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C W F C F I G H T N I G H T 5 | A N D Y O G L E | J A C K M A R S H M A N

Alistair Overeem talks about his UFC 146 title �ght against Junior Dos Santos and becoming the �rst ‘British’ UFC champion.

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CONTENTS.Features

Review

Preview

6 ALASTAIR OVEREEM16 CHE MILLS22 JOHN MAGUIRE26 VAUGHAN LEE30 ANDY OGLE32 JACK MARSHMAN34 GEORGIA GRAHAM

36 CWFC FIGHT NIGHT 538 OMMAC 1340 UCMMA 2742 SHOCK ‘N’ AWE 10

44 BAMMA 1048 CWFC DUBLIN50 SHOCK ‘N’ AWE 1152 PAIN PIT 3

Performance54 KETTLEBELL WORKOUT56 FINDING A GYM58 NUTRITION: PROTEIN60 KITBAG: TERRY ETIM62 FIGHT LIKE: PAUL SASS

4 Photo of the Month

Michael Bisping and Chael Sonnen both celebrate after their close fight at UFC on FOX. Chael got the decision and goes on to fight UFC Middleweight Champion, Anderson Silva.

WINNERS.

CAGE MAGAZINE

6 Alistair Overeem

CAGE MAGAZINE

UNDISPUTEDOR NOTHING.

UFC heavyweight ti-tle challenger Alistair Overeem is a man on a mission to make history and become the first unified ruler of mixed martial arts.

Article written by Gareth A. Davies.

8 Alistair Overeem

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rash, bold and in-timidating based on the gargan-tuan man’s sheer size and presence alone, Alistair

Overeem, the Dutch mixed martial artist and former kickboxer; does not mince his words. Not in the way he visualises making mincemeat of opponents with those lethal kicks and strikes. Overeem, six-foot-five, 265lb and with the bearing and bulge of toymaker-designed action superhero figure, signed to the Ulti-mate Fighting Championship in 2011 and dispatched Brock Lesnar with alacrity as the New Year dawned. Timing is everything in sport. And ‘The Reem’ may well have landed his spot in the UFC to perfection. The Dutchman now stands within touching distance of a moni-ker no heavyweight in mixed mar-tial arts has ever been able to call his own. If he can defeat Junior dos San-tos in Las Vegas on May 26th he will be the sports first true ‘undisputed’ champion. The word has resonance in fight sports. Time was when being the heavyweight champion of the world was considered the richest prize in sport. The epithet held true for boxing champions. Today, with the ring’s championship splintered and diluted, that cloak falls upon the UFC’s heavyweight champion. And it’s this title that Overeem covets. Undisputed. He wants it bad. Like a modern-day colos-

sus, he bestrides combat sports and fighting organisations as a proven champion. The 31-year-old is the last undefeated Strikeforce heavyweight champion, Dream heavyweight champion, K-1 world grand-prix champion, and has made history by being the only fighter in combat sports to hold both a world title in MMA and K-1 kickboxing at the same time. In an exclusive, enlighten-ing interview with Cage Magazine, Overeem reveals he is a deep thinker; is happy in his own company, con-tent with his new team, and ready to realise his lofty ambitions. His environs, as much as possible, he likes to control. And the people around him. Controlling the control-lables, perhaps. Inside, he discloses,

is a burning fire for ambition within the sport, but a part of his ego which he reveals is ready, in his fourth dec-ade and at the peak of his powers, to be a more widely recognised sports star.Born in Hounslow, West London to a Jamaican father and an English

mother, Overeem opened up to dis-close that there came a time in his life, just over six years ago, when his whole world was crashing down around him. A few years earlier, he was considering a career in the mili-tary – in the marines.He had started fighting profession-ally to save up money for an eye operation to ensure his place as a trainee special operations soldier. But, in Pride, he soon decided his life lay in professional fighting not in the defence of a nation; but as a sport, as an individual. “If it hadn’t been in sports I’d have been in the armed forces, because that is what I wanted to become even when I was starting training,” Overeem reveals.“I was 18 and planning on joining the Marines, but I actually had minus-

one in one eye. I was planning to do an eye surgery and I had to save up some money for that. I couldn’t join right then so I just planned to keep up my conditioning, do some fights, get some more experience, save some money for the laser surgery and after the surgery then join the

Inside him, Alistair discloses, is a burn-ing fire for ambition within the sport, but a part of his ego which he reveals is ready, in his fourth decade and at the peak of his powers, to be a more widely recognised sports star.

10 Alistair Overeem

there were some factors which were draining energy: I had a new born daughter; my mother got cancer. All these factors at the same time was draining energy, and kept me from focusing on training.” “When you lose, you feel bad, but even when I look back on this period, I recaptured my focus, I changed a lot of things and I went back at it again, and that’s what took me to this position I’m at right now. I can look back at the bad moments as a focus, as a period of refocus and prioritising my life again.” He certainly learned from the losses. Since November 2007, Over-eem has gone 12 fights undefeated. Leading publicists inside, and indeed outside, the sphere of MMA believe

those roles and professions. “Yeah. There are definitely similarities and there are a lot of soldiers participat-ing and practicing MMA and some fighting; also there are some police officers. Of course, MMA is the ulti-mate combat sport.”But then, in 2006-07, he took three losses on the trot in Pride, to ‘Lit-tle Nog’ Antonio Nogueria, Ricardo Arona and ‘Shogun’ Rua. All three came inside eight months. At the same time, he became a father, when his daughter, Storm, was born. And also his mother, Clair, was diag-nosed with cancer. “I’ve had my dark side of the sport, but when I look back it wasn’t really that dark,” Overeem says. “In 2006, I lost three in a row because

military. I’d be an excellent officer in the military. I’d say jump, you’d say how high.” He laughs. He’s not joking, though. “You know what changed my mind about going into the mili-tary? I was fighting in Pride, in 2002, and by the time I’d had the surgery on my eyes, I was 24, and I just liked the fighting more, so I decided to stick with it.” Overeem is only too aware that today, men in the military, in police departments, in law enforce-ment and special operations, follow mixed martial arts. “Of course, it’s a macho thing.” But isn’t it also the power, strength, about being a man but also having discipline, controlled aggression, all the factors that are in

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the huge man-mountain from the Netherlands has the potential, in publicity terms alone, of being the most prolific figure in the sporting world. He’s already crossed over into the mainstream – appearing in music videos, and his own series of video blogs about his life, The Reem, which has built up a huge international following online. “I am ready to become a major player,” he states. “And it all comes with a deci-sion I made several years ago. In my down period in 2006-2007, I asked myself the question: ‘Why are you doing what you’re doing?’ Basically, I had a long conversation with my-self, and what came out of that was a sentence: ‘I want to make the most of

my career, out of my life’ – and I’m still going by that. What that means is making the most of my opportuni-ties. I’ve had a great adventure since then, and it’s still going strong.”There is a dark and determined tone about Alistair Overeem. He is very much his own man. He does not ex-ude any of the bubbly enthusiasm you find in his May 26th opponent, incumbent UFC champion of the heavies Dos Santos. His early years are signifi-cant. Indeed, he reveals his very first sporting memory, as a child, was “watching WWF at the eight of eight.” He was small (hard to be-lieve I know) and impressionable. “I remember watching Hulk Hogan fight with Ultimate Warrior. At that

12 Alistair Overeem

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what’s going to be hard for him, or for anyone that I’m fighting for that matter. There will always be issues preparing for an opponent like me.” “My aim is to be there, seen as undisputed heavyweight champion, someone that dominates others. My goal is not to just fight the next time and then lose it. If you look at my track record I’ve been focused for a

long time and I plan on being that focused till the end of my career. And my MMA career is not going to be over any time soon.” The goal has been set. And the goalposts, in Overeem’s mind, are immovable objects. “I just think that after the next fight, when I win the title, nobody can dispute that fact. Like I said, it’s been an amazing adventure and this fight, if the strat-egy comes off, it will be no problem. I feel good, I feel well motivated, my body is good, we are going to be more than ready on May 26th.”is Overeem’s devastating power, his kicks and knees especially. There have also been questions posed

moment, I never knew I’d become a fighter, but I was fascinated by big guys battling it out, but I never imagined I’d be doing the real thing myself.” He started kickboxing at 13, and at 15 he had his first fight. “I’d played different kinds of sport, but I really became dedicated at the age of 15, after that first fight.” “Today, I don’t follow WWE. I follow soccer and watch a little bit of tennis.” He’s also started to watch American Football. Surely, he’d had been some player… “I think so,” he re-marks. What position would he have been assigned? “I wouldn’t be the running back, they don’t last long. I’d be the defence.” It’s that area of defence, indeed, in MMA, which will be questioned when the fine combs are raked over in the analysis of his fight with Dos Santos as the days wind down to the battle of the bulge. Some perceive Overeem to be an ‘on top’ fighter; brilliant and brutal go-ing forward; vulnerable when put on the back foot. That is the debate that will rage when he faces the Brazil-ian, still unbeaten in the UFC (8-0), and 14-1 overall in his MMA career. So how does Overeem, giant pretender to the throne, perceive the champion elect? He has stated quite plainly already that he believes Dos Santos has the best boxing in MMA. But then, surely the challenger has the best kickboxing in MMA. So how does Overeem expect the styles to collide in the Octagon? He says: “I think I’m the bet-

ter fighter than Dos Santos. I mean not to take anything away from him, he’s very dangerous, he’s got great hands, but looking at my resume and looking at my experience and at the things I’ve done. I’m bigger and more heavy, and a better fighter.” “Anything can happen in a fight and it can often come down to who keeps their focus on. If things

turn out the way I plan them to, this fight will be no problem.” One of the issues facing Dos Santos is Overeem’s devastating power, his kicks and knees especial-ly. There have also been questions posed about Dos Santos’ prowess as ‘a finisher’. He showed against American heavyweight Roy Nelson that he’s perhaps the most lethal when it comes to getting guys out of there early. And Overeem insists that fin-ishing will be the least of JDS’s prob-lems. “It’s kind of hard to prepare for me, I am a little bit of a unique opponent,” he says. “There’s actually no sparring partners like me so that’s

“I think I’m a better fighter than Dos San-tos. I mean not to take anything away from him, he’s very dangerous, he’s got great hands, but looking at my resume and looking at my experience and at the things I’ve done. I’m bigger and more heavy, and a better fighter.”

14 Alistair Overeem

about Dos Santos’ prowess as ‘a fin-isher’. He showed against American heavyweight Roy Nelson that he’s perhaps the most lethal when it comes to getting guys out of there early. And Overeem insists that fin-ishing will be the least of JDS’s prob-lems. “It’s kind of hard to prepare for me, I am a little bit of a unique opponent,” he says. “There’s actually no sparring partners like me so that’s what’s going to be hard for him, or for anyone that I’m fighting for that matter. There will always be issues preparing for an opponent like me.” “My aim is to be there, seen as undisputed heavyweight champion, someone that dominates others. My goal is not to just fight the next time and then lose it. If you look at my track record I’ve been focused for a long time and I plan on being that focused till the end of my career. And my MMA career is not going to be over any time soon.” The goal has been set. And the goalposts, in Overeem’s mind, are immovable objects. “I just think that after the next fight, when I win the title, nobody can dispute that fact. Like I said, it’s been an amazing adventure and this fight, if the strat-egy comes off, it will be no problem. I feel good, I feel well motivated, my body is good, we are going to be more than ready on May 26th.”

CAGE MAGAZINE

16 Che Mills

ike most people, Che Mills had the potential to be any-thing he wanted to be growing up. However, his fam-

ily’s links with MMA meant he had the potential to be great in one par-ticular field. Che Mills was born to be a fighter. His cousin is former UFC middleweight and UK MMA leg-end, Mark Weir, and his father was a soldier who boxed in the army and also studied martial art at a young age. With many more of his family members training in MMA, it’s safe to presume that the path was set for Mills at an early age. However, there was one thing holding him back from his path in Mixed Martial Arts – his mother. “I was always interested in combat sports when I was a kid, but my mum was quite strict. She let me do sports, but she wasn’t too keen on combat sports.” “I used to buy martial arts magazines and hide them under my bed. I would try and teach myself the moves I saw.” Although his mother disap-proved of his loves for fighting, Mills managed to find a way to channel his anger, but not necessarily in the best environment. “I definitely wasn’t the stu-dious type. In fact, I was the total opposite. I used to get into all sorts of trouble at school. It was nothing really bad, just fighting and stuff. I

CHE’SREVOLUTION.Article written by Aundre Jacobs

got suspended five times for fight-ing, but as soon as I got into Year 11, I calmed down and completely went the opposite way. I think I got it all out of my system in my younger years and turned into a mellow guy after that.” Eventually, he was persuad-ed to join a mixed martial arts class, which was taught by Weir. Accord-ing to Mills, watching his cousin get into the UFC back in 2002 for UFC 38 was an “inspiration” to him, as Weir was not just his cousin but also his mentor. “When we would train to-gether, he gave me a lot of advice that helped me in my career. I can’t deny the impact that he’s had,” says Mills. After his first training ses-sion, Mills was hooked. Bursting to get his first fight in MMA, he took on Matt Thorpe in 2003. Many fighters claim their first fight is the scariest; Mills vividly recounts the experi-ence as his easiest to date. “To be honest, the first time was the easiest. I guess it’s because I didn’t really know what to expect and I’d never done boxing or anything like that so it was my first time com-peting. It kind of took me by surprise after the fight started. It was sort of like ‘Wow, this is real.’” Mills admits his attitude changed after his defeat. “The nerves started to kick in after the loss.” And despite the defeat, Mills continued to push on. He quickly began making a name for himself

on the domestic and European cir-cuit, defeating the likes of future Dream welterweight champion, Marius Zaromskis twice. However, he counts his bouts with current UFC welterweight, Jake Hecht and UCMMA veteran Edgelson Lua as two of his toughest fights to date. “I’ve had two really difficult fights, but for different reasons. One of the more difficult fights I’ve had in my career was against Edgelson Lua, where it went to decision. I think that’s because I didn’t cut weight properly and fuel back up as well as I should have. “I have to give credit to him because he was a tough fighter, but for the entire fight I just felt drained. That was a hard one, just trying to make it out of all three rounds.” “The other one was Jake Hecht, simply because he has an incredibly hard head. He’s a wres-tler who has trained with the likes of Matt Hughes so obviously he’s going to be tough. However, he just wouldn’t stop coming, whatever I threw at him. I threw so much at him that I think I was actually sick after the fight.” With every athlete, there are low times. For Mills, the lowest point in his career was his first brush with the UFC. Due to his success in Eu-rope, Mills was given the chance to fight for his place on season nine of The Ultimate Fighter. His skills were so highly regarded among UK fans that he was one of the fighters tipped to go

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18 Che Mills

through and win the entire competi-tion. However, fate had a different plan for Mills, as he was knocked out of the show by eventual 170lb win-ner James Wilks. “Obviously, at the time I was gutted, especially since a lot of peo-ple were saying I was the favourite. The weeks after the try-out, it kind of hit me quite hard,” he admits. Showing the same resolve and determination that defined his earlier career, however, he used the experience as a way of pushing him-self onto the next plateau, so that one day he could realise his dream of fighting in the UFC, just like his cousin once did. “I managed to get to the UFC without having to go into the house.

A lot of people get criticised by fans who say that they’re ‘only in the UFC because they were in The Ultimate Fighter.’ I managed to get into the UFC off my own back and I think that way is a lot better.” “I’ve also had time now to hone my skills more. I’ve fought Marcio Cesar at BAMMA 6 and Jake Hecht at Cage Warriors and it gave me a lot more confidence before I got to the UFC. I changed camps and I’ve taken my training to that next level now.” The loss seemed to pay divi-dends for Mills as he made his debut against TUF 13 alumnus, Chris Cope, at UFC 138. Many people knew this would be the biggest fight of his career so far, but Mills made short

work of Cope, sending the crowd into a frenzy and also getting a bonus for his vicious work. According to Mills, though, the experience was a calm one to say the least. “This may sound a bit weird, but I was really relaxed. Obviously it’s the biggest stage in the world, but for some reason I felt perfectly calm. Everything felt perfectly right that whole day. The weeks leading up to the fight were the most nervous I’ve ever been, but on the day I didn’t feel anything.” “The press conference was pretty surreal, though. I watch pret-ty much every UFC that happens, so sitting there with Thiago Alves on one side and Mark Munoz on the other was really weird. I was trying

“A lot of people aren’t giving me a chance and that just makes me want to win even more. I definitely enjoy being the under-dog.”

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to keep composed, but in my head I was thinking ‘What am I doing here? This is weird.’” After making an explosive yet brief introduction into the UFC, Mills is now set to face one of the brightest talents in the welterweight landscape: Rory MacDonald. With ‘Ares’ destroying nearly every oppo-nent that has been placed in front of him, Mills has been made the under-dog for on of the few times in his ca-reer. A position that many would be offended with, yet one that doesn’t necessarily affect Mills too much. “I welcome it. The harder the challenge, the more I’m motivated, that’s just the sort of person I am. A lot of people aren’t giving me a chance and that just makes me want

to win even more. I definitely enjoy being the underdog. It makes it even sweeter for me when I win.” “I think he’s very good. I don’t think it will be an easy fight for ei-ther of us. He’s certainly impressed me and he’s pretty well rounded, but I’ve seen a few holes in his game that I think me and my team can work on. However, in general, if you look at the results of the fights you have to think that this guy must be pretty good.” Due to circumstances out of his control, the fight was pushed back a month when the UFC re-scheduled the event to April 21st. With the intensity of a fighter’s training quickly becoming a science, and with everything needing to be

20 Che Mills

timed to perfection, Mills could be excused for being frustrated. But true to his laid-back attitude, he took the entire situation in his stride. “I was getting to that point in training when things start to step up, and then I got a call saying that the fight had been postponed,” explains Mills. “It just meant I had to add a few more weeks for training, but ob-viously I wasn’t going to push myself so hard as I didn’t want to peak too early.” With the likes of Michael Bisping, John Hathaway and Paul Sass all riding high in the UFC, Mills has been put into an interesting po-sition. As the co-main event of what could be the UFC’s most watched card of the year, Mills will be seen by millions of fans worldwide and a win against such a highly-rated opponent as MacDonald will place him firmly in the top five ranked UK fighters in the world. “It is kind of crazy. I just try not to think about it. It’s all happen-ing very fast. I filmed the countdown show recently and that was surreal because I always watch it,” reveals Mills. Much like many of us out there, Mills usually makes a New Year’s resolution for the year. How-ever, on this occasion things went a little differently. “For the first time in a long time I didn’t make any. 2011 was the

best year of my life and all I want to do is keep going. I don’t want to change anything; I want to make it a continuation.”

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22 John Maguire

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GYPSYJIU-JITSU.Article written by Nick Peet

witter has become an integral part of mixed martial arts. Following the UFC’s announce-ment at the start

of 2011 that they’d be rewarding fighters for their social networking prowess with cash bonuses, smart phones worldwide have been alive and kicking with trash talk, call-outs, breaking news and even event ticket giveaways. And, for the uninitiated, when something gets repeated over and over again on Twitter the words will ‘trend’ as one of the hottest top-ics in society. Flash back to November’s UFC 138 card in Birmingham then, and one phrase started trending even before the man who fashioned it stepped into the Octagon… #gyp-syjiu-jitsu. John ‘The One’ Maguire, 17-3, is the grandmaster of gypsy jiu-jitsu. A genuine traveller, who after what feels like a lifetime ply-ing his trade on the domestic circuit, stepped up in style at the LG Arena with one of the most accomplished performances of the night. His one sided grappling masterclass against former TUF contestant Justin Ed-wards was outstanding, and in that very moment the secret of gypsy jiu-jitsu was revealed to the world. “Before the fight I was wait-ing to go out backstage and I had a quick look on Facebook and Twitter and they both just blew up, I was getting hundreds of messages of

support, and I just thought I cannot lose this. It just wasn’t happening,” reveals Maguire, when Cage Maga-zine travelled to his home on a site in Wisbech, near Peterborough. So what exactly is GJJ? “Gyp-sy jiu-jitsu is me, my brother, it’s our style. I could probably count the number of times I’ve worn a gi on one hand, I just train no gi. And be-cause I am a gypsy, a traveller, that’s where the name comes from. And there are a lot of fakers out there in the UK, who say they are gypsies but aren’t, but I’m the real deal. I live on a site with my family and that’s me. It’s who I am. “As regards to my grappling, I just have really good coaches and it’s always been something that I’ve enjoyed doing. It all started when I tapped a well known black belt in a no gi competition and from there gypsy jiu-jitsu was born. But I have no belts or anything like that. In fact, when people ask, I just say I have a pink belt in gypsy jiu-jitsu, as I like to wear pink when I fight.” “I just have a natural talent for ground fighting. I’ve got a long record but I’ve actually only been fighting since 2006. I only started training in 2005 and, in fact, my first four or five fights up at middleweight I was only training once a week. I didn’t run, ‘cos I hate running and still do now, I just went to one class a week, doing ground and I just started winning. I was slamming guys and everything and it just clicked with me. Then some American wrestling

guys came into my grappling gym in Cambridge and I was outwrestling these guys too. I was sweeping them and taking them down, former col-lege wrestlers too, and that got me thinking I just had a natural ground fighting style. “Next thing I know is I am tapping out black belts and every-thing. Suddenly on the grappling circuit in the UK I was being dubbed the BJ Penn of England, which was cool, but that’s all I did and it worked. I beat like 10 guys up at middle-weight doing nothing but grappling. Then I ran into Tom Watson, who I gave a really good fight to until I broke my forearm, but yeah I’ve al-ways just loved to wrestle and been really comfortable doing it as well.” “Nowadays, of course, I do everything else as well. You can’t just be a one trick pony, not when you’re with the UFC, so I box every week now too and I work on my kick-ing and everything. I go boxing with Steve Whitwell, from St. Ives Boxing Academy, he’s a really good coach. Rob Olivier, of course. Jack Mason and my brother Tommy Maguire – those three guys are always in my corner.” Maguire’s unanimous deci-sion success against Edwards, was topped only by his brilliant com-ment to colour commentator Joe Rogan in the Octagon after his arm was raised. “Are you real?” he asked the grizzly voiced UFC anchor, while sporting the type of grin mostly fashioned by one infamous Cheshire

24 John Maguire

cat. It was clearly the realisation of a dream to be standing, victorious inside the world’s most competitive cage, and it seemingly hit Maguire like a tonne of bricks once Rogan stepped to him with his microphone. The Tsunami Gym fighter admitted: “I never allowed myself to enjoy the thought of signing for the UFC, even in the build up. It wasn’t until after the fight, the victory, that I accepted the fact I am now a UFC fighter. I had to have that fight first, and now it’s still kind of surreal. That I am fighting for an organisation that I have watched and loved for so long. I’ve seen every single UFC event. I mean I am like a super-fan, I watch and read everything there is about UFC. Me and my brother, back on the site, we’ll stay up until all hours waiting and jumping around when the fights start. It was so surreal to be a part of it, even the weigh-in.” “And I think that showed when I got in there, that was actually the problem. People were saying I didn’t look it, but I was so nervous. I was shaking like a leaf and before I walked out I actually thought I was going to have a heart attack. Then,

after he dropped me, it woke me up. Oh man, it would have been horrible if I would have lost. It would have killed me and I know I would have literally cried for six months, but I am just so glad I got the win and I am still here.” Maguire got tagged with a spinning back kick from Edwards, which forced him back up against the cage, then got tagged with a looping overhand right and ended up crumpled in a heap with just sec-onds on the clock. “It was the right hand that woke me up, I trained for the spinning back kick as I knew he would throw that kick so that didn’t bother me, but I got lazy with it. My brother was screaming at me. I re-member the shot, it was a right back hand to the chin. But then the next thing I remember was waking up on my back and seeing my feet waving in front of my eyes, but I was work-ing my guard even on instincts and so I just thought, ‘ Well I’m here now so let’s do this.’” “But there was no way I was losing that fight, especially not in front of that crowd. I picked that walkout music especially, ‘The Brit-

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ish Are Coming’ [by UK rapper Mr ShaoDow], and I knew it would go down well, but to me it sounded like the crowd absolutely loved it and the atmosphere was electric.” Gypsy celebrations are the stuff of legend, if you believe the dramatisation of movies like Snatch at least, so were there a few drinks enjoyed back at Maguire’s traveller

site when he finally made it home from his debut? “Yeah, we had a little celebration, but nothing too crazy,” he offers. “To be honest, I am just so proud to be the first UK gypsy ever to fight in the UFC. I kind of wanted to give some of the travellers out there the finger afterwards, let them doubters and critics know that I made it despite them, but I am too classy for that. “But it was a good celebra-

tion. My caravan is surrounded by my close family. I’ve got one brother, a sister, and my mother is next door; my auntie is on the next plot over, and my sister the one after that. Then my uncle and auntie on another plot, my other uncle and auntie on one after that – pretty much all my relations live on the site. Then in Peterborough I have a

tonne more relatives too. But that’s just part of who I am. That family bond, its part of my upbringing and it’s my biggest value. I was brought up watching fighting too and I’ve al-ways been a student of the game.” And as for the future of gypsy jiu-jitsu, Maguire adds: “Well we’ll have to wait and see, but I have high hopes. Back in Birmingham, I was backstage before my fight watching the monitors and I remember hear-

ing Joe Rogan comment on how eas-ily a lot of the British guys were being taken down. He was saying English guys can’t wrestle and will always struggle in the UFC and I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to show these guys.’ And even my corner team too were like ‘Come on then, show them we can wrestle.’” “Then if you watched the guy I fought, every opponent he’s ever faced he’s taken down, he’s got good wrestling and throughout his career he’s been able to take guys down at will. But he didn’t even come close to taking me down. Apart from when I got lazy and got caught with that punch, he never took me down. So I am delighted I showed that this Englishman has good wrestling and I can fight on the ground.” Perhaps it’s time for the rest of the UK’s MMA scene to sign up to gypsy jiu-jitsu.

“We had a little celebration, but nothing too crazy,” he offers. “To be honest, I am just proud to be the first UK gypsy ever to fight in the UFC.”

26 Vaughan Lee

NEW KID ONTHE BLOCK.Article written by Aundre Jacobs

s Vaughan Lee stepped into the cage at UFC 144 in Japan to face one of his heroes, ‘Kid’ Yamamoto, the

words of his idol and mentored per-haps steadied his hand more than anything else. ‘Defeat is a state of mind; no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as reality.’ Having lost his UFC debut just three months earlier, Vaughan was perhaps being fed to the li-ons at the Saitama Super Arena in February. Yamamoto is not only a Japanese fighting superstar, but re-nowned the world over as one of the greatest bantamweights in mixed martial arts. Surely this was going to be a hometown decision… The prob-lem was, nobody told Vaughan Lee. Inspired by Bruce Lee from childhood – hence the reason Vaughan trades under the surname Lee against his birth name of Har-vey – the Birmingham born and raised scrapper ripped up the script in sensational fashion in the Land of the Rising Sun; not only ending the fight with his hand raised, but also becoming the first fighter in history to force the Japanese star to tap out. “It was a dream come true, fighting him,” says the 29-year-old UTC star. “I remember watching him on K-1 Hero’s and thinking ‘I would love to fight him, in Japan in front of all the fans,’ and my dream came true. It blows my mind every time I think about it.”

Martial arts has always been more of a calling than a career choice for Vaughan Lee. Instead of going to school, he found solace in the teachings of Bruce Lee, and eventually swapped the classroom for a dojo. “Bruce Lee means a lot to me, because I used to get bullied at school. I used to skip school a lot. I would collect Bruce Lee books and study them. His films, his teachings. I studied them all. I didn’t have a fa-ther around the house, so I had him to guide me and teach me about life and martial arts,” explains the UFC bantamweight star. Soon enough Vaughan found himself studying jeet kune do – the art that Bruce Lee created himself. According to Bruce, jeet kune do was all about training and discipline towards the ultimate reality in com-bat,’ and ideal that Vaughan follows to this very day.

“I started with traditional martial arts, like Shaolin kung fu, Lau Gar kung fu, Thai boxing, wing chun and so on. Then when I was 16 I started studying jeet kune do. By the time I was 19 I’d become a student instruc-

tor, but I wanted to test my skills and I wanted to fight.” His personal drive and the need to test all the skills he had ac-quired over the years would begin at Cage Rage 2 in 2003 where he fought Philly San. Although he lost the fight, his will to compete and learn drove him forward in the UK MMA scene, eventually helping him rack up a 6-3 record by 2007 in a tal-ented featherweight division. “I naturally walk around at 66kg so it was just easy for me. I was strong for my weight, so I could han-dle the guys that were cutting down. I hadn’t really heard of cutting weight until later on in my career,” Vaughan says. “There were loads of big guys who were cutting down to feather-weight for the advantage. Then the bantamweight division opened up in the UK and that allowed a lot of guys who were naturally 66kg, like myself

a chance at fighting in a better suited weight class.” Lee was part of a generation of fighters who really made a differ-ence to the UK MMA scene with the likes of Michael Bisping, Dan Hardy,

“I would collect Bruce Lee books and study them. His films, his teachings, I studied them all. I didn’t have a father around the house, so I had him to guide me and teach me about life and martial arts.”

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28 Vaughan Lee

Paul Daley all debuting around the same time. Even though the group came up in what was the golden era, Lee wasn’t necessarily a fan of the way that MMA was promoted within the scene. Vaughan recalls; “When I started fighting MMA had this grimey, ‘cage fighter’ feel to it. I think UCMMA still has that sort of attitude towards it, but back then, that’s how people viewed the sport of MMA. Now it has evolved and become more about the martial arts. It’s less about, ‘Who is the best cage fighter?’ and more about, ‘Who is the best martial artist?’” Once Lee made the drop down to bantamweight, he went un-defeated in the UK regional circuit, quickly becoming one of the UK’s brightest prospects. Whilst training in Japan, at soon-to-be opponent ‘Kid’ Yamamoto’s gym, he received a message that would finally get him near the big stage. “It was crazy experience,” he says. “I got a Facebook message from Ashleigh Grimshaw asking me if I was going to The Ultimate Fighter tryouts. I didn’t even know that it was happening, but I wasn’t going to miss it, so I jetted back to the UK and got

some more cash and flew straight out to New York. “I went out there and broke the record for most submissions in two minutes. I didn’t get through in the end, but a couple of months down the line I got the call.” That call being the one he received to fight in his hometown of Birmingham at UFC 138 against Chris Cariaso. With his usual calm demeanour, many thought that Lee would be fine, but, in his own words, he was “bricking it”. His dream debut soon became a nightmare, as he lost a unanimous decision to Cariaso, something that still haunts him to this day, “I don’t know what happened to me on the night. I couldn’t get it together mentally, I think that’s what held me back. I should’ve won that fight and I know it,” Lee accepts. He got a second chance on the big show against Yamamoto, however, who was one of Vaughan’s favourite fighters when he started out in the sport. Facing one of his heroes was a daunting task, but Lee stepped up to the challenge, deliver-ing a career-defining performance against a legend.

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