Last month, Paul Hughes was as content as the cat that got the cream.
It was his first interaction with A.J. McKee, a man long considered one of the best fighters outside of the UFC and the opponent Hughes faces at PFL’s biggest event of the year Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The fact that their introduction took place during a live broadcast at Wembley Arena mattered not to the Derry man.
Two days prior, when the bout was officially announced, industry whispers wondered whether it was too much too soon for Hughes. This was, after all, just his second outing under a big-league banner.
After all the sacrifices, broken bones, the time on the sidelines, the politics and the endless chatter, the Irishman had finally been given his opportunity to prove he was among the world’s elite.
Too soon?
Paul Hughes has been waiting for this moment his entire life.
Hughes was 15 years old when his mother first encountered mixed martial arts.
Already established as a central figure of his local Gaelic football team Lavey GAC, Hughes seemed to be following the path forged by celebrated regional players before him, the endgame of which could lead to him representing his county team, Derry, down the line.
“He convinced us he needed to go this training one day and that it was just a bit of fun,” his mother Clare recalls.
“Paul was hooked straight away. One of the lads’ older brothers had a shed that he had turned into a training room and Paul started to go there to hit pads sometimes. He just fell in love with it.”
The only rule imposed by his parents was that his new pursuit, something Hughes described to them as “the fastest growing sport in the world,” would not interfere with his training for Lavey.
As far as Hughes was concerned, it was a rule worth breaking.
He had been relying on his mother for transport to Micky Young’s training facility in Derry, where he took his first steps in the world of combat. Yet, one particular day when he won the ire of the Hughes family’s matriarch, Clare refused to bring him.
“When I told him I wasn’t going to drive him, he just got on his push bike and cycled down,” she remembers. “From then on, it pretty much took over his life.”
Hughes frequented the Lavey GAA training facility less and less. As a hub of the community, failing to honor his club responsibilities didn’t sit well with the family. His coaches, on the other hand, were not giving up without a fight.
“There was one really important match coming up and Paul hadn’t trained for some time,” Clare says. “The manager came to our house looking for him and Paul said, ‘I’m not going, I’m not taking someone else’s place that has been at every training session, it’s not fair.’ At that stage, I knew there was no point in pushing this on him any further.”
Hughes had a lot of faith in his first MMA coach, Young. He was impressed when he heard that his mentor had once fought the great Jose Aldo, and despite the athleticism he brought into the gym from his decade of training with Lavey GAC, he found the sessions torturous.
Young believed in the former Gaelic football player, and when he told Hughes that he was capable of going “the whole way,” it was like throwing a gallon of fuel on the fire ignited within him.
Eventually, that obsession for his new sport became alienating. As his social circle aspired to life in Belfast for university, Hughes knew college life and making an impact in MMA could not go hand in hand.
Despite friends’ attempts to convince him to follow them, Hughes stayed on his path.
“I used to cycle for an hour to Micky’s on Saturday afternoon, which was for the beginners class and then I’d do the advanced class after,” remembers Hughes.
“I would train for three to four hours and then I would coach for another two hours. Then, I would cycle back. After that I’d be completely shattered, but I’d still go and work in a local bar as a glass lifter for four pounds an hour. That four-hour shift would begin at 10 p.m. and end at 2 a.m., and I would get £16 for it.”
While his close circle slowly dispersed, Hughes was quickly gathering steam in the fight game. Noticing this, Young advised him to seek out his own mentor, one of the founding fathers of Irish MMA, Davie Patterson.
At Pattersons’ EFR gym, the hopeful teenager found his Mecca. Surrounded by celebrated regional fighters like Greg Loughran, Mervyn Mullholland, Ronan McKay, and Tommy McCafferty, the new face on the mats could hardly hide its glee.
“I’m training with real professional fighters,” Hughes would constantly tell himself.
After the amateur titles flooded in, Hughes booked his pro debut in Belfast’s largest arena at BAMMA 28. Then 19, he was set to face an undefeated pro, Adam Gustab, who was seven years his senior.
The ordeal lasted a total of 92 seconds.
Hughes, after dropping his counterpart with a hook, unleashed a barrage of violence that left Gustab slumped against the fence. Media on press row knew they had witnessed something special, and seven years later, it is still considered one of the most spectacular debuts the island has seen.
While his father John and brother Declan had frequented his amateur bouts, Hughes’ mother would wait until the next day to watch his fights, safe in the knowledge that her youngest had made it home from the war. His debut was the first time she had witnessed him fight in the flesh.
“I was scared out of my wits in one respect,” Claire admits. “On the other hand, I was so proud of him, and I think that pride overcame everything. Even when I saw him coming out and I saw him on the big screen, I was thinking, ‘Oh my God, that’s my wee boy there!’”
Noting the short distance of his maiden voyage, and knowing that his mother found it difficult to see him compete, Hughes chose his words carefully.
“Well, at least I didn’t put you through too much!” he told her.
Hughes barely had time to celebrate his spectacular opening stanza before he felt a sharp pain in his left hand. Upon discovering it had broken during his Gustab onslaught, Hughes was told he’d need a few months off before he could get back to fighting. Confident in his return date, he had his second bout booked for five months after his debut.
Then his right hand suffered a break too. Unlike his left, the healing process was a struggle.
Then it broke again. And when it broke a third time, Hughes was told he would never fight again.
“It was absolutely heartbreaking,” says Clare.
“To see him so broken at the time, it was devastating. There were very dark days and it was very tough for him.”
But Hughes found a way to keep the dream alive. “I didn’t care what anyone said, I was going to keep trying to make this work,” he says. “It’s all I wanted to do.”
Hampered by his broken body, he used his extra time to study the fight game.
“His attitude was very impressive, the whole time he was reading books,” says Clare. “He got a lot of belief and positivity from his reading. If he wasn’t fit to train, he was watching the sport. If he wasn’t watching it, he was talking to somebody about it or listening to somebody speak about it. Not just fighters, he would listen to philosophers and people like that too.”
After seeking out hand specialists and spending a year in Australia alongside sister Sarah, two years after the first break, Hughes returned to Ireland and took up permanent residency at the Belfast gym Fight Academy Ireland, under the watchful eyes of Liam Shannon and Pat McAlister.
When he told people he was back, they smiled and nodded to his face, but deep down, they wondered if he was just postponing the agony of another setback.
Upon his return in 2019, Hughes was unleashed. He banked three finishes in six months, two under the Cage Warriors banner — the most established route to the UFC in Europe. A head kick knockout of Youri Panada followed by a submission win over Scottish standout Aidan Stephen firmly established him as a contender for the Cage Warriors featherweight title once held by his hero, Conor McGregor.
Two fights later, Hughes planted his finger in the chest of French sensation Morgan Charriere. Conversations in Ireland fixated on who was the best fighter from the island, Ian Garry or Paul Hughes. With both athletes ascending to prominence largely during the pandemic, Irish crowds hadn’t had an opportunity to see either fighter live until the Charriere bout hit London’s York Hall.
That night in 2021, the British boxing institution was painted green.
Hughes strutted to the cage with the patience of sniper, chorused by the gathering of Gaels who had made the trek across the water. Before had a blow had even been registered, a star was born.
“To be in the crowd that night was unbelievable,” says Clare. “As much as I was petrified, the atmosphere was just phenomenal. I was totally caught up in it, but at the same time I was holding onto John’s arm throughout it and asking, ‘How’s he doing?’ He understands these things a lot better than I do.”
It turns out he did quite well.
After a five-round war, Hughes was announced the victor over Charriere by majority decision and claimed the interim Cage Warriors featherweight title. Calls for his UFC signing became louder, and when he unified the title with a 2022 victory over the only man to defeat him, Cage Warriors champion Jordan Vucenic, they grew deafening.
Few knew, but Hughes had sustained another injury. UFC approached him to be a cast member for The Ultimate Fighter — an opportunity to be coached by his inspiration McGregor — but knowing that injuries cannot be rushed, he turned the offer down. A month later, another UFC call came to step up on short notice against Lerone Murphy, but still nursing the ailment, Hughes couldn’t take the chance.
Eventually the line of communication between UFC and Hughes went dead. With two fights remaining on his Cage Warriors deal, he decided he would fight it out and test free agency. A first-round finish in Dublin over number one lightweight contender Jan Quaeyhaegens capped off a stellar debut at 155 pounds, and while UFC didn’t reignite talks, PFL put an offer on the table. However, Cage Warriors’ contracts are constructed in a way that only allows a fighter to leave if UFC comes calling, so the promotion did not allow it.
Again, Hughes was serenaded by his adoring public during his entrance for his final Cage Warriors outing against Fabiano Silva at Dublin’s RDS. He made no secret that he would be out of contract in the lead up to the fight, signing with Tim Simpson’s Chosen Few Advisory to aid his future negotiations. Another first-round stoppage announced him as the hottest free agent in Irish MMA history, and in the aftermath he underlined his intentions to field all offers.
Interest hit the Emerald Isle from far and wide, but in the end, it came down to PFL and UFC.
Hughes later revealed that he earned a total of €15,000 for his nine Cage Warriors fights, and when it came time to put pen to paper, there was only one deal that made sense.
“The UFC came to the table but their offer wasn’t anywhere near as good as PFL’s, in fact it genuinely was not even close,” Hughes revealed upon signing.
“This was the easiest decision of my life. Of course, there were going to people disappointed that I didn’t sign with the UFC, but at the end of the day, I feel like this is the perfect avenue for me right now. I know PFL value me and they will build me as the star that I am.”
Two months later, Hughes traced the steps of McGregor when he made his PFL debut in Dublin’s 3 Arena. After a conceding an early knockdown, he stopped veteran campaigner Bobby King with a buffet of elbows in the second round.
Hughes promised he would be hunting the biggest names on the PFL roster from then on.
Yet a slow build is the general game plan when it comes to building stars.
It wasn’t until the McKee announcement that people knew Hughes stayed true to his word.
“I’m still not convinced,” replies Dan Hardy, head of PFL fighter operations, when asked if the McKee test is coming too soon for Hughes.
“That’s why we’re all tuning in this weekend, to see if he’s ready for AJ McKee. We have a fighter operations team, and when this came up, I was like, ‘Man, that’s a big jump up for Paul Hughes!’ I know that Paul wants this. I remember him telling me this when we were sat outside Ariel [Helwani]’s show in New York.
“At the moment, that opportunity is right in front of Paul Hughes, if he beats AJ McKee, he’ll put himself right at the top of this division.”
Hughes enjoys doubt.
He’s been dealing with it his entire life, right back to when he started ditching training sessions at Lavey GAC to go and hit pads at Young’s gym. He’s made a habit of turning people into believers, including his own family, and now feels fortified by their support.
“This isn’t just my story, it’s theirs too. This is a journey we went on together,” he says.
He believes he has wasted too much time waiting; waiting on injuries to heal, waiting on offers to cross his table. Days out from his meeting with McKee, it’s a different kind of wait — he’s waiting to show the world that he is one of the best fighters on the planet.
“I truly feel unstoppable at this point,” says Hughes, days out from his ultimate sink-or-swim moment.
“I thought my career was over. I had to build myself back up and I had to find something to get me to where I am today. The person I am today is because of that adversity. When I was in my early twenties, I felt I had overcome more adversity than most fighters do in their whole careers. From then, that mindset has got even better, more obstacles, more calluses on the mind … I’ve seen so much.”
“In a way, I know something that other people don’t. There’s layers to my game that people haven’t seen, and I think it all comes together on Saturday night. I know I’m going to knock him out within two rounds.”
