“I was training with the lads for them fights,” Crosbie recalls. “We went away for a camp in Iceland. Me, Conor, Paddy (Holohan), Cathal Pendred, James Gallagher, there was a few of us that went over, and we knuckled down for about six, eight weeks over there. And I was only an amateur at the time, but I was aspiring to be a professional and aspiring to be in the UFC. And me and Conor would have deep talks about sticking to your goals, working hard, keep doing what you’re doing, keep showing up, and just keep improving. And eventually it’ll be inevitable if you show up.”
Crosbie kept showing up. He turned pro in 2016, ran off four finishes, and when the UFC didn’t make a phone call, he had some tough decisions to make.
“Back then, I was broke as f**k,” he said. “I had no money. And my daughter was getting a bit older and stuff, and when I turned professional, I got to 4-0 and I got that shot in Bellator, and it was more of desperation that I took that contract because I was so poor. I had no money, and I couldn’t feed the family. I couldn’t pay the bills. And I was like, s**t, man, I don’t know what to do here. I was in limbo. I’m on the social welfare, I’m getting 144 Euros a week. I’m trying to train, I’m trying to feed the family. It was close to impossible and my mother is giving me money for petrol to get to the gym. I literally had no money coming in. And when that came, out of desperation, I jumped on it and I was like, you know what? I’ve got to take the money here. The dream is always the UFC, but the goal is to take care of my family. My family always comes first. That’s the way I look at it as a man, I have to take care of my kids. And the way I took it back then, I was like, I have to put my dream on the sidelines for a minute here and feed the family. So that’s kind of where the route was a little bit different for me. And the path was a little bit longer.”
