Conor McGregor’s coach has spoken about the humiliating violent altercation that led him to the UFC and MMA.

Speaking to host Ryan Tubridy on The Late Late Show last night, John Kavanagh said: “I was in Rathmines, I guess I was 18 at the time, me and my girlfriend. We were with a crowd but we were left behind.

“We were walking down Rathmines and I saw a guy getting a bit of a pasting.

“We walked past him initially and then I stopped and said: ‘I can’t do this’ and I went back.

“Now, what would have been sensible would have been to just go into maybe the Garda Station which was only across the road but I wasn’t thinking that straight and I jumped in.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t end like the martial arts movies where you drop three or four guys and you walk off into the sunset. I was the one that got dropped.

“Thankfully the guy got up and he ran, which was the natural instinct, I wouldn’t have held that against him.

“After that day there was physical scars, I got fairly beat up but it was the mental side of it, getting beat up in front of your girlfriend like that for a young man was very, very tough to deal with.

“There’s just a humiliation that goes with, the physical side wasn’t all that bad, but the humiliation of being beaten up in front of your girlfriend.

“I grew up watching Bruce Lee movies and Rocky movies, it was always like the strong, macho guy could protect his woman and I wasn’t able to do that. I didn’t want to go out, it was at least six or nine months before I left the house after that. I went into depression I guess.

“I decided what was I going to do about this, was I going to live inside forever or do what? I started looking into martial arts, I started researching styles to learn how to defend myself and that’s how I came across the UFC, mixed martial arts.”

He also spoke about why he thinks Conor McGregor’s unexpected defeat to Nate Diaz ended up being a good thing.