The Hyatt hotel in downtown Minneapolis, MN will play host to Saturday night’s MMA Downtown Showdown event presented by the Sterling Entertainment Group. The event will feature a number of local fighters, including one of the area’s brightest up-and-coming competitors, Mike “The Marine” Richman.
Richman is set to fight Wisconsin native Morgan Sickinger in a featherweight bout. He has been training extensively for a fight on this night and has been very happy with his new team at The Academy [formerly known as Minnesota Martial Arts Academy] in Brooklyn Center, MN.
“I’m training with the best of the best, which has totally elevated my game,” Richman told me regarding his new team. “I feel if I would’ve started my career training here, I would be 11-0, not 10-1. That’s how strongly I feel about training at The Academy.”
The level of competition at the gym is fierce. With numerous veterans of the sport all training together, Richman has benefited from finally being able to work with the top-level fighters.
“You don’t get any better than training with Jacob Volkmann, Nik Lentz, Sean Sherk, Paul Bradley and all the other upcoming prospects that you will be seeing on TV,” he said.
Another one of Richman’s training partners, Brandon Girtz, will also be competing on Saturday night’s fight card as he battles in the main event against former Strikeforce veteran Eric Wisely.
“I haven’t been training there even a year. I’d say about six months. I feel like I’ve elevated my game tremendously in that time and a lot of that has to do with the guys I train with,” he credited his team. “You can’t fly with the eagles if you’re hanging out with the crows.”
Perhaps it is this philosophy that will help propel Richman into stardom in 2012. Before he even joined The Academy, the now 26-year-old former Marine had already competed for a spot on season 12 of the hit UFC television show The Ultimate Fighter. Unfortunately, those plans were spoiled when he lost his final fight, ending his chances to be on the weekly show as he was one of the final round of eliminations.
“It was kind of frustrating for me,” Richman admitted. “I felt like I underperformed and it’s one of those things where it was at 155, so it wasn’t my weight class, but I wanted to try out anyway. I just underperformed. I lost a decision to Aaron Wilkinson and it was just a sh–ty situation for me. I’m trying to rally back and hopefully Dana White will give me a chance to fight for them in the future.”
He will attempt to keep the rally going on Saturday night when he faces off against “Captain” Morgan Sickinger, who took the fight on only about a week’s notice when Richman’s previous opponent, Josh Kasee, had to drop out do to an injury.
“The Marine” expects this new fight to be an interesting contrast of styles.
“[Sickinger] is more of a wrestling-grappler while [Kasee] was more of a striker. So it’s a little switch of styles, but I feel like in order to really show how good you are in this sport, you’ve got to be able to take on wrestlers and grapplers,” Richman explained. “I like to stand and I like to fight, but I feel like I can take [Sickinger] down, I can stuff his takedowns. I work with better wrestlers than he’s working with, so I’m taking that mindset into the cage.”
A win would move Richman one step closer to his eventual goal of performing in front of a much larger audience. But surprisingly, while he was only one win away from having a career-changing experience on The Ultimate Fighter, he is not necessarily chomping at the bit to get on the show in the future.
“I’m more or less just looking to get into a straight UFC fight by getting called up to fight on the undercard or something like that,” he said. “If I don’t make it to the UFC by then, maybe the next time they do a featherweight or bantamweight season, maybe I’ll try out again.”
It’s one rung at a time for this former Marine who is focused on moving up the ladder, but his goals are well-defined and to the point. A victory on Saturday night over Sickinger would be a nice feather in the cap of this confident young fighter, but he is confident that the world will be seeing much more of him in the next year.
“In 2012, you’re definitely going to see me in Bellator or the UFC. You’ll see me in a big promotion in 2012 and that’s a guarantee.”
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