Molly McCann: No More Fear, Just Belief

“I’m experienced now,” McCann said during her interview with UFC.com “I don’t waste too much energy. Keep calm. Train hard. When I make the walk, just stay focused. I think we made such a big thing about the (Madison Square Garden) walk and the Liverpool walk, and if I didn’t learn my lesson, the third time’s the charm.”

If there’s something McCann consistently proved throughout her career, it’s an ability to pick herself up and go again. She ripped off three consecutive wins after her debut loss. Then, when she dropped back-to-back fights, she responded with three performance bonus-winning victories. After a pair of submission losses, she admitted to contemplating retirement. This time, her coach Paul Rimmer helped McCann get back on her feet and requested just one fight at strawweight. She responded well once again, snatching the first submission of her career. 

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Putting a low chapter to bed, McCann couldn’t help but let the emotions flow in the UFC APEX, and you just knew the matchmakers were planning to have “Meatball” compete in Manchester. 

As she nears her bout with Bruna Brasil, McCann is reinvigorated. After successfully making the strawweight limit, McCann was able to build on her newly constructed body, adding some lean muscle and growing in her understanding of where she fits in as a 115er.

“I feel like all the fear left,” she said. “It’s like I’ve started again in the UFC. No one ever gets a second chance, but I feel like I’ve started school again or maybe it’s a new course and it’s more suited for me. It’s just given me more belief that I can kind of take it wherever I want to take it, and as much as I’m willing to give, the top and bottom of it, if you work hard in every single asset of mixed martial arts and combat sports, nutrition and performance, you can make it to the top as long as you’re willing to do that.”

McCann was able to relive that critical point of her career when the BBC decided to document her and Paddy “The Baddy” Pimblett’s lives for a few months. The eight-part documentary series, Paddy & Molly: Show No Mersey, covers the teammates and friends from Pimblett’s bout with Tony Ferguson at UFC 296 to the months following McCann’s most-recent win. 

Although she called that stretch of time the “hardest four months” of her life due to the stress of dropping down a weight class while also accommodating the camera crew and everything else that entails, she was grateful to see her journey out there in the world. From the lessons she learned during that period of time to the ones she gleaned from watching the finished product, McCann says the experience was “a big blessing.”

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“I didn’t realize how vulnerable I am,” McCann said of her reaction to the show. “I realized how sometimes, being vulnerable around the wrong environment or people isn’t okay. I realized that, and then changed that. I grew so much through that experience that I probably never really been proud of myself like what I am now as a whole person. Where it would normally rely on if I had a great performance, so, ‘I’m proud of that performance.’ I can look in the mirror now and go, ‘F***ing hell, did I do all of that stuff? Oh my gosh.’ I’m happy with where I’m at in my life and who I am.”

With that attitude in tow, she faces Brasil, who beat McCann’s friend Shauna Bannon at UFC Fight Night: Aspinall vs Tybura. After that result, McCann expressed interest in facing Brasil and was happy to get the call about the matchup. 

Brasil is McCann’s sixth Brazilian opponent in 12 fights, and she can’t help but carry admiration for the fighters she faced from the country’s decorated MMA culture and goes so far as to say they are “built like scousers” because of their “passion, pride and flair.”

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On fight night, all that goes by the wayside, though. McCann envisions herself keeping Brasil on the back foot, answering any and all questions she might ask of her skills. McCann muses about wrapping up a rear-naked choke in the first round (it should be noted that Robertson submitted McCann with the same technique in Liverpool), but she is ready for the full 15 minutes. 

Regardless, McCann knows the crowd is going to back her, and she also knows she doesn’t need to do anything other than a high-level performance when Octagon door closes. She has gone through the ringer to get back to this opportunity in Northern England, and that is why she can make the walk without fear, without expectation, with nothing other than peace, focus and healthy intensity.