Ciaran Clarke
Episode 273
22 APR 2024
He is an undefeated professional MMA fighter, currently boasting a 9-0 won-lost record, with his most recent victory having come on March 22nd, winning by way of a third-round submission in a featherweight match, after which he said, “I feel really great in this weight class and please with the help of God we can keep this streak going.” He hails from Dublin, Ireland, and is signed to Bellator MMA. From March 2012 to November 2018, he had 24 fights as an amateur. He had begun his combat sports journey through boxing at age 12 before transitioning to MMA a few years later.
Notable guest quotes:
“It was very much a Catholic household … Every Sunday, obviously, go to Mass and every night we’d say our prayers and again as a young kid, a lot of people think of praying as it’s maybe asking for something or praying for better days. Well, actually when we were young, we were just praying for world peace or maybe there was a trial in someone’s life that we knew, or praying for good health and being thankful, to be honest. It was actually praying to God to be thankful for things and also that was a big thing growing up when we were young.”
“In Ireland… when I was going to school, all the schools were Catholic. You know, we made our first communion, confirmation, that was just, like, it’s a part of our culture and Ireland’s had great faith and still has.”
“When I was growing up, me being the eldest, I kind of had a little bit of a, you know, a bit of responsibility in my own young mind of kind of, I don’t know, like I had this responsibility of like kind of being, I suppose, the man of the house type thing.”
“As I became, you know, definitely as a professional … I would say, you know, the sport that I’m doing, definitely made me grow stronger in my faith.”
“What I pray for is the courage and the strength to get through the training, to stay injury-free, leading up to the fight, go in there healthy, and then for the two of us, the two competitors, which is myself and the other guy I’m competing against, to fight safely and go home to our families, win, lose, or draw.”
“I never (pray), you know, to win, you know, because, of course, you have to submit to God’s Will. And that’s another thing, you know, I’m learning to deal with, you know, but like, I think that has most definitely, you know, my faith has grown massively in that.”
“When you really do put 100% trust in God, you know, you don’t have a lot of anxieties and it definitely relieves it.”
“As we all know, with great faith comes miracles. And I know, you know, what God has done for me, and He’s never let me down.”
“We… always try and, in the area, you know, of the fight, we… always get to Mass that day. And that would be a big thing like, you know, it’s we’ve created that kind of, I suppose, if you want to call it a ritual, you know, pre-fight ritual, you know, we go to Mass that day.”
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