On saturday the 15th of december at around 10am I accomplished a goal I had set 2 years and 10 months ago. With my son being born only a few weeks ago my wife agreed it would be the wise thing to do so I packed my bags and my manager into the car and headed to the UFC hotel in Surfers Paradise 30 minutes north of my home in Coolangatta. Being my first UFC and being in my hometown was a dream come true and honestly I should have been a lot more nervous than i was but having close friend/manager/head trainer/one of the most accomplished coaches in UFC history really made me feel anything but nerves. After coming out of the TUF house and spending the last few months preparing for ultimately 15 minutes that was really going to define my career and me as a person I honestly didn’t believe the fight would end any other way apart from my hand being raised.
After chasing around the ghost of James Autery at the gold coast airport coach Fiore and I headed to PUMMA gym to meet up with Vince Perry for our final workout. After arriving back at the Hilton we discover James has already found his way into the room and made himself at home. Now staying in a hotel full of UFC fighters has always been exciting for me and I had to remind myself a few times that now I was a UFC fighter not just a fan
With the UFC coming to my home town for the first time ever and myself making my debut, I’m not sure how or why but everything ran as smooth as it could. Im talking about everything from training sessions to beating coach Fiore on Maddern 12 :) it was like i could do a thing wrong with my prep for this fight and I have to thank everyone close to me in and out of the gym for that.
Sat morning was fight day and man it started early, a 5:45am wake up call, breakfast at 6:00am and then on the bus at 6:30am to head to the venue. Truly a blessing for me because of the short time from being awake to walking out in to the cage. This day will hang with me for a long long time, not because it was my UFC debut in my hometown, not because I won by KO in my first UFC fight and not because I had completed the first phase of my MMA journey. This day will sit with me forever because I got to share it with my family whom i love so much and also everyone that had shared sweat, blood, black eyes and stitches in the gym with was there to live the moment with me and that means more to me than anything else in the world.
After chasing around the ghost of James Autery at the gold coast airport coach Fiore and I headed to PUMMA gym to meet up with Vince Perry for our final workout. After arriving back at the Hilton we discover James has already found his way into the room and made himself at home. Now staying in a hotel full of UFC fighters has always been exciting for me and I had to remind myself a few times that now I was a UFC fighter not just a fan
With the UFC coming to my home town for the first time ever and myself making my debut, I’m not sure how or why but everything ran as smooth as it could. Im talking about everything from training sessions to beating coach Fiore on Maddern 12 :) it was like i could do a thing wrong with my prep for this fight and I have to thank everyone close to me in and out of the gym for that.
Sat morning was fight day and man it started early, a 5:45am wake up call, breakfast at 6:00am and then on the bus at 6:30am to head to the venue. Truly a blessing for me because of the short time from being awake to walking out in to the cage. This day will hang with me for a long long time, not because it was my UFC debut in my hometown, not because I won by KO in my first UFC fight and not because I had completed the first phase of my MMA journey. This day will sit with me forever because I got to share it with my family whom i love so much and also everyone that had shared sweat, blood, black eyes and stitches in the gym with was there to live the moment with me and that means more to me than anything else in the world.
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