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middle aged FBG wants to be a cage fighter (1 Viewer)

moleculo

moleculo

Footballguy
I have decided I want to get into the MMA cage. I'll use this thread as my blog, documenting the journey, the highs and lows.

Vital stats:

  • 38 years old, will be 39 before I get in the cage
  • 5'5", 150 lbs (give or take)
  • target fighting weight: 135 lbs
  • southpaw
  • not a gifted athlete, wrestling is the only sport I've ever been good at.
I was a high school and collegiate wrestler. I was a state-runner up in HS, and I qualified and went to USAWrestling Junior nationals. In college (DIII), I was on the varsity wrestling team, but honestly didn't put as much time into training as I needed to - when I saw my grades slipping because I was spending too much time cutting weight, wrestling became much less of a priority. I was a .500 wrestler as a sophomore, but it went downhill after that. Obviously, that was a long time ago. The last time I set foot on the mat was 1998.

In 2010 I joined a MMA/jiu-jitsu school as a way to work out and stay active. I have been going 2x a week pretty regularly, although that has tailed off over the last couple of months. I am very close to getting my purple belt. I have done a couple of jiu-jitsu tournaments, taking two 3rds in my most recent (20+ no-gi and 30+ no-gi divisions).

I started kickboxing a couple of years ago, and have made quite a bit of progress. I'm no where near proficient, getting my stand-up game to where it needs to be will be my biggest challenge. Last night I got in the cage to spar for the first time with our schools pro-fighter. It didn't go very well. My conditioning is terrible, and I am having trouble with covering up and seeing the punches coming in. I'm doing a lot of bending at the waist instead of the knees and watching his feet more than his hands. On the positive side, I got punched in the face and lived to tell about it.

My target is to get in the ring towards the end of next summer or early fall. Part of wanting to do this is bucket-list, part of it is to test myself, part of it is because I know the journey itself will be a valuable experience and get me in fantastic shape. Also, like the idea of my daughters' future boyfriends to know that her dad is a former cage fighter and will #### them up if he has to.

Right now, I am about 6-7 lbs over where I feel comfortable. I feel soo much quicker and explosive at 144 than I do at 151. Fortunately, this 6-7 pounds will come off pretty easily. All I really have to do is eat right for about a month and I'll be there. Football season, Halloween candy, and Thanksgiving does me in every year. Strength wise - I don't lift weights and don't really have any interest in it. I feel really strong against guys my size, call it "man strength" that comes from simply not being 21 (which most 135 lb fighters are).

I've seen plenty of fighters making their amateur debuts. I know my jiu-jitsu is good enough for this level. I know my wrestling base is more than enough to keep me where I want to be against your typical MMA fighter. I know my stand-up needs a lot of work, but 8 months of solid training should get me to where I need to be.

Injuries are a concern for me. I don't recover as quickly as I did when I was young. right now I'm in pretty good shape, the only nagging injuries I have are some damn stubborn turf-toes on both feet. They've gotten better to the point where I can train with them; but if I land a kick wrong, I will be in some pretty serious pain that will last weeks. Everything else, knock on wood, is feeling pretty good.

 
Awesome stuff Molecule! You really should do this. It sounds like you are being honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses which is a very good start.

I am 47 and started training about 1.5 years ago. I pretty much only do Muay Thai, but I have also thought about how fun it would be to get into the ring in a real fight. I think I'm just a tad too old though, and I have zero wrestling/ground game. I would have to do boxing only. My boxing has come a long way in the last six months since I started doing more sparring. I think that's the most important thing. You can hit all the pads you want, but until you actually spar with someone better than you, it's hard to make big improvements.

Please keep this thread going and logging your progress. I figure I'll live vicariously through you for the next year or so.

 
Good luck GB.

You've got the right mindset.

I'll keep tabs as things progress. I would love to come to your fight if things work out.

 
Don't listen to the naysayers and detractors. I think it's awesome that you're trying to live a dream of your's. Do you think you could take a regular-sized guy in a fight?

 
Links to your responses to questions like how many midgets you could take or # of squirrels you could kill in a room full of squirrels?

Edit- good luck that's awesome.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Jewell said:
Don't listen to the naysayers and detractors. I think it's awesome that you're trying to live a dream of your's. Do you think you could take a regular-sized guy in a fight?
Click to expand...
dunno. Regular-sized can imply lots of things and lots of different athletic ability levels.

 
SacramentoBob said:
moleculo said:
SacramentoBob said:
If you want to be successful, the most important thing to do is pick a good nickname. What have you got so far?
Click to expand...
I'm open to suggestions.
Click to expand...
I would go with something weird and unthreatening like Gentle Lotus Flower.
Click to expand...
Yeah, great call with the nickname. Walk-out song is clutch too. the play on your actual name is good if done right. I know people hate Rick "the horror" Story, and i am not a fan of Lavar "Big" Johnson, but there are some good one's out there. Just can't think of them off the top of my head.

in seriousness though, great luck. Enjoy is probably the best advice to throw out there, not to put your dreams down but i am not sure you can get to a UFC title picture, so just go in and enjoy. Probably means doing what ever you enjoy doing. Sounds like you loved wrestling, so if you want to take the fight down immediately, have fun with it.

 
With such experience with BJJ and wrestling is stand up still a big concern? What about a training focus on getting past the jabs and bringing the fight to the ground? I have done judo about two years (36 years old) and respect the hell out of what you are doing.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Nice - best of luck!

Wrestling is a great base for MMA, and it's good that you have the solid jiu-jitsu. This grappling will be an obvious strength against debut-level MMA competition. While you'll certainly need to improve your standup, I would imagine your gameplan would be to take it to the ground - either via shooting or from the clinch.

As far as weight, if you're walking at 146 or so, you might be a little small fighting at 135. Have you given any thought to really tweaking your diet and seeing if you can be comfortable at 137ish? If so, then a cut to 125 should be pretty easy. Your old-man strength would be incredible at that weight. Of course, your old-man speed would be ultra slow, but once you clinched, you'd be able to ragdoll your opponent.

 
Clayton Gray said:
Nice - best of luck!

Wrestling is a great base for MMA, and it's good that you have the solid jiu-jitsu. This grappling will be an obvious strength against debut-level MMA competition. While you'll certainly need to improve your standup, I would imagine your gameplan would be to take it to the ground - either via shooting or from the clinch.

As far as weight, if you're walking at 146 or so, you might be a little small fighting at 135. Have you given any thought to really tweaking your diet and seeing if you can be comfortable at 137ish? If so, then a cut to 125 should be pretty easy. Your old-man strength would be incredible at that weight. Of course, your old-man speed would be ultra slow, but once you clinched, you'd be able to ragdoll your opponent.
Click to expand...
That's a lot of weight for a man in his late 30s with limited conditioning to lose and cut.

 
Clayton Gray said:
Nice - best of luck!

Wrestling is a great base for MMA, and it's good that you have the solid jiu-jitsu. This grappling will be an obvious strength against debut-level MMA competition. While you'll certainly need to improve your standup, I would imagine your gameplan would be to take it to the ground - either via shooting or from the clinch.

As far as weight, if you're walking at 146 or so, you might be a little small fighting at 135. Have you given any thought to really tweaking your diet and seeing if you can be comfortable at 137ish? If so, then a cut to 125 should be pretty easy. Your old-man strength would be incredible at that weight. Of course, your old-man speed would be ultra slow, but once you clinched, you'd be able to ragdoll your opponent.
Click to expand...
yeah, no. 15 years ago, I'd consider it. I am no stranger to cutting weight, I know that my days at 125 are long gone. We have a 125 lber in the gym who walks around @ 130, I'm so much bigger than he is, I know I'm not in that weight class.As far as shooting for the takedown - thay would obviously be the plan but I've found takedowns with striking involved to be a completely different animal. Pretty much the only stuff that translates is working from the clinch (and i was never a great Greco guy) and defense.

 
Ilov80s said:
Clayton Gray said:
Nice - best of luck!

Wrestling is a great base for MMA, and it's good that you have the solid jiu-jitsu. This grappling will be an obvious strength against debut-level MMA competition. While you'll certainly need to improve your standup, I would imagine your gameplan would be to take it to the ground - either via shooting or from the clinch.

As far as weight, if you're walking at 146 or so, you might be a little small fighting at 135. Have you given any thought to really tweaking your diet and seeing if you can be comfortable at 137ish? If so, then a cut to 125 should be pretty easy. Your old-man strength would be incredible at that weight. Of course, your old-man speed would be ultra slow, but once you clinched, you'd be able to ragdoll your opponent.
Click to expand...
That's a lot of weight for a man in his late 30s with limited conditioning to lose and cut.
Click to expand...
He's admittedly out of shape at 151, so it might not be unreasonable to be an in-shape 137 over a few months. Then, you get at least a pound of leeway at weigh-ins (and amateurs get two pounds in many states), so a 10- to 11-pound cut is all that is needed to make the 125-pound weight class. That's doable for someone in their late 30s.

 
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