Each week we will be speaking to a member of the Mixed Martial Arts Community - whether they are fighters, coaches, store owners or fans.
This is your opportunity to speak your mind, promote yourself (or your business) and tell everyone how you are helping the sport!
Monday 16th February 2009 - FX3 K1 Champion, Peter Mercer:
I recently joined Sol Gilbert's ZT Fight Skool in Hove late 2008, which is awesome. I will be fighting for them on Feb 20th at ZT Fight Night for the ZT K-1 title.
Sol has a hell of a gym in ZT Fight Skool, I'm training very hard with the likes of Sol 'Zero Tolerance' Gilbert, Ryan 'The Great' White, Kenshiro, Jon 'The Hitman' Hathaway.
Mentally, I'm a little distracted with being in and out of court so close to fight day but its just going to be bad for the guy I'm fighting, there is alot of frustration that is going to come out. The guys at ZT will make sure I'm ready on the day. I can't wait to add the sexy ZT belt to my FX3 belt and I'll keep my foot on the gas training for my first defence of my FX3 belt in April maintaining my unbeaten record.
Thanks to 'Like 2 Fight' and to all fight fans out there. Get behind me because I'm clearing up!
Monday 9th February 2009 - This Week we have spoken to Lee Hasdell:
Lee began his martial arts training in Karate then after winning a number of local tournaments he decided to study full-contact Karate, Muaythai and Kickboxing.
His then instructor Brian Walker from the Master Toddy academy retired from teaching and advised Lee to seek out another teacher. In 1991 after watching the success the Dutch kickboxers were having Lee decided to travel out to Holland and study at the Gym International with Cees van der Velden. This changed his approach and training methods to be more in line with the infamous Dutch mixture of Kyokushin, Muaythai and Japanese Kickboxing. Upon his return to the UK Lee then captured the British Full Contact Karate title with a 7th round stoppage.
Sensei Lee is now a Kickboxing Black Belt Instructor and then opens a new Kickboxing and martial arts class at the Gyosei Japanese School in Milton Keynes, he used there fully equipped dojo to teach his own style of kickboxing. He also started to develop a new way of training by combining Karate, Kickboxing, Muaythai, Jujutsu and Japanese Shoot-fighting as he was training with many Japanese instructors at the school. He also trained with Shihan Thom Harinck at the Dojo Charuriki in Amsterdam to refine his K1 skills.
At that time the K1 corporation was creating a new fighting format in Japan and Lee was invited to train at the Seidokaikan and then to compete in the K1 even itself. Whilst out in Japan Lee also watched many MMA style matches and training methods, and quickly realised that this was exactly what he visualised back home in the UK with his own approach the combining and mixing the martial arts techniques.
Straight away Sensei Lee when back to training and recruited a team of martial artist from different backgrounds like Judo, Russian Sombo, Jujutsu, Wrestling, Karate and Kickboxing.
He then concentrated his energy into becoming a complete fighter or Total-Fighter as it was called back then. Lee then decided to return to Holland to meet promoter Mr. Chris Dolman from the popular Free Fighting organisation Rings, where Mr. Dolman quickly offered Lee the chance to fight the infamous Andre Mannart. Lee fought Mannart to a draw, and with his fast take downs and all-round abilities caught the eye of Japanese promoter Akira Maeda.
In 1996 Akira Maeda invited Lee to travel out to Japan to stay and study at the Rings Yokohama dojo. But first Lee had an appointment with the Italy Shootboxing tournament in Milano, Lee shocked everyone by being the underdog to go on the win the whole event and defeating Andre Mannart in the final. With the winnings Lee fled to start a new career in Japan with Rings Japan.
Lee then spent six years as a contracted fighter in Japan facing all opposition from fighters like Sean McCully, Renato 'Babalu' Sobral, Fedor, Gilbert Yvel and Yamamoto. Lee completely immersed himself into the Japanese training, culture, food and lifestyle, and became very popular amongst the Japanese fans and fighters. Many Japanese fans asked him if he had Japanese blood.
Upon Lee's return from Japan he has travelled extensively to Russia, USA and Europe to develop his techniques and teaching methods. He even served with the British armed forces as a physical training instructor.
The SSJ Studio was formed to capture all of his martial arts to help pass on many secrets and skills obtained from source. The style of SSJ is a unique mixture of modern tactics and techniques with tradition values and structure, a real mixed martial art with style. Lee has also incorporated the new martial art of Kudo into his syllabus after passing the tough Shodan Black Belt Test in Roma Italy with Jukucho Azuma.
Now Lee's time is spread from teaching seminars and master classes and works within the close protection industry. He also continues with his long term hobby of free-diving.
www.ssjstudio.co.uk
www.kudo-uk.com
www.combudo.com
Monday 2nd February 2009
This week we have spoken to Nathan Leverton - head coach at Leicester Shootfighters
Nathan has been involved in martial arts for over 20 years starting with Karate but a chance meeting with Geoff Thompson at a book signing led to a close friendship and an introduction to grappling. Educating himself further on grappling through the internet, he met up with Jonathan Cheung and joined him as one of the founding members of SFUK, Europe's first mixed martial arts and submission grappling website.
Through SFUK, Leicester Shootfighters was founded in 1999 by Matt Whetton and Jimmy Cairney. Nathan joined the team shortly after and started teaching the hybrid grappling style he was beginning to develop using books, videos and experimenting with trial and error on the mat. Due to this unusual way of learning, Nathan has developed a gym tested style, not a system that is passed down from an instructor.
Nathan focuses wholly on the no gi game, which makes him different to most jiu jitsu instructors in the UK. An emphasis on fundamentals, in particular the principal behind techniques has led to the ongoing joke at the gym that Nathan's answer to every question is "move your hips" and "elbows in".
Sports psychology and its application to grappling and mixed martial arts is another integral part of Nathan's coaching method. Another unique feature of Nathan's teaching is his emphasis on video analysis, formulating game plans and strategies for both training and competition environments.
These aspects of his teaching approach have led him to work with several pro MMA fighters. Dan Hardy has been a regular at the club for his fight prep since 2006 including his most recent win over Akihiro Gono at UFC 85. European MMA stand outs Jim Wallhead and Andre Winner have been regulars with Nathan since the beginning of their careers. Nathan has also worked with other Team Roughhouse members including Dean Amasinger and Paul Daley. In addition, Nathan recently coached fighters for the reality TV shows Fighting Hurts and The Ultimate Fighter.
Next on Nathan's agenda is cornering Dan Hardy against Rory Markham at UFC 95 February 21st.
For more information visit http://www.leicestershootfighters.co.uk/ or you can contact Nathan directly at Nathan@leicestershootfighters.co.uk
By Suzanne Summers. Photo by Iwan Baxter
Monday 26th January 2009
This week we have spoken to Doni Miller a semi pro who is 4-0 and trains with Battlefield Gym in Glasgow under Ricky Gillon. Doni has an upcoming title fight on the 21st February with Total Combat.
"My opponent is David Grant (3-1) I believe. He has won all of his fights by submission in the first round. He looks very well rounded and his stand up looks impressive as well.
My fighting record is 4-0 with 3 wins by submission all in the first round, with 1 win by tko/ref stoppage. The promotion is Total Combat and the promoter is Peter McQueen. The title is British semi-pro featherweight champion.
I consider myself an all rounder as I train equally in all aspects of mixed martial arts. I train 4-5 times a week in the Battlefield Gym and twice a week in my college gym where I work cardiovascular exercises. I also enjoy going for a run once a week to ensure my cardio is very high for the fight.
I have been training MMA for 2 years with my coach Ricky Gillon who I consider the best coach in Scotland as he has 22 years of MMA experience. I had never done any type of martial arts before I started training with Ricky and he has helped me develop into a 4-0 semi professional mixed martial artist so I give him all the credit. To show how much he has done for me I will be giving him my belt when I win in February.
No disrespect to David Grant but I work too hard and believe i'll get the win."
Monday 19th January 2009
Billy Richardson Aged 27 and owner of Fight Club Clothing, Manchester, UK.
"MMA fanatic since day one really, I think MMA is probably my main hobby/interest next to obviously my partner and little girl.
I used to sell cars before opening the shop, did that for about five years, just got sick to death of it but with no qualifications behind me I didn't no what I could do instead. One day it just dawned on me when searching the web for a new mma t-shirt that I could be my own boss and do something to do with mma and the chance to get out of selling cars and to open my own shop dedicated to MMA, that's what I wanted to do.
So, one month later (that's all) I had opened Fight Club Clothing in Manchester.
So here I am two months in, not doing to bad, I'm open six days a week. I run and work in the shop myself. It's hard work, especially in this day and age but Im just trying to get my name about as much as possible because when people are into the product come to the shop they tend to like it a lot."
Visit Fight Club Clothing at:
Unit 4A, Ground Floor
N4 Arcade (Afflecks)
35 Oldham Street
Manchester
M1 1JG
Just off market street
fightclubclothing@hotmail.co.uk