WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO

IHADN’T heard of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) until six years ago. I grew up playing football and later moved into coaching and full-time teaching. A friend invited me to a gym class he said was called UFC. I found I was really good at it.

The class was actually Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I started training and competing. I then began doing some boxing and Muay Thai, bringing it all together in what is known as Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) which combines disciplines such as boxing, kick-boxing, karate, jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, wrestling and judo. UFC is the world’s largest and highest level MMA organisation, the premier league of the sport. I fight in the light heavyweight division.

People talk about what we do as “cage fighting” but they don’t realise how much discipline is involved. We don’t refer to [the arena] as “a cage”, we refer to it as the Octagon. The main reason for the shape and structure is down to safety.

The feeling when you step into the Octagon is indescribable. You have 15,000 people shouting your name, some may be booing. It is 15 minutes where anything can happen. When you are winning everything feels good, but sometimes you need to know where you are going wrong and mentally I wasn’t in the right place when I went to Las Vegas to fight Tyson Pedro [in March]. I had won eight as an amateur [and nine as a professional], so I was 17 fights unbeaten. No one had beaten me. That loss took ages to get over.

Picking yourself up afterwards, that is what makes you a champion. We deal in milliseconds. Half a second one way and you look like a superstar because you’ve dodged a punch, half a second the other way and you look like a fool because you’ve been knocked out.

My nickname is the Bearjew. Everyone wants to know why I’m called that, but it is a secret among the Scottish Hit Squad [MMA club] where I train in Coatbridge. Our gym motto is hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.

People automatically typecast and think: ‘He’s fighting so he must not be intelligent or come from a good family …’ But that’s far from the truth. We have lawyers, engineers and doctors who train in MMA.

I played football for years and I had dislocated shoulders and broke my wrist. I’m safer in this sport than football. I have torn ligaments in

my ankle and chipped a bone in my knuckle, but that is pretty much it.

I’m a massive James Bond fan. Everyone always says that Sean Connery is their favourite Bond, but Daniel Craig is mine because the way he portrays him is probably closest to the books.

I hear they are looking for a new Bond but I’m too big, hairy and ugly. I would love to be a James Bond villain. I could be a henchman, snarling with my big bushy beard. Paul Craig is at UFC Fight Night: Nelson vs Ponzinibbio at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow on July 16. Visit ticketmaster.co.uk