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.