John Kavanagh has said he knew Conor McGregor would "change the game" right from the very start - even though the fighter was initially unimpressed with the man who would orchestrate his success.
Mixed martial arts coach Kavanagh has been with the Dubliner every step of the way, moulding a rough and ready amateur boxer into the biggest name in the UFC.
He came into MMA after being badly beaten up when out one night with his girlfriend, an incident that led him into a sport he would quickly fall in love with - and go on to master.
Having forged a reputation as one of the best coaches in the game, Kavanagh freely admits his quiet demeanour is at odds with such a brutally competitive sport, and revealed even McGregor himself was unsure what to make of his new coach in the early days.
I didn’t think he could just be really good fighter, I actually thought he would change the game.
“He had this image of this big muscle-bound guy and, like he said, I kind of look more like a primary school teacher than someone who teaches guys how to fight!" Kavanagh said when appearing on The Late Late Show.
"He came in, he was decent at boxing, he had trained at Crumlin Boxing Club. Of course the rest of the skills of mixed martial arts he didn’t know yet but it was pretty apparent from the beginning he had something a bit different.
"What you see is what you get. He’s very witty, very funny, he’s charming, sometimes there’s a bit of arrogance, there’s confidence – every class we did was always a lot of fun."
McGregor's success may seem like it exploded overnight, but it was a long, sometimes awkward journey to the top.
The fledgling fighter sometimes lacked focus, but a defining pep talk kept him on the road to success.
“He was a little bit hit and miss with his training," Kavanagh went on. "There was one incident where his mam was a little bit concerned he hadn’t been in the gym in a couple of weeks, maybe even months, and she knew this was his passion, this was what he was really what he was interested in.
"She rang me one day and said, 'can you come up to the house an basically give him a kick up the ass'. I went up, it was a Friday night, we had a heart to heart.
"I said ‘look, I think you can do something really special with this’. I didn’t think he could just be really good fighter, I actually thought he would change the game.
"Sure enough he showed up on the Monday morning and we’ve been very, very close since.
“Me and Conor have been at this for 10, 11 years now. The first five, six years was very very tough. If there’s no financial reward it can be hard to keep motivated.
"The motivation for Conor – it was the same for me – it was the love of the sport."
Defeat to Nate Diaz last March was the first wobble in what had been a glorious ride, but McGregor ironed out that flaw with victory against the American in August after a gruelling five-round slugfest.
I knew he wouldn't see a loss as a reason to quit.
For Kavanagh, the initial loss was a dark cloud with a silver lining.
“Weirdly I was kind of glad that happened under the big spotlight because I wanted people to see what I knew about him," he said.
"I knew he wasn't just about the flash – I knew that there was a character there, a will that had been forged in ten years of training.
"I knew what he would do with that loss; I knew he wouldn't shy away from it; I knew he wouldn't see a loss as a reason to quit.
"He saw it as an opportunity to learn and that’s what we did. We hid away for the last five months, we got our heads down, we corrected the mistakes, we went back in and that fight... that’s probably my favourite fight of all time."
