The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Seán takes up the extreme Wimp2Warrior Challenge
DURING the week, Kildare man Eanna Walsh was a guest on fellow ‘Lily White’ Ray Darcy’s show on RTÉ Radio One.
Walsh was there to highlight Bipolar condition and its associated issues.
As part of his campaign he has signed up to a gruelling six month mixed martial arts regime of fitness and preparation to go from Wimp-to-Warrior.
Towards the end of his radio stint he mentioned the he’d be stepping into the octagon against Kerryman Seán Pembroke.
As it happens, Seán Pembroke is from Farranfore and we spoke over the last few days and he explained what this W2W is all about.
“Wimp2Warrior is the ultimate human experience, created by professional coach Richie Cranny, where people are thrown into a six-month professional MMA fight camp. At the end of the camp, the top newly formed fighters will step into the cage to fight on a W2W promotion,” said Seán by way of explanation of how he got involved.
“This is an exciting platform to help bring MMA into the mainstream, demonstrating that anyone can take part and train in this amazing sport.
“I am the only contestant representing Munster and I’ve been training in SBG Gym in Dublin over the past six months under UFC Featherweight world champion Connor McGregor’s coach, John Kavanagh.
“It is an extensive fight camp where you train in Brazilian Jui Jitsu, Muai Thai and grueling strength and conditioning sessions daily for that term. On August 13th 30 warriors will go head-to-head in the Octagon.
“Last year I travelled to Boston and Las Vegas to watch Conor McGregor fight and when John Kavanagh announced on his twitter page that he was looking for people to participate in the W2W programme I jumped at the chance.
“Well over 200 contestants applied and now we’re down to the remaining 30.
“The competition has attracted contestants from all backgrounds including professional rugby player, Shane ‘Mono’ Monaghan who played for Munster, Leinster, Connacht, Rotherdam and Gloucester.
“He squares off against Andrew ‘Dana White’ Brennan who, together with John Kavanagh made an online video that went viral.
“On August 13th I face my opponent, Kildare man Eanna Walsh who is training to fight in an effort to draw attention to bipolar disorder and give people who suffer in silence a voice,” Seán concluded.