Talk us through the swim, I suppose, first.

Well, you know me, Mickey.

There's always a bit of a drama with me.

And actually, the drama for me started a couple of weeks before that because I started building up to Op Days.

I had done a couple of other events.

So I did Harbourman, the national championships in Wicklow.

Um, and then that, that was probably about five weeks beforehand.

Was there maybe cyclists maybe more around my caliber, maybe sort of middle of the pack, sort of Joe Bloggs average kind of cyclists that were maybe using different tactics and weaving? Was there boys going backwards and forwards and, you know, going up the hill? Or was it, it wasn't that steep at these points?

You're here and you, you don't get paid by the round in there.

I don't want rounds.

I get enough rounds in sparring.

Anyone that wants rounds, I don't know, they're crazy.

Like, if you can get them out of there and do what you have to do, and people want to see knockouts.

They don't want to see boring points decisions.

But my, my style's very unique.

What would your view be on that?

You must have been given some good assurances that this is the right way for you to go and build your career and get the right opponents and get the biggest fights and earn the biggest cash and get the best belts.

Definitely.

We couldn't be in a better place.

Zuffa Boxing, uh, Dana White, Nick Khan in control of it.

Uh, we're gonna get the fights that we want.

You know, if we want the best fights, Zuffa Boxing's gonna provide them for us.

So we're in the best place in boxing right now at the moment, and, uh, you know, we're just excited to be a part of the whole Zuffa.

[laughs]

I guess for a new generation in the middleweight division.

Yeah.

There's a lot of middleweights fighting on the card.

So it's, um, it's gonna be one of them nights, probably the best night in Irish boxing history [laughs] in my eyes.

You look at the whole card from top to bottom, all 50/50 fights, and that's what people want to see in boxing.

Sky Sports and Superboxing are delivering it.

It's gonna be one of the, the best nights you'll watch, so you, you don't wanna miss this.

'Cause I would say you're well-known in, in boxing, but do you feel you haven't kind of got that more general recognition yet?

Yous do get downtime and even in that downtime, I suppose, you're always on the toes, you're always primed to go, but you have to relax as well.

Definitely.

We always have time outside of boxing.

We go to all the football games.

We go over to a local pub in Newtown Butler and we throw darts in all the darts tournaments.

We play pool with all our friends.

We get out and about and mix amongst others when we're not in boxing.

It makes it very interesting then obviously when you two then go into the ring I suppose and face up against each other because if you're both the same you're learning nothing I would argue because you're both trying to do the same thing knock each other out as quick as possible so by going in Aaron's learning how to deal with an opponent that wants to do that and on the flip side of it then you're learning from an opponent that's here that's measuring you up shaping you up and it's coming in and going out and you have to time it

... running and ultra running.

Well, when I was, when I was younger, I say when I was younger, I still do snowboard, um, but back in the, what, early 2010s, I blew my ACL when I was snowboarding.

Completely ruptured it, there was nothing left, and at the time, I had to get my ACL reconstructed so I could get back snowboarding.

Um, it's something that I do as a hobby.

Off the back of that I would also take a lot of freelance photos and ended up getting a nice wee gig with the ski resorts up north and VisitScotland where I would go off every winter, take PR photos for them, and basically just get to bum about the mountains at the weekend.

So I had to get my ACL reconstructed in 2012, and the, the goal for me at the time was just to get back on my snowboard, just to get as fit as possible, get that knee strengthened back up, and get back out there into the mountains.

Um, so for the first 12 weeks, it was just kinda doing stretching, getting some mobility back into the, the knee, and then after 12 weeks, the physio said, "Right, what we want you to do is start running, and just do it nice and gentle." And all, it was all controlled.

When did sub-24 come into your head?