Rob Mills ups his pro record to 4-0-0, taking out talented Swedish grappler Jonathon Weston in just 22 seconds. Now Rob will contest the Strike and Submit British title against Colin Fletcher on February 27th.

"The Body"

"When I first started training in Newcastle I was a pastey white pre-pubescent boy, weighing in at about 140 pounds. After just 1 year training with Peter Irving I'm a 300 pound testosterone fuelled monster, bright orange and 1 can of red bull away from a heart attack -... and I feel great about it. Thanks Knuckledraggers!"

N.F.L champion Ryan Roddy.

Local hero defeats UFC vet

Full event report from S+S 12 - Fighters Only

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

You feel free to decide which one is which -
Irving vs. Rosmon (photo by Chris Mason)Xth Legion "Forged in Battle"
Quinn vs. Lomas (photo by Matt Dalton www.Mattdalton.net) King of the Ring 12
Mills vs. Egan (photo by Dave Kirkland) Strike and Submit 12

Champion

Here in Newcastle the word "Champion" is commonly used as an adjective. For the rest of the world it's only a noun, with two possible contexts. Someone who has won, or someone has been chosen to represent a group of people. In terms of our sport, and specifically our gym, once you have won the medal or won the belt, you can call yourself a champion. Now it's put upon you to be the representative - to carry the reputation of the academy on your shoulders. You must fulfill the second part of the definition once you have achieved the first. You can, and should, interpret that to mean you must be athletically excellent. You have to be the fittest, strongest and bravest to bear that accolade. The athletic aspect is a given, but in my opinion a champion should be more than a sportsman, but an example of human quality in every respect. Champions who lack integrity are always remembered as disappointments. Who would you rather be, Pacqiou or Tyson?

The Killer

Tommy brought home a unanimous decision after stepping up at the 11th hour to fill the headlining slot on "King of the ring" in Nottingham. Tommy combined the takedowns of Georges st. Pierre, the ground and pound of Fedor Emileanenko and the footwork of Micheal Flatley to give a dominant performance against the shockingly hard Shaun Lomas.
Shaun is well known to all in Newcastle, having fought Matt Inman, me(Peter Irving) twice and is due to take on Lee Donald at the next Newcastle Fight Night. He holds an ISKA Northern areas Super Middleweight title and is a British Super Middleweight Muay Thai champion with countless Muay Thai, Kickboxing and Boxing matches to his credit. In case you're not familiar with him, here's Shaun going the distance with Cambodian legend Eh Phutong-

Name change

You may have noticed that I have replaced the title of the blog with "Newcastle MMA". It's been brought to my attention that a search for Newcastle MMA on Google doesn't bring up anything to do with us for several pages. Given that we've produced all of our cities top fighters and act as a hub for many of the regions top Pros, that struck me as unjust. Knowing nothing other than how to publish stuff on predetermined templates like this and Facebook, changing the name and creating a Facebook group of the same name ( http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=128201419462&ref=nf )was my best guess. If anyone else has a better idea on how to get credit where credit is due please let me know.

Seminar

3.30 till 6.30 Saturday 18th July, 3 hours of No-gi BJJ and wrestling, tech and strategy for MMA. At only £20 per person you simply can not afford to miss out. Be there or be chinned by all those who attended and now know something that you don't.
E-mail Peteirving@gmail.com to secure a place.

Kiai!

The Mestre

My efforts to keep this blog up to date have, as of late, gone by the wayside. Much has happened that is now too far in the past to be chronicled, I lost, I won again, Rob won, Craig won, lost a narrow decision and is now moving on to bigger and better challenges. The real news is - Crezio is about to arrive and will be here till the 20th to prepare us all for the next set of challenges.

For those of you who are new to the game, it didn't all start with the UFC. Crezio's father was one of the first Vale Tudo fighters, in fact he was Helio Gracie's first student to represent Jiu-Jitsu against other arts. Crezio himself fought numerous Vale Tudo fights, without gloves, weight classes, time limits or rules. Crezio also wrestled on the Brazilian national Frestyle and Greco-Roman teams and was, and due to his boxing and wrestling combination he could accurately be described as one of the first truly Mixed Martial artists.

Crezio wrote the book on Jiu-Jitsu for MMA and much of his technique has still never been seen outside of his network of schools. Crezio is from the "Old School" of Jiu-Jitsu, in the spiritual sense rather than the technical one. His technique isn't for sale to the highest bidder or available on DVD. It's meant only for those who are part of his family and share his love for his art. We're very priveleged that he has agreed to come and train us. make the most of it.

Every ceiling, when reached, becomes a floor, upon which one walks as a matter of course and prescriptive right.
Aldous Huxley

Danny Ho - Kung-Fu fighter, Reality TV star, Stuntman, Pornstar and now - Director.

Check out Danny's documentary about yours truly and Barry training for Jess.

N.F.L. Judgement - 3 for 3

It's nice to have a clean sweep, but as a coach my objectives are really performance based, not results based.





Jim "the Sexual Intellectual" Burman fought like a veteran in his debut, followed the gameplan perfectly and proved his mettle under duress. We may see Jim's "writer to fighter" journey in print at some point in the future. Keep hassling him to put pen to paper.



"Dangerous" Dan Blenkharn is starting to exceed the original spirit of his nickname, and is actually now more dangerous to other people than he is to himself. Dan applied excellent, measured tactics, great footwork, angles and cage control to kayo his opponent in 36 seconds.



Simon Gould gave the best performance of his career against a superb opponent from the Rough House. Simon's strength, fitness and unorthodox striking style allowed him to impose his will on the fight and take the decision. A deserving winner for fight of the night.

More important than winning, all of our athletes fought to their potential, showing everyone why we are Newcastle's number 1 for Muay Thai and MMA.

Art of aggression

If you recall some time last year when Barry's gym was constantly full of film crews, some talented guys from Sunderland University were putting together a piece on everyone's favourite "Net fighter" - Rob Mills.
Turns out it's actually rather good, so good in fact that it won a few awards recently. What can we do, everything we touch turns in to a winner. It's like magic.

Check it out here.

10th Legion fighting championships

Tickets are available at the gym now. Get them now, because they're selling out.

Full fightcard and info at http://www.10thlegionchampionshipfighting.com/

Check out the full clothing and apparel range at http://www.10thlegionfightwear.com/

Cage Kombat - Cage Kombat - Cage Kombat....

Simon did the business last Sunday against Chris Batty. Simon took it to him hard from the opening bell, defended the takedown worked from Half guard. Simon worked the front headlock and locked up a tight guillotine after defending a big high crotch from the surprisingly strong Batty. Simon switched off to a reverse Mata leao finish to force the tap at the 3 minute mark. 2 hours to drive up, 2 hours waiting around, 3 minute fight, 2 hours back. Well worth it. Probably Simon's best technical performance to date.

Come quietly - or there wil be......trouble.

You can see more of Chris Mason's photos on his facebook page. There's also a good selection of pics here from http://www.mmapics.com/


For any of you that didn't make it (what's your excuse) Rob put on a perfect performance against a very credible (and frankly massive) opponent in the shape of Scott Ward. Another representative of Scotland's dominant MMA team, a win over a ninja is something to be double proud of. This was not only Rob's professional debut, but was the first from our team to break in to the pro ranks. It's been a long time coming, and Rob has certainly done everyone proud, overcoming alot during his training camp and raising his physical and mental game from a part time amateur to a genuine professional. Enormously proud of you mate.