Fighter Blogs

Like every other fighter appears to be, I have been quite busy putting the finishing touches to my year. This year has seen me fight 4 times and lost only once which is one of the most active years I have had in a long time.

I was meant to be finishing my year with a bang at Cage Wars in the Odyssey in a 4 man tournament, but yet again “No Luck” Duncan has struck again with health issues. Instead of late I have had to with draw from training altogether as a fast pace walk up the stairs sees me out of breath, and have had crippling pains in my stomach. I could almost be a girl and just be having a really bad period his month, except i don’t think many girls are rushed into A&E a couple times in one week vomiting at the same time. I really have done nothing as a result, been on and off work as a result, trying to stay on as I’m only entitled to Government statuary sick pay which is really worth feck all. Training as well has been on and off, but more off than on due to the fact I have no energy, and have problems even keeping water down with something as simple as shadow boxing. I have no appetite and am eating nowhere near the usual amount of calories. I’m more frustrated than anything else because of the timing of this as well as the fact i can even do drill work, or like when i did my ankle or knee a form of isolation training. I am still waiting on doctors to figure out what it is, and have some more tests at the end of November.

Work is still a lot of hassle at the minute, and I think I need to re-evaluate why I am doing the job, the type of job I’m in allows me to train, not the training allows me to do the job. Before I got ill, the job was taking a priority over my training and this is not why I’m in this line of work. Though i am getting kind of sick of being broke all the time as a result. I read that even the like of an up and comer like Todd Duffee posted on his twitter that he was getting a part time job cause he was sick of being broke. Let me clear something up to the average person, yes I do think I get paid enough for what I do at the level I do but it isn’t all that much.

Yes MMA is a growing sport but I might get enough money to live on for 2 or 3 weeks. At the top level some of the stars are getting $250,000 but that is to get them by for 4 months till they fight again, compare this to Rooney who is on £90,000 a week all year long. I base my money on if it covers my costs for doing the sport, and as long as I do a minimum of break even I’m happy. If you even look at rugby players at a club level over here. Not even provintual (Ulster rugby) but a team like Newtownards rugby who have sports people competing every weekend. Some of those clubs would pay people to play for them, maybe for their top team a couple hundred a game. A hockey club I used to play for helped a Auzzie player come over here to live and paid him to play hockey for them. I don’t know the in’s and out’s of the agreement but he got money for it, wasn’t enough to live on but some money is better than a kick in the face (trust me if anyone knows it’s me). Due to this when people say you must get loads of money for doing what you do, I think they compare me to maybe a top level footballer from over here, or someone signed to the Ulster rugby team. I really do wish! I have worked in bars/nightclubs, where I have seen professional sports people come in and get steaming 3 or 4 days before a big match or game, which would launch them into the spot light, footballers are the worst for it. Yet they are the most well paid sports people, and yet i bust my balls to paid the bill, only had my last drink to commiserate the fact I tore ligaments in my knee and had to pull from the Clementi fight and karma gives me a few visits to A&E and a job that is becoming an ends to a means, rather than a means to an ends. But such is life, and to be fair I’m lucky I have a job in this economic climate and nearly every combat sport is the same, unless I become top level of boxer, or pro wrestler I’m not ever going to make millions. Rant over!

No other craic really, going over to see Chris Stringer for a few days next week, just as a social visit as I can’t train. Didnt do anything or dress up as anything for Halloween, though the local kids did suck me dry for sweets by calling everyday of the week while they were off school. Oh and vote Wagner on X-factor, man is hilarious.

Well, well. I havent got loads to talk to about so ill keep it short n sweet. Training has been going good, alot of the boys where fighting OMMAC 7, Orio is fighting in Finland for a title, Sass is fighting on UFC 120 this weekend, Taylor is fighting 2 weeks later in LA & 'Tellies' is fighting at the end of November, couple that with boys getting ready for fights in Dec (including myself) the gym has been busy! 

Training has been hard, but the sparring is unreal! Ive been putting in alot of work with all the top boys and feel im starting to come up to scratch. 

OMMAC 7 - 4 fighters from Kaobon where fighting which was a clean sweep for the team with 2 KO's, 1 Stoppage & 1 Sub. Great night of action and witnessed Scano knocking out Mike Reid with a sick head kick. Also on the card was Doolan Vs. Remidios which was another great fight that ended in a headkick. 

Orio fought in Finland and won in the 2nd round with a headkick.

Cage Wars is coming back to Belfast but this time its in the Odyssey, and I really cant wait for that. It is going to be one of the best shows in Europe as they have secured a major investment. Of course yours truely is fighting on it, but no opponent as of yet. Ill post up when all details are released!

Regards 

Well folks, im sorry i haven't posted in a while. Ive been mad moving everything & getting everything set up & sorted, so here's a small breakdown of the past 3 months.

For those  who don't know, I have now moved to Liverpool to train with Team Kaobon full time.  The gym, coaches & training partners are all top notch level. To give you an idea ill give you a quick run of the people who are in the gym on a regular basis, Head Coach - Colin Heron, Muay Thai guru and was teaching for Master Sken while still a teenager. Luta Livre Coach - Marcelo Brigadeiro, Luta black belt & head coach of RFT in Brazil (home to Avezerdo etc) won most major titles in Brazil. 4 UFC fighters - Terry Etim, Paul Kelly, Paul Taylor & Paul Sass plus the best in the UK not signed - Mark Scanlon, Sinclair brothers, Eugene Fadiora plus loads more & people from all round the world training in the gym.

So as you can tell the standard here is unreal, ive been getting smashed every session but really enjoying it. I hadn't trained properly since my last fight which was November, so the first 2/3 weeks where absolute torture, I couldn't do anything & was getting caught in stuff I normally wouldn't have been caught in. I was waking up sore & every single muscle in my body hurt!

Moving away from friends & family kinda sucks though, you don't have anyone to talk to or go and see or even hang out with so it gets quite boring. I didn't have a job either, so no money coming in, nothing to do and when I didn't have any money left so I couldn't go training, so we had to sit in the house all day. However there's a guy in the gym called Mark Scanlon, apart from being a great fighter he is one of the nicest guys i've ever meet! He has treated me like a brother and sorted me out, he's paid for classes, got me a job, welcomed me in and got everything sorted out for me! 

As for training, I've been doing loads, here's a small breakdown of what I do (and I miss some classes!) Monday 3 times, Luta Livre in morning, Strength & Cond and Technical sparring, Tuesday - Sparring in morning & wrestling later, Wednesday - Luta Livre then Boxing, Thursday - Sparring then wrestling, Friday - Luta Livre & strength & cond & Saturday - Flats (14 floors x6) wrestling & sometimes Luta as well, depends on how I feel.

Well that's a small clip of what has happened, Ill post more often on my daily happenings, Quick well done to Peter Duncan, who has won his last 2 fights, Dwayne Hinds who smashed his opponent in Cage Contender, Ali MacBurgerKing as he's a fat bastard & weighs 93Kgs! Chris McDonald who trained hard for a fight, flew from Jamaica only for his opponent not to show.  And all the Chum Sut boys / Kaobon boys who having been tearing up the fight scene & winning most of their fights! O and did anyone see Ricky Hatton being caught with coke? Well we where all out in Manchester partying with him on the night it happened (O the scandal!) I don't have a song or Ali-ism this week as I didn't have the internet for a while so Ill get some up next week!

Regards 

Well its been a while being on here and thought I would get this thing updated a little bit.  Was recently away in thailand there training in Tiger Muay Thai for a couple of months and only just arrived back last week.  Unbelieveable experience, went over for 7 weeks and my girlfriend came over for the first two and a half.  She trained aswell in some of the classes they provided for the ladies everyday while I did the other fight classes.  The break with her was really nice and then had a month of solid training after she had to go home.  I love the place, the country, the people, the facility and the trainers over in Thailand are fantastic and that was my fourth time over there and of the places I have trained its definately up there with the one I most like going to.  The training itself is brutal and then when you take into account doing it in 30 degrees it really is a rough session every time you are in the gym!lol.  During my time there by pure coincedence I happened to bump into Tim Murphy who was training there the same time that I was, small world! Tim was great to get working with, he has been around the sport for a long time in this country and is regarded by many as one of the top featherweights in the country and its easy to see why. Nice guy and very humble at that and was good to have such a high level training partner in and around my weight cause most of the boys were usually about 10k plus heavier in the MMA program which isnt much fun!lol.

Fighting now next weekend in Cage Contender in Manchester and really looking forward to it.  It will be my first pro fight out of the country and it will be up against UK No.10 Declan Williams who just happens to be from Manchester aswell so Id say that will make for a nice interesting reception for me on fight night!lol. Training has gone well and now just taking things down a bit with only a week of training left.  Fitness work and fight training are done, just need to concentrate on keeping sharp for the next week and a half and now focus on my weight which is lower than it has been for my previous cuts to bantam so should be a handy enough one thank god as its the worst part of the whole thing.  Have another big fight coming up in November but just concentrating fully on this one right now and getting the win over in Manchester and then I will get my head down again after that one!

Damo

Twit twoo, yes I'm talkin to you. Well since my last update I've had a few more training sessions in Chum Sut & Langka Muay Thai! I'm starting to like my hands & feet together in sparring now but I'm still out of shape and gassing quite quick. I'm doing more cardio as well, so after some of the sessions I'm doin sprints and I've just been told that they are called 'tabata workout' or something along those lines, it's the thing that Paul McVeigh has been going on about in fighters only lately which everyone is going crazy about, well we have been doin that for years, just never realized what it's called. I do it slightly different than 20 seconds on, 10 off. 

What we do is put the treadmill full incline & full speed, sprint for 60seconds, then 30 on pads (continous), 45 tread, 30 pads, 30 tread, 30 pads, 25 tread, 30 pads, 20 tread, 30 pads, 10 tread finally 30 on pads but kicks the last 2 rounds. The idea is all the blood goes to you legs when sprinting, so you really have to push your hands, then all the blood goes up into your arms for the strinking so it's harder to sprint, so on & so forth. It's a killer finisher and that's only 1 round, when fighting you do it 2-3 times which is awful! I can't even do it with the pads at the minute, I'm only sprinting. 

Anyhow, went to OMMAC last weekend with Square face (Ali) to corner him fight. The fight was a frantic pace in the first round with both fighters landing shots, takedowns, reversals & sub attemps. The fight was 50/50 no winner in the first, but Ali did have a few chances to finish, he had his back, flattened him out & the guys arms where protecting his neck & all he had to do was GnP from there & it would have been stopped but Ali went for the choke instead, which his opponent escaped, think it was just due to inexperince with pro rules as it's only his 4th pro fight. So there's an issue that needs fixed which he is working hard on. I felt the same when he fought AJ Wenn, but it's all coming together. After the fight we got a massive feed which Ali ate an entire bargin bucket to himself, fat bastard! Marty Walker jnr & Kev Carney got complety rat arsed and where very funny on the way home! 

If you read my last update you would know that my last trip to Liverpool wasn't that successful, well this time it worked out better. We managed to get a house sorted and we are moving away on the 23rd of this month so I can train at Kaobon full time! Fuckin awesome & can't wait but I know I'm going to get smashed as I'm still quite fat!

Anyway here's my fav part of the blog - Ali-Isim, this was between Ali & his girlfriend, they where talking about Cornwall in England!  

Jenny: Cornwall..that's that place down south, isn't it?
Ali: No ya idiot, Cornwall is the capital of Wales!!

Haha oh deer aparently Cornwall is downsouth & in Wales, so be careful driving home, Belfast might now have moved to the capital of Scotland!

Song - Lloyd Banks - Beamer, Benz or Bently FT. Juelz Santana  

Well hello you! ! Lots has happened since my last update. First of all I never got to jamaica sadly thanks to a certain volcano stopping my flight! So im still whiter than white. So instead I took a fight against Daniel 'denzil' Thomas, and mike wilkinson, with all my main training partners out of action I made the wise choice of spending the 2  1/2 weeks before my fight at Team kaobon Liverpool.

It was sort of a rushed thing, only realsed i wasn't getting proper sparring on night during training, booked my flight straight away fo the next day (wednesday) and then that shity volcano puked up its crap again. SOOoo I canceled and requested a refund on my flight and booked a boat over for that night. I was so desperate, I didn't want to waste more time. The boat left at 10:30 wednesday night and arrived in liverpool 6:30 thursday morning. With no sleep and scrambled egg on toast I was ready to rock and roll! or not.... Got a taxi to the gym and had to wait 2 hours until the gym opened.

I then met colin the owner and head coach (and nice guy, which he told me to say). He showed me around and then asked me if I was going to train this morn after my trip, 'sure what the hell' was my response then later regretting it when I found out It was sparring day! I got my cunt kicked in but loved it, 2 weeks followed and I went against denzil, made a mistake and paid for it, two more weeks, and again made a mistake and paid for it. Why? Maybe I wasn't sharp enough in time? Maybe I did something wrong in the weight cuts? Maybe I bought the wrong breakfast cereal? What I took away from it was I got my eyes opened to the standard of top ufc fighters, and learn't what proper hard sparring against top strikers and ground grapplers was and loved it. I also came back 100 times the fighter and person I was before I left 4 weeks or so weeks ago. So yes i've now got 2 silly loses on my record, but i've became a far better fight and even more dedicated than what i was before, and that was lot already. 

 Ill be takeing some time off from fighting, ill be working back on my strength and explosive power over the summer and then sortly head back to england and improve my overall game, when i return to fight im going to set my record straight.

Keep tunned for updates, thanks.

Been a while since I wrote anything on here, back in the USA, still in Fairhope Alabama, living it up as a redneck! fighting June 19th against David Hulett in Biloxi Missisippi at Atlas fights.

 Been training hard, trying to focus on my wrestling, which is pretty poor by yankee standards. Been training with a few good wrestlers from Iowa and Ohio. So starting to see some improvments.

Also bought a scooter, which is pretty sad but its all i can afford, nearly got hit by a cop car and drove of the side of the interstate into a field to avoid being crushed! also been the victim of road rage a few times, which has been great! So if anyone is looking for advice on driving in America, its get a car and a gun.

 Later Colin.