In the above picture: Brandon Melendez (The Ultimate Fighter), Brandon Kiser (Host of Damage Control MMA), Kyacey Uscola (The Ulimate Figher and Bodog), Jake Paul (Gladiator Challenge World Champ), Brian Yamasaki (Host of Damage Control MMA).

2010 – The biggest year in Fight Core history. We stepped up our game by opening a new training facility in North Salt Lake, bringing in world class fighters, signing a licensing agreement with Full Contact Fighter and reaching a million views on the Damage Control MMA website.  

Utah’s best coaches were assembled for the grand opening of the New Mushin Gym in North Salt Lake. The gym is twice the size of the former location and features all brand new Dollamur Grappling Mats, fully stocked pro shop, bag rack, boxing ring and world class coaching. Classes are available 5 days a week and are open to everyone from the general public, to first time MMA enthusiasts and on to world class pro fighters.

Fight Core and Damage Control join forces with Full Contact Fighter to bring together the best fight shorts with the best online training program in the industry.

After weeks of drilling fight specific combos, Jake Paul went out and KO’d Lee Doss in 5 seconds using the core technique we built for this fight.

A solid training camp was assembled for Jake, Johnny and Jeremy. It brought together the experience of three coaches. Cade Janjira, Brian Yamasaki and Brandon Kiser. Unfortunately for Johnny and Jeremy their opponents didn’t show so they were unable to fight.

The pre-fight tasks ran smooth as Jake prepared for battle. He has a lot more experience then most fighters his age and he was surrounded by a very experienced team of coaches and support staff.

What a sweet victory after all the controversy and trash talk that came from their camp.

Wendover was packed with the biggest concentration of Friends & Family of Fight Core that we have ever assembled. Thank you so much to everyone that made the trip to Wendover to support the team. A lot of people were also set to come down for Johnny Miller and still decided to make the trip even though his fight was cancelled.

The Victory was awesome and the after parties were epic!

THE END…

The show appears to be moving in a slightly new direction by putting more emphasis on the EXPERIENCE. Fighters audition for the show and are assigned to an MMA Gym where they will be prepared for their MMA fight debut by professional fight trainers.  

Yamasaki and I were given a girl by the name of Rachel Kemker. We have only been given about 6 weeks to get her ready for her fight which isn’t long enough. 

Our team uses a specific form of periodization to get the maximum benefit out of our fight camps and preperation for your first fight will usually take over a year with no prior experience. Each section of periodization is designed to build the body up for the next session so that the athletes can reach their maximum physical potential without having their body give out in the process. We have had to make some serious adjustments to our typical fight training program in order to get Rachel as ready as possible in this amount of time.

With everything else that has been going on with our own TV show and gym we had to call in reinforcements to help us get Rachel ready for this fight.  We have been getting some much needed assistance from one of our senior students Karen Pratt and our long time friend Cade Janjira.

Karen has been training at Mushin for 5 years and has attended seminars with Master Chai and Erik Paulson. She is also a Utah State Grappling Champion.

Cade Janjira is a World Class Muay Thai coach who has trained some of the best fighters in the world including Randy Couture who thanked Cade in his post fight interview against Tim Sylvia.

Rachel has also been utilizing our new girls kick boxing class to help her get ready. She has had a few bumps in the road but continues to press forward with her training and her pursuit of this fight goal. We will have to see what the next few weeks brings.

Mushin and UCTC have battled it out in the cage many times. Their camp is being run by Mike Stidham and Mike “Sugaloaf” Crissman.

Mike Crissman has been racking up the experience by fighting all the time in the UCE. The guy has been fighting 2, 3 and even 4 times a month. He has moved up and down in many different weight classes and is going to bring a lot of real world, hands on fighting experience to Rachels opponent.

Mike Stidham has watched, cornered, promoted and trained more people for more fights then anyone I can think of, period. He has participated in every aspect of this sport to the fullest. Mr. Stidham is kick boxing champion from back in the days when only the best of the best could call themselves professional fighting champions. He was also doing Walt Bayless Jiu-Jitsu long before masses even knew what grappling was. Then add his years of wrestling experience and you have a very well rounded and knowledgable MMA coach. If that wasn’t enough, he also owns one of the largest and most well equipped MMA gyms in the State of Utah. Yamasaki and I are going to have our work cut out for us on this one.

Filming commenced the night that Rachel was brought to our gym for introductions. There has been a lot of interview updates and great training footage captured as we have begun the process. I think this is going to make for a very interesting TV show and I can wait to see how it turns out.

Filming has wrapped up on this project! To see the results watch the Ultimate Comabat Experience on Sundays at 3:00pm on WB 30.