Cormac Healy

CORMAC HEALY [Voice memo. Transcribed. McCready's iPhone, recorded approximately 22:40 on a Wednesday in Glasgow, parked car running on Tollcross Road outside the gym he trains at, slow drizzle on the windscreen.] ———————————————— [0:00 — engine idling, indicator clicking, McCready clears his throat] McCREADY: Right. Cormac Healy. [brief pause] McCREADY: That's the boy I'm fightin' Saturday. [longer pause — sounds like he's checking the mirrors before pulling out] McCREADY: Right, so the federation's given us a card position. The card position's seven. Seven's the one before the main event. That's no' bad for a man wae my record. That's no' bad for a man wae his record either. Federation seems tae understand we're both worth puttin' someone in front of, just the someone in this case is each other. McCREADY: I'm no' insulted. I'm sayin' the federation read the room. [0:42 — sound of indicator, car pulling out, light traffic noise] McCREADY: I've ken Cormac for — fuck, what, six years? Seven? We had a programme on the same Cardiff card in 2019. He went on third. I went on fourth. We didnae share a dressing room. I shared a dressing room wae a Cornish lad I cannae remember the name of and a girl whose name I do remember but I'm no' sayin' on the record. Cormac was in a dressing room across the hall wae a referee and one of the lighting boys. That's how Cardiff did it that year. Anyway. McCREADY: We had a drink after. Him and me and the referee, who'd been in the room and didnae have any cunt tae go home to. Cormac drinks Guinness. He drinks Guinness slowly. I respect a man that takes a Guinness at the right pace. There's a kind a man who tries tae hammer one and you can see the foam runnin' down his beard and ye think — naw. This is no' a Guinness man. Cormac's a Guinness man. McCREADY: That's what I know about him in a personal sense. [0:48 — brief pause, sounds of windscreen wipers] McCREADY: In the cage. I've been watchin' tape. BCD 5 — he lost tae Kuramoto. Boston Crab finish. Kuramoto's a serious cunt and a Boston Crab from a man wae twenty-three years in is no' a finish ye argue wae. Cormac did fine. He didnae give up. He came out under his own power. BCD 6 — he lost tae Pagan DuHast. Pagan DuHast is the federation's monster. The crowd applauded him on the way out. I watched that bit twice. The crowd doesnae applaud ye for losin'. The crowd applauds ye for the way ye lose. McCREADY: That's the thing about Cormac. He loses correctly. McCREADY: I lose correctly too, by the way. That's what we have in common, him and me. We're two boys who lose correctly. Federation's askin' which of us can win correctly. [2:11 — long pause, sound of stopping at a light] McCREADY: Now. The auld cunt on commentary. Graves. The English one — the one wae the suit. He said somethin' on the broadcast last week. He said the federation should — and I'm quotin' from memory here — "consider Mr Healy's next assignment wae the care his last three did not receive." That's what he said. I listened tae it three times. McCREADY: I want tae be clear. I'm no' the man Graves had in mind when he said that. Graves wants Cormac handed a soft opponent. I'm no' a soft opponent. I'm 0-3 because I've fought hard cunts and they've been a wee bit better than me, no' because I'm no' a fighter. The federation knows that. Mr Barr knows that. The card position knows that. Graves can want what he wants. The federation gave Cormac me. That's the answer he got. McCREADY: Cormac and I are gonnae have a fight on Saturday and one a us is gonnae walk out at 1-3 and the other's gonnae walk out at 0-4 or 0-5 dependin' on how ye're countin'. There's no soft anything in that. There's no care in that. There's a fight. McCREADY: I'm gonnae knock him out. I'm gonnae shake his hand. We're gonnae have a drink. He's gonnae take it slow. That's what's gonnae happen. [3:55 — sound of indicator, slow turn, residential street noise] McCREADY: One more thing. McCREADY: I don't team. I'm no' lookin' for a partner. The federation's got the tag belts sat in a glass case waitin' on someone tae fill it and they're gonnae be waitin' a long while where I'm concerned. Anyone wantin' tae know why can look up the Solihull card from October 2019. The rest of ye can do without the story. Cormac's a fighter I respect and I'll fight him on Saturday and I'll buy him a Guinness after and that's the end of the relationship. The tag belt's a different conversation that I'm no' havin'. McCREADY: That's the memo. [4:21 — McCready clears his throat. Sound of car pulling into a driveway. Engine off. Door opening.] [End recording.]