A tale of two Irish underdogs at UFC Paris

When UFC docked in Belfast in late 2016, the mixed-martial-arts community in Northern Ireland were disgruntled by the lack of regional representation that featured on the card.

"You could have been visiting Belfast last weekend and you wouldn't have known there was a UFC event on," said future Cage Warriors lightweight champion Joe McColgan, at the time.

"I work in Belfast and I saw no advertising for the event in town. There was no chat about it. No one was interested in it locally. It was just really flat."

Seven years later, it’s two charges from north of the border that have the island’s eye fixed on Paris tonight as Ballymena’s Rhys McKee makes his long awaited return to the Octagon and an up-start from Tyrone, Caolan Loughran, faces his first walk under the UFC banner.

Despite being the same age and sharing a last port of call in Cage Warriors championship belts, the fighting Irish had two different roads to UFC Paris.

Loughran enters the league for the first time with an unblemished record of 8-0 and is adamant it is only a matter of time before he becomes the new face of Irish MMA.

McKee, on the other hand, knows there is no room for error in his second run with the organisation.

The fight game already ripped his heart out and forced him to piece it back together as the European scene cast a sceptical eye on his chances of being granted a second, and deserved, opportunity with the promotion.

They did McKee dirty. His first UFC fight was accepted on six days’ notice.

His opponent, Khamzat Chimaev, was a phenom the likes of which had never been seen and looked ready to join the title fray on his arrival to the promotion. His reward for suffering defeat to an immovable object with less than a week’s preparation? A tenured