Mixed Martial Arts scene growing locally On any given night, a group of six to 10 guys gather at Full Force Fitness on East Potter Avenue in Granville for their own version of Fight Club. Some nights they practice striking, throwing fists, elbows, shins, feet and knees at their opponent. On other nights, they grapple, contorting their bodies into unimaginable positions as they try to force their opponent into submission. The action is a blur of kinetic energy and fast-twitch muscles fibers; an unadulterated display of strength, agility and athleticism and one of the fastest growing sports in the country. Welcome to the world of mixed martial arts. Mixed martial arts is a full contact combat sport that allows the use of both striking and grappling. The sport combines a variety of marital arts techniques, including boxing, Muay Thai, Greco-Roman and Freestyle wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, judo, Karate, Tae Kwon Do, and submission grappling. Although the sport has been unfairly characterized as a barbaric blood sport— professional fights are banned in New York State—the truth is the sport is stringently regulated and fighters compete against opponents of similar size in the same way boxers and wrestlers do. At its most basic level, mixed martial arts can be traced back to the ancient Olympics, but it’s only in the last 20 years that the sport has begun to gain mainstream exposure rivaling that of boxing and professional wrestling. It’s also begun to gain a foothold in the local region.
“From the time of my first fight to now, it’s night and day,” said Jason Ingleston, a Whitehall native who has been training in mixed marital arts for the past decade. “There was always a core niche of guys that would come to fights, now it’s everyone.” Ingleston is a trainer and instructor at Full Force Fitness, a gym and martial arts training facility started last year by he and Jon Spoor, an aspiring MMA competitor. “What we’re trying to do is build a core group of guys,” said Spoor. “Right here, in this area is the place to be.” Spoor, 23, started training in mixed martial arts five years ago, shortly after graduating from Whitehall High School where he was a member of the
Railroaders’ wrestling team. “I grew up watching professional wrestling. I’ve always like the combat aspect and I can remember my siblings and I doing the moves in my parent’s bedroom,” Spoor said. After his father passed away from cancer in 2005, wrestling became an outlet for Spoor, an escape from the grief of losing a parent. As his scholastic wrestling career came to an end, Spoor began gravitating toward the world of mixed martial arts. Only a few days after wearing the Railroaders’ maroon singlet for the last time, he found himself helping Ingleston prepare for his first fight. The two have been training together ever since. “I started in Jason’s grandfather’s
basement,” Spoor said. Ingleston, who has worked at gyms in Castleton, Vt., Whitehall and the Capital Region, said several guys would come over and they would work on basic jiu-jitsu techniques. “It just started from there,” he said. “I love fighting. I’ve judged over a 100 fights and cornered others. I just love the whole atmosphere.” After traveling to St. Louis, MO., and training with legendary UFC welterweight champion and Hall of Famer, Matt Hughes, and trainer Matt Fiore, among others, Spoor became certified as a personal trainer and in 2012 opened Full Force Fitness. He and Ingleston have both fought in a handful of fights in the last five years and Spoor is currently training for a fight later this summer. Training for mixed martial arts can be grueling because it involves so many disciplines and requires a great deal of conditioning. But the rewards can be great, said Spoor. “It’s changed my life in terms of discipline and it got me into fitness. If it wasn’t for this, I’d be a 300-pound couch potato,” he said. Ingleston and Spoor offer mixed martial arts classes to both novice and advanced fighters, but actual fights aren’t for the faint-hearted. “If you want to be a fighter, be prepared to suffer,” Ingleston said. “When it’s just you and another guy in the cage, there’s no ifs ands or buts.”
Mixed Martial Arts expo at Full Force Fitness The adrenaline-pulsing, mano-o-mano world of mixed martial arts will descend on the Forum in Granville Saturday as Full Force Fitness hosts Outside Outrage. The all-day event will feature a two-hour seminar with retired professional mixed martial arts middleweight fighter Jason “Mayhem” Miller, several amateur fights, vehicle displays, vendors, live music, contests, and giveaways. “This will be our third show. The first two events were low-key; we’ve tried to take our time and generate some interest in the area,” said Jon Spoor, co-owner of Full Force Fitness. Mixed marital arts is one of the fastest growing sports in the country and its popularity matches or even exceeds that of professional wrestling and boxing. But the sport has its detractors. Some politicians have characterized it as human cockfighting and there have been several notable incidents where people involved in fights have been seriously hurt. Just last month a 35-year-old Canadian man was killed during a nonregulated fight in Michigan and in 2011 a 16-year-old was knocked unconscious by a man more than twice his age in an unsanctioned event in Lake George, spurring officials to file criminal charges against the promoter.
Those involved in the sport, however, contend it is no more dangerous than other contact sports, such as boxing, football or hockey and there have been studies that back up those claims. But despite those findings, New York continues to ban professional fights, making it one of the few states in the country to do so. Jason Ingleston, a trainer at Full Force Fitness and an MMA competitor has traveled to Albany to lobby lawmakers to make the sport legal on a professional level. “There is no sanctioning body in New York. It’s kind of a double-edged
sword because we can have amateur fights but we’re under a very close eye,” said Ingleston. Spoor and Ingleston have been planning the latest event for months. Spoor said the sport continues to gain a following in the area. “It’s getting very competitive in terms of promotion,” he said. “We had our first fight back in 2000 and back then there was nowhere to fight,” Ingleston said. “Now you have fights in Saratoga, Albany, the Poughkeepsie-Hudson area, and northern Vermont.” On Saturday, Miller who has fought
in the UFC, Strikeforce and other professional MMA bodies, and was host of MTV’s “Bully Beatdown,” will lead a training seminar open to interested participants. The cost of registration is $65 ($55 before Saturday) and spectators will be charged $10. Outdoors the event will include music by G.T. Entertainment, bounce houses, a hot dog eating competition, strongman competition and ring card girls competition. There will also be a number of vendors, including Nyce Designs, Young Living Essentials Oils and Supplements, and Murray’s Family Martial Arts Center. Action sports apparel company Headrush will also be at the event and are bringing a $300,000 custom chopper made by Orange County Choppers and have promised a big surprise. The Air Force is also tentatively scheduled to bring its Project Supercar X-1, a Ford Mustang whose interior is meant to resemble the cockpit of a helicopter. The event will conclude with up to 10 amateur fights, the first of which will begin at 6 p.m. Saturday’s event will kick off with Miller’s Seminar at 9 a.m. The outdoor events are set to begin at 11:30 and there is $5 cover charge. The cost to watch the fights Saturday night is $30 ($25 in advance). For more information, visit fullforcefitness.org see visit them on Facebook.