Sam King sees himself someday making his living in the world of mixed martial arts.”I hope to go all the way to the top,” the 21-year-old Regina product says. “It’s a big dream, but I hope to accomplish it someday.”There is nothing that King would rath…
Sam King sees himself someday making his living in the world of mixed martial arts.
“I hope to go all the way to the top,” the 21-year-old Regina product says. “It’s a big dream, but I hope to accomplish it someday.”
There is nothing that King would rather do than make his living in MMA. Most everything he has done since first stepping foot in AJ Scales’ Complete Martial Arts and Fitness more than three years ago has been done with that end in mind.
King’s work, it is safe to say, hasn’t been done in vain.
Since King made his amateur debut in December of 2011—a first-round knockout in Regina–he is undefeated through four outings, all stoppages.
King, who trains six days a week under Scales, a black belt under the Nova Uniao banner, is neither surprised nor satisfied with what he’s accomplished.
King’s next bout is to be against a yet-to-be-determined opponent at Saturday Night Fights 7 on May 11 in Regina. The bout—which will likely serve as the card’s main event—is to also serve as a semifinal for the promotion’s inaugural featherweight championship tournament.
King hopes to claim his first title belt later this year—and he likes his odds in the tournament. But King, whom Scales calls a “little beast,” is confident that this is just another stepping stone in his career.
Why?
“I’m confident that everything will work out if I do everything right,” the undefeated featherweight says. “I would say I’m on a good course right now. I really have no need to change anything right now.”
Ed Kapp is a Regina, Saskatchewan-based freelance journalist. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations were obtained firsthand.
Eric Prindle, a professional mixed martial artist for nearly five years, loves almost everything about the sport that he has taken on as a career.But “almost” is the operative word for Prindle.“It’s up to the individual, but I don’…
Eric Prindle, a professional mixed martial artist for nearly five years, loves almost everything about the sport that he has taken on as a career.
But “almost” is the operative word for Prindle.
“It’s up to the individual, but I don’t like when guys cross a certain line when they talk,” the 36-year-old Prescott, Arizona, native said. “There’s hyping up a fight, then there’s talking crap about other people’s kids and stuff like that—I don’t like that.”
For Prindle, who served in the United States military for nearly a decade before diving head-first into the world of mixed martial arts, fighters should put an emphasis on being respectful, especially when in the public eye.
“When so much is riding on something—a career, more money, a bigger shot for the guy who wins—of course you have someone who has to lose, but I don’t think you should be disrespectful,” he said. “There’s no reason for doing that. I’m not certain, but I doubt any of the samurais back in the day did that kind of stuff.
“Honour breeds honour and disrespect breeds disrespect. If more of us took the honourable route, then more kids are going to want to emulate it and the Earth might be a nicer place to live.”
Prindle noted that he would continue to uphold a high level of respect in his career—both in his own fighting and as a coach when he hangs up his gloves—but he isn’t certain if his peers will follow his lead.
“In Erik Paulson’s time, there was more respect. People weren’t doing it for the paycheck; it was about respect,” Prindle said. “People were fighting to be the absolute best, but there’s way more money involved now. And with everything, the more people you have, you’re going to have more walks of life—different people—and things may change.
“A lot of us respect people and show respect to everybody. Hopefully it will spread versus going the other way.”
Ed Kapp is a Regina, Saskatchewan-based freelance journalist. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations were obtained firsthand.
Smealinho “The Prince” Rama may be Canada’s most dangerous man, but he insists that hasn’t come this far on his own.Rama, an undefeated heavyweight under the Maximum Fighting Championship banner, has his parents, a younger siste…
Smealinho “The Prince” Rama may be Canada’s most dangerous man, but he insists that hasn’t come this far on his own.
Rama, an undefeated heavyweight under the Maximum Fighting Championship banner, has his parents, a younger sister, several training partners and three coaches in his corner. But Rama is adamant that it is Vlad Goldenstein, the 20-year-old’s boxing coach and mentor, who has made the biggest impact on his young career.
“He isn’t just a trainer; he’s like a father to me,” says Rama, who was born in Albania and raised in Greece before immigrating to Canada as a teenager. “My parents work all day—we hardly have time to speak—but Vlad works in an office, so I get to talk to him the whole day, so he’s constantly trying to teach me lessons and helping me evolve as a person, which is awesome. Vlad has given me confidence in myself to do this.”
But Goldenstein, an amateur boxer in his native Russia before deciding to call Calgary home 14 years ago, is reluctant to take too much credit for his student’s success.
“He had skills before he met me,” says Goldenstein, 53. “He’s just a naturally talented kid in anything he touches. He just needed guidance, you know?”
Rama, FightMatrix.com’s 2012 male rookie of the year, feels that Goldenstein has led him to this point in his career. But more importantly, Rama, a veteran of hundreds of street fights in his youth, feels Goldenstein has meant even more to him outside of the cage.
“I lived this weird life where I was around criminals and all these kinds of people,” Rama says of his life before meeting his mentor. “I was living in this fantasy world where nighttime was the time to be out and doing whatever you wanted was the way to be.
“He showed me that that’s not the way to live, that’s not the way to be happy.”
Goldenstein, a married father of two, has witnessed Rama’s transition inside—and outside—of the cage firsthand.
“When he came to our gym, nobody would pay attention to him—he always was in a good mood—but nobody would take him seriously,” says Goldenstein, who shares coaching duties with Keegan Hanning, a man known as “Frenchy” and Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor Anderson Goncalves.
“But now, you should see how people look at him. Lots of people want to train with—lots of people don’t want to spar with him because he’s too complicated—but the way people react around him now is totally different.
“He has changed a lot in a good way.”
As it turns out, Rama’s relationship with Goldenstein—which he insists saved him from a life of crime and an early death—almost never materialized.
Rama knew that he wanted Goldenstein training him in some capacity when the two first crossed paths at the now-defunct Calgary Fight Club nearly two years ago—“We just had that instant connection,” he says. But Goldenstein, unimpressed by Rama’s attitude at the time, wasn’t confident that the pairing would work.
“I didn’t want to work with him,” Goldenstein says. “He had kind of an attitude, you know what I mean? He was a very young, cocky kid, all the time talking about how great he is and all this stuff.
“I’m an old-school guy—I don’t like people who talk; I like people who do.”
Rama, for lack of a better word, harassed Goldenstein in the gym, on the street and over the telephone before the two ultimately agreed to meet and train.
About 18 months—and hundreds of training sessions—later, Rama, who is undefeated entering his second year in the professional ranks of the sport, is to meet Mike Hackert at MFC 36 in Edmonton on Feb. 15—a match that will likely make clear who the No. 1 and No. 2 heavyweights in Canada are.
Rama, who feels he is The Great White North’s top heavyweight already, is confident, of course, that he will walk away from his next bout with a decisive victory. But with the help of Goldenstein, “The Prince” plans on being recognized as among the elite on the international scene in the years to come.
“I love the MFC—everybody there has treated me like a king from the start—but I want to win the MFC belt, defend my belt, put my name on the company,” he says. “And then go to the UFC and do something great there.”
Goldenstein is more than confident that Rama has what it takes to excel in the sport he has chosen, but he admittedly isn’t as interested in a world championship as his strong-willed student—“although that is the goal,” he is quick to point out.
“What is my goal in this thing?” Goldenstein says. “Just making him a better guy—to help him understand what it means for him to be a better person.”
Goldenstein’s goals aren’t lost on Rama.
“Vlad has taught me how to be a human being, how to live my life and enjoy myself and that a lot of things don’t matter,” Rama says. “Cars and chains and stuff like that don’t matter—they don’t mean a single thing. It’s how you feel about yourself, how your family and loved ones think about you.
“I really had the wrong idea of what I wanted out of this life. I wanted all the wrong things for the wrong reasons. He’s taught me how to be a good human being, a good person and how to be happier.”
Ed Kapp is a Regina, Saskatchewan-based freelance journalist. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations were obtained firsthand.
Mitch Clarke needs just two words—“roller coaster”—to describe the past 12 months.“Lots of ups and downs,” the 27-year-old Saskatoon product says. Clarke kicked off 2012 hard on the heels of his first career defeat&m…
Mitch Clarke needs just two words—“roller coaster”—to describe the past 12 months.
“Lots of ups and downs,” the 27-year-old Saskatoon product says.
Clarke kicked off 2012 hard on the heels of his first career defeat—his big-show debut against John Cholish at UFC 140—and followed that up with a split decision loss to Anton Kuivanen in July.
The loss would’ve been bad enough for Clarke, who was undefeated in nine bouts before signing with the UFC in 2011, but the former University of Saskatchewan walk-on wrestler blew out his knee 20 seconds into the bout.
But even the worst roller coasters go up, too.
Prior to Clarke’s second bout in the UFC, he found himself at the MMA Lab in Glendale and earlier this month, Clarke had his knee surgery and is preparing to return to the canvas in 2013.
It has been a trying year, to be certain, but Clarke, a man who watches more cartoons than many children, remains optimistic.
The loss, the injury, my personal life basically going down the tubes post fight led to an emotional time, says Clarke, who hopes to be back to 100 percent by mid-January. But it also helped strengthen a lot of personal relationships and build brand new ones, like meeting and training with Brian Cobb in the states and I found a new home for my training camps at the MMA Lab under John Crouch and Benson Henderson.
With a new “family” in Arizona to help him prepare for his return to the octagon, Clarke is hoping to make 2013—and the years to follow—everything that 2012 wasn’t.
“(In 2013, I) definitely want a win in the UFC,” Clarke says. “But I’d like to start carving out my legacy in the sport this year and hopefully be remembered for doing something in the sport.”
Ed Kapp is a Regina, Saskatchewan-based journalist. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations were obtained firsthand.
Fighters have told Lenne Hardt that they knew they had “made it” in the fight game when they heard her call their name.Hardt, who started her run in the world of martial arts under the Pride FC banner, still works events—namely with…
Fighters have told LenneHardt that they knew they had “made it” in the fight game when they heard her call their name.
Hardt, who started her run in the world of martial arts under the Pride FC banner, still works events—namely with GLORY World Series and One FC. But it now takes much less than years of dedicated training to have your name called by Hardt in her distinct style, which she says has developed organically over the course of the past decade and a half.
Via her website, which includes unique “Warhol-inspired” merchandise like shirts and mugs, fans may order a personalized message from the famed announcer—with “a little bit o’ my soul one piece at a time,” the Alaska-born Hardt says.
Getting to Know LenneHardt
LenneHardt was born in Alaska but spent her early childhood as the youngest of six children of an Air Force pilot on a farm in northern Idaho, with “lots of dogs, horses, skiing and dreaming.”
Hardt, who wanted to be either an actress or an archaeologist in her youth, began her announcing career at Pride FC’s first grand prix in Tokyo in 2000. Since Hardt’s first event, where she says she was “simply gobsmacked” by the spectacle of it all, she estimates that she has worked more than 100 martial arts events en route to being known in the mixed martial arts world.
Hardt, a veteran voice actress, has also worked on video games (with the Tekken and Silent Hill franchises) and anime productions and has been the announcer for several Japanese music groups.
Ed Kapp is a Regina, Saskatchewan-based freelance journalist. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations were obtained firsthand.
Like many young Canadians, Ryan Dickson dreamt of someday making his living in the world of professional hockey. But Dickson, like more than a few of his fellow countrymen, learned at a young age that big-league hockey most likely wasn’t in his f…
Like many young Canadians, Ryan Dickson dreamt of someday making his living in the world of professional hockey. But Dickson, like more than a few of his fellow countrymen, learned at a young age that big-league hockey most likely wasn’t in his future.
“With hockey in Canada, you know if you’re going to go pro when you’re pretty young,” the 23-year-old Burlington product says. “Some of the guys that I played with were drafted to the Ontario Hockey League, and they were getting talked to by NHL teams. I knew it wasn’t in the cards because I wasn’t getting talked to.”
With Dickson’s dream job seemingly out of the question, he decided to try his hand at a sport that mirrors hockey in more than a few ways—mixed martial arts. Within a week of training under Jeff Joslin, a Hamilton-born Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and UFC veteran, the then-17-year-old Dickson was hooked on his new sport.
Half a decade since first stepping foot in a mixed-martial-arts academy, Dickson, still a student at Joslin’s MMA in Hamilton, has become even more infatuated with fighting.
Why?
“There’s so much to it,” the former forward and defenseman says. “There are guys at Brock wrestling who just manhandle me in wrestling, and there are guys who, like when I went to train in Brazil and this friend that I have here from Brazil, who just destroy me in jiu-jitsu.
“If I was always beating people, I think it might get a little boring, but every day in training I see where I could be—it’s a reality-check—and that’s what keeps me going. I’m very competitive.”
Dickson’s passion for fighting—or improving as a fighter, at least—has so far translated into an impressive resume.
The 5’10”, 170-pound contender fought his way to an undefeated amateur record before making the jump to the professional ranks of the sport in the summer of 2011. Since Dickson’s professional debut—a first-round submission victory—he has reeled off four stoppage wins in four outings, including two under the Score Fighting Series banner.
Dickson has fought progressively tougher competition with every bout, he says, and if that trend continues, he feels that his third or fourth fight from today could very well be with the UFC. Dickson would like little more than to land in the UFC at this point—it is the NHL of MMA, after all—but he has bigger goals than signing a single contract.
“Even when I get to the UFC, there are always places to go,” says Dickson, who moonlights as an instructor at Burlington’s TapouT Training Centre. “I want to be the champ. But like Ben Henderson, he’s the champ, but he wants to be pound for pound. There are always new goals—there is always room to grow.”
Ed Kapp is a Regina, Saskatchewan-based freelance journalist. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations were obtained firsthand.
Sam King sees himself someday making his living in the world of mixed martial arts.