The taxi driver pulls up outside the Ten Square hotel in Belfast on a dreary November day, and the destination is the Midland Amateur Boxing Club in Tigers Bay.
Minutes into the journey and it is obvious there is no disguising the motives of my visit.
"You must be doing something on Carl Frampton," he surmises as we make our way to the place where the former two-weight world champion first learned his craft as a boxer.
I take some mild, if perhaps, unqualified offence at him not assuming that I'm a boxer on the way to training, but that soon gives way to intrigue when he informs me that he knows the man I'm here to learn more about.
He talks about how tensions have softened in the streets as we meander through the roads, and briefly mentions the history of riots before pointing to a location where a friend of Frampton's was killed in a pipe bomb explosion. Frampton's home, which is a short walk from Midland ABC, sits just one street away from one of the peace lines in the city.
He managed to escape the civil strife that surrounded him, but these are the streets that moulded 'The Jackal'.
A mural of Frampton greets us as we arrive at the boxing club, just as dusk begins to set in.
Two men are busying themselves in the equipment area of the gym. Billy McKee and Cooper McClure are long-serving coaches in the club and were Frampton's first mentors when his mother Flo brought him down as a seven-year-old boy.
They treat me to a guided tour and reminisce about some of the memorabilia displayed around the gym, including a framed photo of the famous Joe Frazier from the time when he visited the premises.
Unsurprisingly they're happy to wax lyrical about Frampton's formative days as a boxer and his deserved accomplishments on the world stage.
But inside these walls, the local boy's status is forgotten about.
"He still comes down to the club and he gets treated just the same," McKee explains with a grin to RTÉ Sport.
"I could have strangled him a couple of times, but in a good way"
"You come through them doors, you're not a world champion. You're Carl Frampton and that's it."
McClure, who was still a boxer when Frampton first came on the scene, adds: "He used to do my head in. He tortured me and he was a cheeky wee chappy, he always had something to say. I could have strangled him a couple of times, but in a good way.
"He used to wind me up if I got beat. I used to say to him that I'd be ringside when he had his first senior fight and didn't the wee lad go on and bloody win the world title."
At only seven years of age, it may have been too soon to envisage world titles for the young fighter but his ability was obvious from the outset.
He thrived in the training drills and despite his small frame, he embraced the challenge of sparring against the bigger boys in the club. Even a few local lads who were bullying him at school soon discovered that their intimidation tactics on the street weren't going to cut it against Frampton in the ring.
"When he was eight years old, you could see he had ability," McKee recalls.
"I remember saying to a fella who's a coach in this club - and it was him who reminded me that I said - he's the best kid that I've had in this club in 20 years. That's when he was seven-and-a-half.
"He was starting to spar in the ring and he had co-ordination but most of all he had a big heart. If I told him he was going to spar somebody, he didn't ask how many fights he had or what age he was or anything else.
"He did spar a couple of boys who were bullying him outside and that happened to join the club, but they didn't last long."
McClure adds: "Once Carl got into the ring, he was a different person."
"I never remember a time when I had to tell him to train. There's kids who'd hide behind bags or slack on their skipping and stuff, but never once did I have to say to him, 'I wonder would you train?' It might have been the other way around, where I might have to tell him to calm down or slow down a wee bit."
Frampton went on to become a two-time Irish Elite champion during his amateur career. He won senior titles at fly-weight in 2005, before defeating Rio Olympian David Oliver Joyce for the featherweight strap in 2009. He was also a European silver medalist in 2007.
In addition to his boxing skills, he was a gifted footballer and McClure even has a video of the Tigers Bay boy scoring a goal from the halfway line. He tried to fish out the footage for Frampton recently, but can't seem to find it now.
"I told him I'd never throw it out and I don't know what I've done with it," he sighs.
Frampton dropped out of football to focus exclusively on boxing at around 15, but there were periods of stagnation in his sporting life. In a BBC television interview, 'The Jackal' admitted that between the ages of 16 and 17 'were probably my worst years when I was messing about doing a bit of drinking and chasing the girls'.
His father Craig was a coach at Midland ABC, but McClure and McKee say they were the ones who put an end to that stretch of indiscipline.
"There were a few occasions," according to McClure, "where we had to rein it right in.
"Do you not think David Oliver Joyce is out there running at six in the morning and you're not in bed until half 10?"
"I do believe he knows now that when he was going through that period that he wasn't really putting the training in. There was a few times we had to shout at him, myself and Billy, because Craig would be a bit laid back sometimes.
"It was up to the likes of Billy and me to grab him and tell him, 'Do you not think David Oliver Joyce is out there running at six in the morning and you're not in bed until half 10?' I think now he realises that you can't cut corners and that's why he's done so well."
McKee suspects that this troublesome period may have lasted longer than Frampton described, but stresses that he was well informed every time the talented teenager strayed out of line.
"I remember it well and I don't miss it. But Carl didn't overdo it, I can assure you, because every time he had a drink, I knew about it."
"The times when he was doing things wrong would annoy me, but there's a time to use the strong arm and there's times and it's just like your own family, you've got to pull back. I am strict but strict in the fact that I want all the kids (from the club) to learn that they can better themselves."
Frampton decided to turn professional in 2009, and linked up with the McGuigan family and Cyclone Promotions as part of the transition out of the amateur ranks. Although Frampton had to leave Midland ABC behind, McKee has continued to be a close ally for him in the years that followed.
He helped negotiate a professional deal for Frampton, and has never missed any of his fights, including the occasions where he collected the IBF and WBA super-bantamweight titles, as well as the WBA featherweight crown where he became a two-weight world champion.
McKee's loyalty was rewarded when Frampton invited him to the ceremony where he was presented with an MBE (Member of British Empire) medal last year for his services to boxing.
His former coach was honoured to be asked along, but having been awarded the BME (British Empire Medal) in 2014, he was heading back into a familiar environment.
"I was seeing Lizzy for the second time," he laughs.
"He (Frampton) phoned me up and said he wanted me to come. It shows the respect he has for you. We went over and had a good time.
"It was special. There's not too many who have them where I live. I got mine for sport, the same as Carl so this wee club hasn't done too bad."
Frampton is about to embark on another chapter of his boxing career this weekend. Having cut ties with the McGuigans and appointed Jamie Moore as his new trainer, 'The Jackal' returns to the ring in Belfast's SSE Odyssey Arena to face Mexican Horacio Garcia.
The cancellation of a fight against Andres Gutierrez during the summer means that this will be Frampton's first competitive bout since relinquishing his WBA featherweight belt in a rematch against Leo Santa Cruz in March of this year.
McKee knows that Frampton has his own reasons for the changes he's made but that aspect of his life is something that the former mentor never asks about whenever the two meet.
Just as he was there for him during the amateur days, McKee continues to be a pillar of support for Frampton as he faces new challenges.
"Obviously, he's beginning to think that he needs to spend more time at home because he spent a lot of time in England. Maybe that was part of it.
"I talk to him as a person and don't ask him anything about it. All I say to him is, 'how's the training going and how's your weight?' I always did say it to him anyway.
"Outside of that, I'll ask him about his kids and his wife Christine. I couldn't even tell you how much he's earned from his first fight to now because it's none of my business."
"He knows where I am if he needs me. Whether I'm able to give him advice or not is a different kettle of fish.
"This is a no-win fight for him because everybody expects him to win. If he wins easy, people will he didn't box anybody of any significance. If it goes (on) longer, they'll say he's lost a bit.
"But this is a fight that he needs because he's too long out of the boxing and there'll be a good crowd."
He may be a long time out of Midland Boxing Club, but they still have The Jackal's best interests at heart.
