I got the gym moving. Now it has paid off.
“Before, I was just running a few classes here and there but it was nowhere near enough in terms of earning. In MMA, even some guys who have made it to the UFC are still struggling financially. By the time they pay their expenses, they’re not taking much home.
“So it’s really important to have something extra to fall back on. In this sport, things like injuries can throw your plans up in the air. You need something else there as well just in case. That’s why I made sure to take adequate time out to build something substantial.”
With his gym established, Moore decided to begin the next chapter in his MMA career. He returned to the cage last November — over 18 months since his defeat to Marat Pekov — and submitted highly-rated former kickboxing world champion Tommy McCafferty.
Moore: “I was really nervous for my first day back at the gym. I remember driving up and I had the same kind of jitters you get before a fight. But I realised straight away just how much I had missed it. I just love this sport.
I trained for 21 weeks before the fight against Tommy and I can hold my hands up and honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed every single session. That’s not something I’ve always been able to say.
“Going back a couple of years, there were sessions that I definitely didn’t enjoy. I was trying to do too many things in my life all at once and it was very draining mentally. But I love the sport too much and I have too much belief in myself to stop.
“It was completely different going into my last fight because I knew my wife and my child were at home, safe and sound. That’s the priority. In my previous fights I felt the pressure that I had no choice but to win, because I thought it would mean the end of my career if I didn’t. That’s not the way you should be thinking when you’re going into a fight and it can only do you harm.
“The support I get from my family is absolutely unbelievable, and my wife in particular. Not once has she ever complained. We’re not at all obsessed with material things but you still want to be able to give your wife whatever she wants, whether it’s just clothes or a night out every so often. I didn’t want to be scrimping.
“She has always had faith that I would go far in the sport. She’s been by my side the whole time. Even when I stopped training to focus on getting the gym up and running, she was always encouraging me to get back into it.
At the time I was so busy with the gym I wondered if I’d ever get the chance to go back to training. Without her support I wouldn’t have been able to do it.”
Moore will be looking to take his professional record to 9-4 on 27 February at the 3Arena when he faces fellow Irishman Mick Brennan at BAMMA 24. The aim is for it to be the first of several wins in 2016 that will bring him to the UFC’s attention.
With the fight on the horizon, Moore’s daily routine involves a 9am departure from his home in Wexford to Straight Blast Gym on the Naas Road in Dublin. After putting in four hours of work, he heads back down the M11 to work with clients at his own gym.
“You’d think at that stage that you’d be exhausted but I actually find it hard to leave SBG. There’s a great vibe in the gym because everyone is pushing in the same direction, trying to achieve the same goals. The positivity is incredible. There are so many motivated faces everywhere you look. There could be a technique session involving 30 or 40 people; you could pick any one of them out and you’d learn something from them.”
Moore is eager to reach the UFC and his training partners know the way. Training daily under John Kavanagh and alongside the likes of Conor McGregor, Artem Lobov and Paddy Holohan, the 28-year-old is in the right company.
“There isn’t a featherweight in Europe outside the UFC who I don’t think I can bulldoze,” Moore insists. “When I first started this sport, all I had was heart. Nothing else.
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“As I went on, financial pressure and travelling played a part and my heart went out of it a bit. But now I’ve got the desire back and I’ve added a lot of skill and technique too, so I think it’s going to take a hell of a lot to stop me from achieving my goal.
I might not be the best boxer, I might not be the best grappler, but I truly believe there aren’t many who can mix it better than me. Add in the heart that I’ve got and I don’t think I’ll be stopped this time.
“I believe I’m a UFC-calibre fighter and that it’s only a matter of time if I keep going the way I’m going. Either way, whether it takes a year or three or four years, I’ll keep plugging away because I love this sport and I love competition.”
The UFC are currently releasing fighters quicker than they’re signing them, so Moore knows that a contract won’t come easily. But for a man who has accepted that every victory must be earned, that won’t be an issue.
