Amun Cosme

A. All right, my name is Amun

“Moon” Cosme. I currently reside in Warner Robins,

Georgia, but my family we are all originally from New

York. We moved down to

Georgia in the late 90s. So, I was raised down here, I was about six when we moved.

I'm a professional mixed martial artist. I fight in the cage. So, everybody says oh, you do the UFC stuff. I tell people UFC is the brand.

MMA is what I do. So boxing, kickboxing, jujitsu, wrestling, basically MMA is just a compilation of all the martial arts together. They'd lock you and another grown man in the cage. And you'll see who the baddest man is that night.

A. Growing up, I always was interested in it because I'm not the biggest dude. I'm one of eight brothers and sisters.

And I'm the baby boy. So,

I fought a lot. Older sisters beat me up, older brothers beat me up. Everything like that. But I was always interested in learning how to defend myself. And I was always a little bit of an athlete and competitive. So, I started getting into a little bit of boxing and a little bit of kickboxing. And then I got into jujitsu. And then one thing kind of led to another after six or seven months of just consistent training, I started doing competitions, and I started doing pretty good. I knew in the back of my head that I wanted to compete in fights. So, I came to my coach, and he was like, well if you keep showing up, you keep training we can keep putting you in competitions. One thing led to another and I took my first amateur fight in 2016. And then I went pro last year, and the ball has been rolling and even Corona can't slow me down.

A. The next big move is definitely fighting in the biggest MMA organization in the world, which is the UFC. They're known as the biggest brand out there. You have UFC, Bellator, and one championship or kind of the front runners for mixed martial arts in the world. It's not like the United States. But obviously, the UFC is the biggest one in the world. And if you want to be the biggest and best in the world, I want to fight for the biggest and best company in the world. They have the top competition and my current coach fought for their organization over 20 times. So, he knows what it takes to get there. And that's what we're doing right now. I moved just to train with Miller Martial Arts and Fitness in Warner Robins. Cole Miller is getting the pedigree ready to go to the big stage.

A. Alright. So, the first four years that I fought as an amateur I was undefeated, and

I won three amateur titles. I worked my way up from being at the bottom of the barrel of 2, 300 fighters in the Southeast to be the number one ranked contender as an amateur. I beat the number three guy, got knockout of the year. And once I did that, I had acquired my third amateur belt. My first amateur title was for Valor.

And then after that, I acquired another one for a National

Fighting Championship. And then after that, I went back to

Valor because I got into a car accident, so I couldn't fight for a year and a half. So, I went back for Valor after that and won back the title that I never officially lost. So, I had three amateur titles. And then after that, I kind of moved on into the pro ranks. So that was kind of my resume as an amateur.

Everybody was like, oh my

God, he's undefeated, is he going to do it like a pro? And

I've had two pro fights, and

I've won them both. So, I'm continuing that undefeated record, which to me is not really that important. I could care less about the record. Just going in there that night, when you fight that's really the only thing that matters. Your record doesn't win you the current fight. But as far as the biggest accolade, that's what everybody else would say my biggest accolades are. To me, the biggest accolade is just a person that I've became through fighting. What fighting is done for me, and just helped me grow up as a man and as a human being.

A. So that's the part that most people have no idea about. When I tell people about fighting, they think, oh man, this guy is crazy. These guys just talk crap, and then in eight weeks, they fight. I'm like, you have no idea what it takes to be a fighter. You're fighting every single day. You're fighting to eat the right food. I train twice a day,

every day, and six days a week. So, when people say, oh man, I want to do what you do. I'm like, no, you want to get the glory at the end of a win, but you don't want to do what I do. Because what I do is, when people say they work 40 hours, I'm like, yeah, but imagine if your 40-hour work week was 40 physical hours of training. My workweek is 60, 70, 80 hours. I train two hours in the morning, I eat breakfast, come back, stretch, I train other people, I'll do private sessions, I'll teach kids classes, I'll teach adult classes, and then I'll get another 2, 3, 4 hours of training in that night. And then I'll do that pretty much every day, Monday through Saturday. On top of that, I have to meal prep and cook my own food. And I also go lift weights at the gym, and I run my miles at the track. I tell people fighting is a huge balance of life. I tell people I fight and everybody else fights. But I came from a family of 8 brothers and sisters, and I've seen my mom and my dad fight to pay rent. And I see my mom and my dad fight to get jobs. I've seen them fight to get us out of poverty. I've seen them fighting my entire life. And this is no different. I just kind of focused it on martial arts-based fighting. So, I trained in martial arts throughout the week. I've trained other people in martial arts. And what I do to prepare for a fight is, I train my body, my mind, and my spirit to go to war. You got to put the best food in, you got to have the best trainers. You got to have the best mindset. But just like in life, it's not always going good. It's always up and down. So, as you prepare for a fight, you're fighting other people, you're fighting yourself, you're fighting your own personal demons, you're fighting that piece of cake that's looking at you in the face. You're always fighting. And I tell everybody is there's no difference between what I do, and what you do. It's a physical altercation, but the hardest altercation that we all have as people are the mental one. The mental demons, you got to face every single day from whatever stuff that you had growing up to an adult. So that's the biggest battle and I think that's why I like the reward of going in there and getting the win. It's good but the best accolade is who you become along the way on that journey. And that's a balancing act. And that's the hardest thing. The nutrition, the mental nutrition, and the physical nutrition. Body, mind, and spirit, every single day, to be checked in and motivated. To get up when you don't want to, to eat the right thing if you don't want to. To train 30, 40 hours a week physically and still do studying and stuff when you don't want to do it. So that's the hardest part of fighting. And that's the part that people don't see. They only see when they raise your hand. And they're like, yeah, I could do that. I'm like, no you can't.

A. Oh, man. My goal and the trajectory that I'm heading in is definitely to get to the UFC. So anytime that there's a fight on the

UFC and I see people in my weight class, that bantamweight. I'm like, oh man, I want to fight these guys. I can't wait up on that level to where I'm already in the 1% of the population. 1% of the people on the planet don't fight. But then you got to think the people who do train, then you have 1% of them actually become professional athletes. And then 1% of them become the best in the world. So, the pool is getting smaller and the guys that are on that level

are some of my idols that I look up to. And I'm like, man, I'm not that many years away from being in the same league as them, and possibly fighting them. Like Jose Aldo, Aljamain Sterling, and Petr Yan. And I would really like to fight TJ Dillashaw. He's probably one of the best 135ers. He got suspended for taking illegal substances, like steroids and stuff like that. But I think matchup-wise, we would still be a really good match-up. We do a lot of things very similar. He's way beyond where I'm at now, but I think at the time once I get to that big stage, I think that would be a great fight, me and TJ Dillashaw.

A. Oh, man. So, when we go top three favorite fighters, I always don't just think MMA. Because when I grew up, we're from up

North, my family was born in New

York, and we moved to Philly and then we moved to Georgia. So, I started watching boxing first. And my dad was born in the 40s. So,

I grew up watching the old like,

Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson, and Ali. I remember watching VHS tapes. So, if I would have to say top three fighters I would have to go all across the board. If I would say like, alright, in my head when

I was younger, if you didn't tell me that Jackie Chan was a freakin actor, I would have said he was my favorite fighter. Jackie Chan,

Roy Jones Jr. and Muhammad

Ali have always been some of my favorite boxers ever. So those would definitely be on my top as far as boxing. As MMA goes, I would probably say Anderson Silva still is one of my favorites, man. He's one of the goats. Him, Dominick Cruz, and Jose Aldo are probably three of my top favorite fighters. Their style, I like what they do. Israel Adesanya, the newer guy who just came into the UFC and lit it on fire. He's from New Zealand. I think Nigeria. He's from New Zealand but his family from Nigeria if I'm not mistaken. Freakin phenomenal, a great fighter. And he's entertaining too. I just love to watch him get interviews too. He is super entertaining and he used to be like a B-boy so he used to dance, so he's got all the flavor, everything. He's got the swag. And he's one of the best in the world. So that's one of my newest favorites. But Anderson Silva, Israel Adesanya, Jose Aldo, and those kinds are in my top, Dominick Cruz.

A. The advice I would give to my fans is I don't consider them banned.

Because I feel like whenever you call somebody a fan, you're making yourself seem like you're up here and they're down here. I've dealt with everybody, anyone that sends me a DM, a like, a comment, they message me, and we have a conversation. I'm a fan, I tell them and you're a supporter. Because along this journey I tell everybody that's extremely hard, and it's very hard to do. That's why most people don't choose to do this. I chose to do this. But they're a supporter. Because every time that they do something it supports the journey that you're on. I remember where I came from, and I'll never forget it. I can remember it like it was yesterday. 11 of us sleeping in a two-bedroom section eight apartment. And I used to make a joke that me and my cousin shared a closet, and somebody was like, what do you mean? I was like, no, no, we slept in the closet. Me and my six-foot cousin slept in a walking closet. I remember what that was like. So, I never look at myself as if I'm better than anyone or anything like that. And in a weird way, when you're training for fighting you have to have the confidence and tell yourself you're better than the average person, but not in the way that demeans them. It means your skillset. Like what I practice, I'm practicing being a better martial artist than you. But I'll tell people that support me or someone's who says, I want to be just like you, I want to train, I want to fight, I want to do this, I want to do that. I'm like, cool. The number one piece of advice I can tell you is to be consistent and be honest with yourself. So I'm like if you can be consistent with what you want to do, and if you're honest with yourself, anytime somebody asked me they want to do it, my first question is, why do you want to do it? And if they can't give me a solid answer on why they want to do it, then I'll tell them, to be honest with you, you shouldn't do it.

A. Well, I just had the fight that was on Saturday. And as far as events right now, I've just talked with my management, and I can't give out the date but I had a couple of different promotions but one particular promotion reached out to me, and they want me to fight for them during the summer. So,

I can't give out that information until I've met my management.

He's meeting with me tomorrow.

He's like, hey, man, don't say nothing. I was like, okay. July is what it's looking like. So, once they send over the contract and the information, and it's official,

I'll let you know. I'll shoot you the message. And I'll be like, hey, look, it's official. That way everybody can know about it. But I don't have any particular events. The one thing we were looking forward to doing was getting my next fight. It's like, hey, I just went in there and fought, I'm healthy, and I'm ready to go back and fight again. So, give me two months at the training camp and an opponent and I can do it. So right now, they gave me a timeframe, they said July. I said, let's do July. I'm waiting for them to give me an opponent. I can't say anything, because they don't have an opponent. Once they get an opponent to fight me, and then it's official.

A. To be 100% honest, the fight went well, but I was extremely disappointed. Because I just have extremely high standards for myself. And there were some points in the fight where I feel like

I could have finished. And there were some complications in the fight and things that I couldn't do, and I can't disclose why. Because

I was nursing a little bit of a preexisting injury, but I didn't want to say anything going into the fight.

So, I can't disclose what happened.

But in the fight, there were some areas where I felt like I should have finished it. But I fought a tough dude and everybody enjoyed it. I just uploaded the highlights today.

And I feel a little bit back and forth.

I kind of started putting on the pressure and I won off every round decisively. But I was upset that I didn't finish it. I just hate leaving it to the judges. Even if you win every round, I just hate standing there at the end knowing that my fate is in three other people's hands and what they saw. Because they could see something different than what you thought happened. And I'm like, but I hit him more times than he hit me or he's bleeding and I'm not. It was a very weird feeling. I felt like that one other time, and it was at that one my second amateur title, which I was happy that I got the win, but I was disappointed that I felt like I could have done better. Not that I could have fought harder because I fought hard. I felt like I could have fought a little bit smarter. I got wrapped up in the excitement of the fight, and I started fighting. I was like, we in there. We like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And if I would have just kind of slowed down a little bit mentally and pulled off the gas I could have been like oh shit, this can be the one to finish the fight versus just going at it boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay, cool, hit, hit, not get hit. Move, move. Go, go, go, go, go. If I would have been like, alright, cool. Because I'm so normally just so cool, calm, and collected. But I was really excited because I haven't been in the cages in 15 months because I had four flights canceled. So, I was so excited to be back. I was like, oh my God, I finally made it. We're finally back in the cage and the fight didn't get canceled. Because my other four fights got canceled the day before. So, I did all this training for 10 weeks and then the day before I get canceled, and I did that for over a year, 15 months. And I was like, please just don't get canceled the day before.

And that's what I tell people when they're like, oh my God, I can't fight. I get mad. Sometimes the emotion is not the best. They're not good to fight emotionally. And I did go in there fighting emotional, but it wasn't anger emotion, it was excitement. I was excited to be there. And I came out, we touched gloves and after five seconds, I was like boom, boom, boom. And it was like 100 miles an hour and I never took my foot off the gas. If I would have taken the foot off the gas and maybe do like 90 miles an hour, I could of maybe saw, or maybe I missed a couple of opportunities to finish the fight. That's part of fighting and being a martial artist. I am a martial artist at heart. Even when I stop competing in the cage, I'm going to teach and train martial arts to the day that I die. So that was my recap of that night. It was a beautiful night. I had a ton of people come out and support me. Family and friends that I grew up with since I first moved to Georgia. And people that knew my family from New York. The support was amazing. I've never fought in a place when they're like, let's go, Moon. I can hear them in the cage. I'm like damn, they're going off out there.

A. All right. You can follow me, my Instagram is my first name, last name MMA. So, it's amun_ cosme_mma. And then I also have a website. I'm amuncosme. com. My Facebook is my first name, last name. If you find any of my social media, everything is attached. So, everything is there.

My name is Amun Moon Cosme.

So, I just launched my T-shirt lunar unlimited. And it's the premise to break the limits that we put on ourselves. So, the sky's not the limit.