UFC welterweight contender Neil Magny discusses uncharacteristic call-out and making good on his pledge to help Presley O’Doherty’s family ensure their daughter gets the medical care she needs.

Neil Magny made good on a pair of promises stemming from his participation at UFC Liverpool last month.

First, the criminally underrated welterweight marched into the Octagon and made quick work of Craig White, finishing the late call-up from Cage Warriors in the waning moments of the opening round.

Then, he joined his former wrestling coach Leister Bowling in making the journey to Omaha, Nebraska to meet Presley O’Doherty, the young girl whose family Magny pledged to help if the UFC found him an opponent.

In between, the mild-mannered former Ultimate Fighter contestant even managed to use a curse word on live television while calling out Kamaru Usman.

“I see the position the division is in and closed mouths don’t get fed,” Magny said regarding his decision to emphatically challenge Usman, who currently sits two spot ahead of him in the welterweight rankings. “I’ve been quiet in the division for so long and relying on my actions speaking louder than my words, but at the end of the day, if I don’t ask for something, I can’t be upset if I don’t get it.

“So I went out there, fought a great fight and asked the UFC to schedule a fight right away between me and Usman. Hopefully, they’re able to make it happen.”

Employing a “squeaky wheel gets the grease” approach was only part of the reason for Magny using his time on the microphone to issue a challenge to Usman and do so using uncharacteristically salty language for the soft-spoken standout who is 13-3 over his last 16 fights.

It was also a chance for Magny to release some pent-up frustration that accumulated last year when he was sitting on the sidelines, dealing with a career-threatening neck injury while seemingly every ascending welterweight lobbied to share the cage with him.

Once he got healthy, most of those vocal challengers went quiet and the few that still had an interest in stepping in against him started attaching conditions to their accepting a fight before taking to social media to suggest Magny declined the matchup.

“The frustrating part of this is that everyone was calling me out last year when there was nothing I could do about it and now here I am, I’m healthy and it’s difficult for me to find someone to fight,” he explained. “You have guys like (Jorge) Masvidal saying, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll fight him, but only if it’s at 180’ and then running to social media to say, ‘The fight was offered to Neil, but he turned it down because he didn’t want to fight me at 180.’

“In reality, that wasn’t the case at all. The UFC shot that fight down because they didn’t think there was any purpose making a catchweight fight and then you have guys like Usman running around saying everyone is afraid of him, that he’s the most feared man in the division and the reality of it is that I’d fight him any day of the week. I’m begging for a fight with you!

“I felt the need to go out there and let it be known that I’m ready and willing to fight any one of these guys,” Magny added. “So don’t be fooled when they’re running around telling you stuff on the Internet.”

While the Internet is weighed down with sad tales, gossip and falsehoods, there are still plenty of positive stories that emerge from the web on the regular and Magny’s pre-fight commitment to help the O’Doherty family and post-fight introduction to Presley is one of those rays of light that reminds you there are still people looking to do good in the world simply because they can.

Made away of the family’s situation and Presley’s battle against Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SNA) by Bowling, whose wife went to school with the young girl’s mother, Magny wanted to get involved and help combat the mounting cost of her care. Rather than making a small donation on her GoFundMe page and remaining anonymous, the 30-year-old welterweight contender publicly pledged to contribute $15,000 to help ensure that Presley got the care she needed.

“I saw this opportunity to do something that would help the family, help a great cause and I decided to make the donation,” explained Magny. “It would have been cool to make the donation and stay quiet about it, but the cool thing about going public with it is that other people stepped up and made donations to her GoFundMe based on me going public.

“Shortly after my fight, Leister and I flew out to Omaha, Nebraska to meet the family. I was finally able to meet Presley and her family and there is a light at the end of the tunnel for her.

“SNA is a pretty severe disease and a lot of young children that get it, doctors don’t give them much beyond two years to live,” he continued. “Since Presley was born and they found out she has this disease, there have been new medications that have come out and so she’s been able to get those meds, get that treatment and she has been showing signs of improvement.”

Where some fighters can recall moments from every one of their fights, living off the residual elation of remembering victories long after their careers have ended, Magny admitted that he’s already forgotten – or never really bothered to log – a good portion of his appearances inside the cage.

They’re just fights and while they were all significant in helping him get to where he is now, a decision win over Kevin Nowaczyk in Valparaiso, Indiana isn’t a memory he needs to hold onto and cherish into his later days.

But being able to help this family and hopefully give this young girl a greater opportunity to live a healthy, happy life is something he’ll never forget.

“I’m in a position to be able to go out there and do what I love and in doing so, I’m able to help someone else get the opportunity to live a better life themselves, so why not do it?” he asked. “Why not go out there and take a chance?

“I have nearly 30 professional fights at this point and literally half of them I don’t remember, but the moment I was able to meet Presley and being able to see her grow up, that’s something I’ll remember until I’m old and grey.

“That’s something lasting and impactful for my life and it was cool to be a part of it and be able to help and meet her.”