Jake Yono

JY Journalism

6/1/23 

The Journey Of An MMA Fighter

A friend of yours invites you to a Mixed Martial Arts class he has been partaking in for a few weeks. He is starting to like it and wants you to do it with him. You go there and learn all the different types and sorts of moves, including punching, grappling, kicking, wrestling, takedowns, and submissions. Ultimately, your body, mind, and soul all fall in love with it. You start to talk to the coaches at the gym and collectively you all come to the conclusion that you want to take that big step and take the game seriously and start to fight at the amateur level.

You start to train hard every day like a madman, you put all of your blood, sweat, and tears into it. After 3 months of intense training, you and your coaches agree to find an amateur MMA league where you can make your debut. You do your research and find an organization called the XFC. They hold fights near you and some fighters from your gym have fought in this organization. You find the commissioner, email him and he says he has a spot for you. He gets your weight class and height and matches you with an opponent, he has one ammeter fight under his belt and won it by split decision. You and your coaches start making your game plan and train accordingly to it. The day is here and it is time to make your Mixed Martial Arts amateur debut.

You’ve done everything you can up to this point, by training hard, coming up with a game plan, and studying your opponent, your 6oz gloves are on and the cage is closed and it is time to fight. You have 3x3 minute rounds to prove yourself. In the first round you out-strike and outkick him, in the second round he takes you down and sits on you, and in the 3rd round, you dominate in the clinch and land a lot of knees and punches which leads you to a split decision victory against your opponent. Your contract is for 3 fights, in the next fight your competitor takes you down and wrestles but you earn a submission victory, in the last fight on your ammeter contract you get matched with a more experienced fighter and you get blown out but still hang on for 9 minutes as you lose by unanimous decision which then ultimately wraps up your career as an ammeter.

After this you talk to your matchmaker again, you agree to stay in the XFC and become a professional fighter and agree on a 4-fight contract. In these 4 fights, you show out and win all 4 of them and 3 in dominant fashion. You are starting to become the best version of yourself. You talk to your matchmaker again and agree to part ways as Khabib Nurmagomedov’s Eagle FC has offered you a contract. Knowing it will be a bigger stage and tougher compassion and bigger stages you accept the offer.

Your record is now 6-1 and the UFC’s Dana White Contender series has looked at you, they have offered you a contract and you take it as you have a lot of time to train and analyze your opponent, you probably would not have taken the fight if you did not have this much time. You train as hard as you’ve ever trained before and study your opponent as hard as ever. You head to the apex as it is time to get started. You trained a lot of cardio as you now have 3x5 minute round fights. You battle it out for 15 minutes as the fight is very close, your time in the clinch was enough to earn you the 29-28 split decision victory. You then meet Dana White and he gives you the paper every fighter dreams of having which is a UFC contract. In the octagon, you fall to the canvas and cry tears of joy because you have done it and earned your first UFC contract.