Before Monday, Patrick Martin was just an everyday guy training at an MMA gym, attempting to better himself in martial arts and life. But a fateful encounter with Josh Neer, a Bellator welterweight fighter, changed everything.
A video was posted earlier in the week of Neer engaging in a gym fight with Martin. It would be ludicrous to feign as if this particular encounter was a typical sparring session, given the lack of protective equipment and the volatile techniques being used.
Martin was fighting with 16-ounce boxing gloves, while Neer had on a pair of four-ounce MMA gloves. There were no shin guards or headgear being used. In the cut video, Neer can be seen kneeling over Martin, dropping multiple punches and elbows.
After releasing the video, per BloodyElbow.com, Neer claimed Martin was trolling his Facebook account and being disrespectful toward MMA fighters, and just like that, Martin was deemed an instigator by complete strangers.
Some fans have even praised Neer for his actions, without taking a second to lend an ear to the other side of the story. Martin reached out to Bleacher Report on Wednesday for an opportunity to tell his side, and unsurprisingly, his tale of events is much different than Neer’s.
“I just heard of [Josh Neer] through the fight community. I don’t know too much about him, but I know he trained with Pat Miletich. I’m from Davenport, Iowa, so I know about the Miletich camp, and I’ve boxed at Pena’s Boxing Club,” said Martin. “I didn’t know that he had fought there; I just heard of an MMA fighter up in Des Moines, Iowa, through a friend because I was just getting back into training for MMA.
“…I asked what gym because I was looking for a place to work out at. So a friend mentioned going to Roundkick and that’s where [Neer] and Victor Moreno, a good fighter up here, works out at. So I come in there to get a tour, and they’re teaching class, so I work out and spar around with them for the first day of class. He had to leave early because state wrestling was in their town.”
It wasn’t until Martin’s second encounter with Neer that problems began to arise. According to Martin, the MMA star began teasing him from afar for being out of shape during live wrestling drills.
“So I come back Thursday or Friday maybe, and they were doing wrestling workouts. It all started there because I’m back in training, and he was doing like a single shot shooting drill with single leg takedowns pretty much,” Martin said.
“The drill was grabbing the leg, and the instructor was showing techniques on how to take them down, and then after you went through the drills, you’d go live with the drill. So me, a standard boxer, I was tired and gassed out from the workout.
“I train a little different than choking out and armbarring, just because I’m more of a striker, combat type style. So we were in the drill, and it got done, and him and Victor went over to the other side of this room, and they were talking, like disrespecting about me coming in there and pretty much just being disrespectful about a new person coming into the gym.”
Martin claims he ignored Neer’s behavior and even bought him a couple of beers outside of class to try to smooth things over. But the teasing wouldn’t stop. He says Neer continued to taunt him for his performance in earlier class sessions.
It carried on to the point where Martin had no choice but to finally stand up for himself.
“I ignored it that day, and it carried on until Saturday after a fight,” he said. “I seen him in a bar, bought him a couple of beers, and then he turned around, and with a buddy, he was laughing at me, making fun of me about the gym situation still and all of that. It pretty much carried on from that, and I had enough with it and said, ‘Yo, if you have something to say to me, say it to me.’ We went back and forth with words on Facebook.”
Verbal sparring on social media eventually led to a full-contact fight in Neer’s gym. Martin brought a pair of 16-ounce gloves and all the courage he could muster and walked into the training facility.
Warning: Violence in video may not be suitable for all viewers.
According to Martin, the agreement never incited the usage of elbows and kicks to a downed opponent. “Nobody would agree to that,” said Martin.
“…I said a full-contact spar, protective gear and all of that because we would have to sanction anything to make it a fight. So I’m fully aware of the athletic commission and all of that. So I wasn’t even taking it like that, I was just saying, ‘Let’s spar, let’s see who’s the better fighter sparring.’ Because we’re at a gym, and we could use headgear, shin guards and stuff like that.”
Perhaps the most mysterious aspect of the gym scrap is the cut video footage. Martin came into the gym with the notion that the fight would equate to nothing more than a good sparring session, until things escalated into much more than that.
He contends that he actually held his own against the longtime MMA veteran, and the tape leaves out the rest of the footage on purpose.
“He didn’t get me down until after the bell rang,” he said. “I walked around and wasn’t in a defensive guard. The video will show you, he tried to do that twice, and I broke his guard. I’m taller, I weigh more, and I’m stronger than him, so if he would have took me down, and he tried two times before that. It never happened. That’s what the video would show.
“I was definitely hanging in there with him with the [boxing] gloves. I could have put on the UFC gloves too, but that could do damage, and we were just sparring. I didn’t come in like we were angry at each other, but we still have to keep it professional. It’s just the respect of a fighter.”
Martin claims that he wasn’t seriously hurt at any moment during the fight. He did take a late soccer kick to the face that busted his mouth when the fight was being broken up, but outside of that, he walked away from the situation unharmed.
When asked about the investigation from the Iowa Athletic Commission, Martin was adamant about letting bygones be bygones. He isn’t out for a lawsuit or to bring ruin to a gym that houses so many young students. His primary goal is to clear his name and tell his side of the story.
“I don’t want them getting in trouble because boys will be boys. I’m not offended by it. I would like to rematch if it’s possible or whatever, if he can do what he did so easily,” said Martin. “That’s how I look at it. I don’t want the gym to get in trouble because there’s a lot of kids that actually go to that gym, and they’ll be devastated. He shouldn’t have posted the video.
“I don’t know what he’s trying to get out of it, like ‘heckling’ and ‘bullying.’ That’s all a lie and not even in my character. I don’t want to bring no sanction or legal battle into what happened. What happened is I challenged him and went up there, and I was a member of the gym, I signed a waiver with the membership. I don’t want anybody, I don’t want Neer getting in trouble, I don’t want the gym owner to get in trouble, but next time, if anything, they can learn something from it.”
Perhaps there is one important lesson we can all take away from this particular incident: There are always two sides to every story.
All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Jordy McElroy is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA writer for Rocktagon and FanRag Sports.
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