by James Goyder
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| The leader of Evolve MMA and his Champions |
In an effort to upgrade his skills in every area of MMA and to transform his game completely, Shinya Aoki joined the Evolve Fight Team in Singapore. Evolve MMA takes a unique approach in the world of mixed martial arts. The philosophy is a simple one: to acquire world champions in all of the main disciplines of MMA, to throw them under one roof and to have them train together day-in and day-out.
Evolve MMA is unlike almost any other camp in the world in that it is run like a professional sports team. Fighters are actively recruited from around the world and invited to become a part of the Evolve Fight Team.
They receive a hefty monthly salary, enjoy free corporate housing, and train under world champions in Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Mixed Martial Arts, Boxing, and No Gi Grappling. The facilities are enormous, state-of-the-art, and world-class; the fighters also benefit from a strength and conditioning coach to look after their fitness needs.
Instead of a loose group of mixed martial artists drifting in and out of training, Evolve MMA has a hand-picked, professional team from across the globe, working together constantly regardless of whether they have an upcoming fight or not. The Evolve Fight Team trains together 2x a day, 6 days week, all year round.
After a recent training visit to Evolve MMA, legendary MMA coach Matt Hume said that, “Evolve MMA is probably the best MMA school that I have ever seen. It has the deepest talent pool in the world. There is no doubt that they will be producing champions in the UFC, in DREAM, and other organizations in the future.”
Renzo Gracie echoes that sentiment, “For sure, there is no other academy like Evolve MMA in Asia. It has an unbelievable collection fighters and world champions. You will be hearing a lot about these guys.” Lastly, after training there,
UFC Legend Rich Franklin said in a recent interview that, “Evolve MMA is world championship level. The talent…especially the Muay Thai World Champions and BJJ Black Belts…are on another level. It’s only a matter of time before they start producing world champions in MMA.”
This all-year-round approach to training paid dividends when DARE Championship in Thailand asked Evolve MMA to find two suitable opponents on 10 days notice to face Ferrid Kheder, one of the most experienced 155 lbers outside of the UFC, and Sebastian Garguier, a top French fighter, on their main card.
Garguier and Kheder probably thought they were travelling to Thailand for an easy pay day and neither made any effort to even step onto the scales at the right weight. They got a rude awakening from Zorobabel Moreira and Brian Choi from the Evolve Fight Team. Moreira and Choi accepted the last minute call and registered convincing victories over Kheder and Garguier.
The leader of the Evolve Fight Team, Chatri Sityodtong, believes that the success of his team is due to the incredible teamwork at Evolve MMA.
“While most people believe that professional fighting is an individual sport, it is the farthest thing from the truth. In fact, fighting is probably one of the most intense team sports in the world. It takes an entire team to produce the results of a single fighter - coaches, managers, mentors, training partners, cornermen, students, etc," he said.
Moreira is a BJJ world champion from Brazil and Choi is a wrestler from Korea. As part of their development as MMA fighters, Chatri Sityodtong made Moreira and Choi compete in professional Muay Thai and professional western Boxing fights in Thailand. Chatri believes that it is critical for an MMA fighter to have actual combat experience in each of the single disciplines of MMA.
The pre-event publicity for DREAM 17 featured footage of Aoki hitting pads at Evolve MMA and working on both his boxing and Muay Thai. A few people expressed surprise at how much his stand up skills had improved and Aoki attributes it to the coaching he has received in Singapore,
“I feel very blessed to be a part of Evolve MMA. It is the top MMA camp in Asia by far and it is my belief that many of my teammates on the Evolve Fight Team will become MMA world champions in the future. Chatri and I have spent many hours trading our thoughts and ideas about martial arts. He is the main reason why I joined the Evolve Fight Team. Chatri is brilliant when it comes to fighting and martial arts,” he said.
Although he would love to avenge his disappointing loss to Gilbert Melendez, Aoki is all set to make an appearance at Bellator in 2012. His prospective opponent, Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez, is the only other top ranked 155 lber not under the Zuffa banner. It will be a rematch of the 2008 fight in which Aoki won with a first round heel hook. Alvarez has won seven straight since that loss to Aoki.
Another member of the Evolve Fight Team is Rafael dos Anjos, a UFC lightweight fighter. He recently enjoyed a KO victory over George Sotiropoulos and will be competing at UFC 139 in November in San Jose, California. He spends a few months a year training at Evolve MMA in Singapore and the rest of the time at Evolve MMA in Brazil.
While Aoki and Dos Anjos are already well-established fighters, the Evolve Fight Team also has plenty of up-and-coming fighters (who are already world champions and/or national champions in single disciplines) such as Fabricio Monteiro (19-7), Leandro Issa (9-2), Zorobabel Moreira (5-1), Brian Choi (5-1), Eddie Ng (4-1), Mitch Chilson (2-1), Alex Silva (1-0), Yodsanan Sityodtong (1-0), Radeem Rahman (1-0).
Yodsanan Sityodtong is a former WBA Super Featherweight world champion while Leandro Issa and Zorobabel Moreira are BJJ world champions.
Evolve MMA is also home to legendary Muay Thai world champions Orono Wor Petchpun, Namsaknoi Yudthagarngamtorn, Attachai Fairtex, Kongtoranee Payakaroon, Anuwat Kaewsamrit, Yoddecha Sityodtong, Lamanammoon Sor Sumalee, and many others.
While these Thai names might not mean much in the world of MMA, these Muay Thai legends are national heroes in Thailand and rank among the greatest in history. A couple of magazines in Thailand have gone as far as to label Evolve MMA’s team as the most decorated Muay Thai team in history.
Chatri has spent a lot of time and money acquiring this impressive array of talent,
“I handpick all of the fighters and instructors at Evolve MMA. I choose the members of the team based on a combination of personal/professional characteristics such as integrity, honesty, athleticism, gameness, humility, work ethic and teamwork. I believe in this formula so much so that I have even kicked out fighters and instructors from Evolve MMA for displaying behaviour which was counterproductive to the team,” he said.
It is interesting to note that no fighter has ever left the Evolve Fight Team voluntarily since its inception in 2008. This search has taken him all over the globe with fighters coming from as far as Brazil, Korea, the US, Hong Kong, Thailand and, of course, Singapore. Chatri spends a long time looking at prospective candidates,
“The formula is easy to talk about, but very difficult to execute. I get flooded with incoming emails, probably around one hundred emails or so per week from fighters around the world (mostly Asia) who want to be a part of the Evolve Fight Team as a fighter or instructor," he said.
I try my best to select every person for the Evolve Fight Team with extremely careful thought and consideration because I only want to invest myself in people that I believe in for the long run."
With upcoming fights all over the world, the Evolve Fight Team is busy training as always. The Evolve Fight Team has a hectic schedule lined up in 2012 in the UFC, ONE Fighting Championship, DREAM Fighting Championship, DARE Fighting Championship, and many other organizations.
Evolve MMA has already forged a reputation for being the most outstanding MMA academy in Asia with a 90%+ win record. The US has Jackson’s Submission Fighting and Team Cesar Gracie. Brazil has Blackhouse and Brazilian Top Team. And Asia has Evolve MMA.
The sport of MMA has truly become a global game
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