​Throwback Thursday: Conor McGregor's Last Defeat

This story originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

Conor McGregor is counting down the days. On 12 December the Irishman will fight Jose Aldo at the MGM Grand hoping to become undisputed UFC Featherweight champion. If he succeeds the word 'interim' will no longer spoil the title that follows; should he lose… McGregor hasn't really left room for that possibility in the public imagination.

To the watching world McGregor the UFC fighter seems invincible; he should, having won all of his bouts in the promotion (though this amounts to just six).

But he does not possess a perfect professional record, having twice been defeated in his early days competing in his native Ireland. Five years ago this week the Dubliner suffered the second and to date last of those defeats.

McGregor's rise to the top – perhaps interwoven with a certain amount of myth – began when the one-time plumbing apprentice walked away from a job on a building site to commit to MMA. He won his first two fights as a pro, but in June 2008 McGregor lost to Artemij Sitenkov (a fight that took place before no more than 100 spectators and was captured in wobbly cameraphone footage).

Two more wins followed before he faced Joseph Duffy, a fellow Irishman from Donegal (though having spent his childhood in South Wales, Duffy speaks with a hybrid Welsh-Irish accent). It took place in a bout for Cage Warriors, a British MMA promotion, on 27 November 2010.

Footage of the fight feels like it has come from a different era. McGregor is clean shaven, no wild-eyed king gorilla tattoo glowering at you from his chest. Perhaps less noticeable but nevertheless relevant is the fact he fought as a lightweight, but has since switched to featherweight. And, most striking of all, he is beaten. But it is unmistakably McGregor. The fighting stance and the bouncy spring to his step are still there today.

The fight lasts little over half a minute. After the bell, Duffy looks to put McGregor on the ground almost from the word go. McGregor unleashes a flurry of blows, even cutting Duffy above the eye, but the Donegal man drops to the floor and takes out McGregor's legs. He quickly has his opponent in an arm triangle and it's not long before Conor taps out. The referee leaps in to stop things with only 38 seconds having passed.

To those whose knowledge of McGregor extends to his six UFC fights, watching him rise gingerly from defeat is something alien. There is very little of the bombastic, near caricature of a professional fighter that McGregor now presents to the world. He is noticeably more human, more the guy who walked away from the building site than the MMA star he dreamed he'd become.

He takes it well, congratulating Duffy and sharing a few words with his coach, John Kavanagh, who looks as though he knows something McGregor doesn't about what has just happened.

Perhaps it was that McGregor would not be lured into the same kind of easy defeat again. Duffy was clearly willing to eat some significant blows from McGregor if it meant putting his opponent on the ground. It worked. McGregor was beaten and presumably learned something that he has carried forward. He fought two more fights early the next year, winning both in the first round (his victory over Mike Wood in March 2011 took just 16 seconds). His winning streak now stands at 14 fights.

Duffy has also progressed in MMA, albeit not as far as the man he beat five years ago. He has contested two UFC fights to date, winning both, and in January next year he will take on Dustin Poirier (who McGregor defeated last September) at UFC 195. Unsurprisingly, he fields many questions about his fellow countryman. McGregor has even suggested a re-match – remarking "I would KO him stiff" –which does not faze his former opponent.

"I believe I can take Conor out just as quickly [as last time]," Duffy said earlier this year. "Everyone else has noticed Conor has greatly improved, and so am I. Everything Conor does, I feel can beat him at, he uses more kicks. I've been doing taekwondo since I was five. There's not an area I feel he can beat me."

"At the end of the day my job isn't to talk, my job is to fight," said Duffy. "He can talk all he wants."

And no doubt he will.

Duffy's presence in the UFC must be something of a spectre for McGregor, and it would be no surprise if he really did want a re-match to banish that ghost for good. Defeat in combat sports – particularly at the very top of the game, where fights are so infrequent – can seem almost taboo. At worst, they are viewed as the dismantling of a fighter's reputation, stripping away the vital invincibility that a champion must possess.

But a few defeats, especially those suffered early in a career, can be a vital weapon in a fighter's armoury. Leaving aside the self-reflection and education that comes from losing, there is a psychological plus that McGregor would surely utilise if he did fall to Aldo. If he loses again, it will not be the same earth-shattering jolt as the first defeat inevitably is, whenever it comes. He will be able to say – truthfully – that he has lost before and come back stronger, and that he can do exactly the same again.

In contrast, Ronda Rousey's introduction to defeat at the professional level was dramatically public and led to an at times difficult to watch trial and execution by press and social media. To lose for the first time on such a huge stage must be debilitating for even the strongest of fighters. They are, after all, human; they just don't realise it until the referee is raising the other fighter's arm.