In mixed martial arts, bouts are often decided by the finest margins. In Paddy’s case, the knife edge was made all the keener by Factor XIII deficiency, a vanishingly rare form of haemophilia he had spent years hiding from the sport s authorities. For the duration of his career, he was never more than one misplaced strike away from death.
Why enter the octagon knowing you might never leave? For Holohan, it would take a journey to the summit of his sport, and a high-profile fall from grace, to unravel the answer to that question and, with it, finally find some measure of redemption. This is his story.