Looking back, John Kavanagh will admit his first attempts at marketing a mixed martial arts gym to the general public were rather poor.
As owner and head coach of Straight Blast Gym Ireland in Dublin, Kavanagh oversees one of the most successful MMA teams in the world today -- but it took him more than a decade to build real, financial stability as a gym owner.
As most gym owners will tell you, it's usually not a pro team that pays your bills. It's the 30-year-old dentist who always pays his fees on time. It's the middle-aged accountant who signs up herself and brings her kids to the children's program.
Those are the types of clients an MMA gym can live on. But as Kavanagh recalls, reaching those clients in the beginning can be difficult.
"Anybody who trains pro fighters will tell you, there's no money in it," Kavanagh said. "You get the very odd spark -- a fighter who signs a UFC or Bellator contract and makes a bit of money -- but the majority of owners don't get that. If that's the reason you're doing it, you're going to go broke.
"I used to make the very typical error of using images of my pros to market the gym. It's very tempting. You put up images of a 22-year-old covered in blood, wearing a belt and say, 'Great, the gym's gonna be packed on Monday.' But think about who that speaks to. Guys would walk in with all the energy in the world and you tell them, 'OK, here are the fees.' They say, 'I don't have a job, but I want to be a pro fighter.' And then you say, 'F---! Alright, there's a mat you can clean until you make some money."
A few years ago, Kavanagh was introduced to an MMA program that targets true beginners, called Wimp 2 Warrior. It puts people with zero MMA experience through 22 full weeks of training, then pairs them up in real amateur bouts at the end of the season.
Richie Cranny, the founder of Wimp 2 Warrior, initially reached out to Kavanagh. A longtime gym owner himself, he understands the challenge of appealing to a general public. When Cranny opened a gym in Sydney in 2008, anti-MMA protesters gathered in his parking lot during the grand opening.
Cranny founded Wimp 2 Warrior in 2012, really as a way for non-fighters to experience a fight. He's watched a young woman finish the program and convince her grandmother to enroll in the following season. He's watched it change attitudes and negative perceptions of MMA in Australia, where the sport has not always been welcomed with open arms.
The program is still very much in a growth phase, but lately it's been growing fast. Cranny estimates about 2,000 have completed it to date. Another 2,000 will do so in 2018.
"You watch your favorite footballer and want to emulate him in the park on the weekend, but you don't see that same type of crossover in MMA," Cranny said. "People just can't imagine themselves doing that. This program gives them a taste of the life of an MMA fighter for 22 weeks."
Kavanagh says the primary reason he agreed to run the program out of SBG Ireland is it's reminded him of why he started coaching in the first place. As the head coach of Conor McGregor, Kavanagh has reached the pinnacle of professional coaching, but he says he doesn't even know how much longer he'll do it.
"It's a tough industry, and things go on that you're not too happy about," Kavanagh said. "I don't know how much longer I'll be as deeply involved in that, but training moms, dads, uncles, kids -- that's forever. All the coaches of this program get a massive kick out of torturing people for 22 weeks, and at the end those people are coming to you with tears in their eyes. They are so thankful. Most of them do end up joining my gym, but more importantly, they've found a new lease on life."
Kavanagh is now an active stakeholder in Wimp 2 Warrior. In the last year, the program has partnered with a handful of other high-profile MMA gyms including Tristar MMA in Montreal, Longo and Weidman MMA on Long Island, New York, and Syndicate MMA in Las Vegas, among others. Cranny estimates the program will be in 35 gyms by the end of the year.
Not every location Cranny has met with has agreed to partner up, and there's still a lot of work to be done before Wimp 2 Warrior is a household name.
But it's a unique program for a sport that offers unique challenges. As much mainstream acceptance as MMA has garnered in the last decade, it's still an intimidating sport to become involved in and still faces plenty of negative perceptions.
"If we're killing it, then we're getting more people to spend money in the broader MMA ecosystem," said Nick Langton, Wimp 2 Warrior's CEO. "That means young fighters can pick up more income from coaching, because more people are coming into the gym.
"From our perspective, it's gratifying to win over consumers who just a few years ago may have thought this was barbaric."