Martin Nguyen caused an upset winning the One Championship World Featherweight title. Fari Salievski shares behind the scenes insights training the world champion.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:
The difference between martial arts training and becoming a professional fighter
What it takes to become the One Championship World Featherweight Champion
The martial arts success values that left clues for Martin Nguyen’s One FC World Featherweight Championship
How did Martin Nguyen’s national and international exposure benefited KMA Champion Martial Arts
Martin Nguyen’s sole inspiration for working hard in order to take home the belt
And more
*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.
Download the PDF transcription
TRANSCRIPTION
GEORGE: Hey this is George Fourie and welcome to another Martial Arts Media Business podcast we’re on episode number 46. I have a repeat guest again for something a little different, Master Fari Salievski. How are you doing there Fari?
FARI: Always well, thank you.
GEORGE: Awesome. So today we’re going to talk about a bit of a different topic. One of Master Fari’s top students Martin Nguyen, he recently won the World Featherweight Championship in Asia and we’re going to talk about training a champion and how the whole journey evolved and what the next steps are. So let’s get started. So welcome Fari. I guess take us back to the beginning of all this, where Martin started training, etc.
FARI: Ok, first and foremost, I just like the fact that we’re a martial arts school, not a fight gym. So yes, we have fighter, we have a cage out the back. But at the front, we have little preschoolers and moms and dads and within all of that, we still manage to do a little bit of fighting. I look at that as fun, as a chance to test out our training. So it’s a martial arts school that has a martial arts culture. People bow on and off the mats and have the discipline of the martial arts. That's what Martin knew and joined for and he joined in doing our Brazilian jiu jitsu program and obviously, when he started, he did not plan to fight, but then we had some opportunities. To this day, I still run the ISKA, back then we used to have combat grappling, which is basically modified MMA. He got into that, liked it, and then some fight opportunities came up.
GEORGE: Ok, so how long has Martin then been training with you?
FARI: Look, that fight in the ISKA was in 2010. He was competing in some grappling tournaments back then, so it’s been at least 8 years. it’s been a long journey. 8 years flies, but here he is, The World Champion.
GEORGE: All right, cool. When did you actually or Martin realize that potential that there was a potential to reach this level?
FARI: Look, we went from the combat grappling in a tournament style to obviously going into the cage. His debuts were good, he had an undefeated record, but there was a one fight in Canberra that I put him up against an ace grappler from Melbourne that was just choking everyone out. And that fight really showed whether Martin was going to step up or not. In fact, even the promoter said, I remember his exact words, why would you want to put your boy to fight an ace Brazilian jiu jitsu guy, he's just going to get choked? And my answer to that was it’s not a Brazilian jiu jitsu fight; it’s MMA. And that was probably, I've got to say, one of the bloodiest fights you've ever seen.
You can go to a YouTube channel and check it out. I think his name was Ruderman. Anyway, check it out. He's beat, I still remember to this time. His feet were drenched in blood. It’s probably the worst kind of an MMA fight you want to see; you know? You know the fight that gives MMA a bad image? That was it. Because there was a lot of blood, but it showed that Martin Nguyen could step up. He's a natural competitor and he stepped up and that earned him basically another serious fight and he was only a fight away from the Aus…
Leave a Reply