WITH a name like Connor McGregor, who could fail to become a fighter? Well, Lee McGregor’s older brother, that’s who. It wasn’t so long ago that Connor was the aspiring boxing champion and Lee was set upon being a footballer, but these two brothers – 14 months apart from a Saughton housing scheme – have traded places. Now it is Connor who is progressing nicely through the ranks at Lothian Thistle, and little Lee, a former pro youth player at Livingston, who will be able to call himself a world boxing champion of sorts if he can outlast Goodluck Mrema of Tanzania to claim the IBF world youth title on the undercard of the Josh Taylor-Viktor Postol fight at the SSE Hydro on Saturday.
“I have an older brother who used to box and he used to beat me up,” says McGregor. “He was the boxer back in the day and I was the footballer. He was a really good fighter and I was at Livingston as a pro youth. It’s mad because now we’ve swapped roles - he’s playing for Lothian Thistle and I’m the boxer. And he doesn’t beat me up any more!
“So it turned out I was meant to be the boxer and he was meant to be the footballer,” he added. “He’s a good player and I think he could be at a higher level. It was just that I has more discipline in terms of the training. I had that hunger as well. There is only 14 months us but it’s a big different when you’re 12 or 13. He was always heavier and stronger than me.
“He would get the better of me but there’s no quit in me. it got to the point he’d need to stop. Eventually they wouldn’t let us spar because it was getting too heated. But I can’t thank him enough. We have this great bond, he’s at every one of my fights and in the changing room with me. He keeps me right. It’s made us who we are.”
“It’s weird, there’s bee a lot of heartache in my family and I believe things happen for a reason. We lost my granddad in 2013 and not long after that my brother got knocked out in the ring, and it was horrible to see. But ever since he got knocked out the football took over and my boxing career took off- it was almost like my granddad was around to guide us. We’ve lost my mum, my other granddad and cousins, but now we are bringing babies in to the family. Things happen for a reason, to lift you from the heartache.”
In his three fights to date, Lee has never gone beyond two rounds, but he is a young man in a hurry who, not content with fighting for a title in only his fourth ever outing, claims he would fight for the British title in his next contest if Cyclone Promotions would let him. “That’s what the public want to see,” he said. “They don’t want to see us beating up journeymen for 10 or 12 fights. It was the same with Josh when he fought for the Commonwealth title in his seventh fight. I want to do the same. I want the British title - I’d take it in my next fight if we can get it.”
McGregor is a childhood pal of Jason Cummings, the Notts Forest striker on-loan at Rangers last season, who has been linked with a permanent move this summer. “He’ll be at the fight,” said McGregor. “I put him through a session with me the other week. Fair play, he did well and got through it. But he said, “I take my hat off you you boxers!’He’d love to go back to Rangers but I don’t know if Forrest are wanting too much for him. We’ll see.”
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