Too late to give MMA a real go?

I wish I had started training martial arts when I was 19. I started at 30 lol.

Good luck!
 
Ravo said:
South of England bro, I've looked around, there is no gym solely for MMA unfortunately. We've got Shootfighters and MMA Clinic in London but there classes, plus work, plus me driving there it just wouldn't fit my schedule :(
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What are you talking about dude?

There's Diesel, Nemesis, Premier MMA, Urban Warriors, Fight Zone MMA, Urban Kings, London Shootfighters East, Fight City Gym, London Fight Factory, Karma, Titan Fighter, Origin, SJ MMA, and those are just the ones in London that I've heard of.

Diesel has 10th Planet, Premier MMA has the only certified catch wrestling coach in London, Urban Kings gets regular seminars from guys like Anderson Silva, Chuck Lidell and the like. Titan is where Brad Pickett trains. There's plenty outside of London Shootfighters and the MMA Clinic.

Chances are you'd have to travel, but pretty much everyone has to travel for half an hour to an hour or so to get to their chosen gym.
 
7 days a week is to much, especially if you're not actively preparing for a fight. You're going to burn out. You also need to do more grappling, a large percentage of mma fights are spent on the ground, especially in the amateur and low level pro ranks.
Going into even an amateur MMA bout with limited grappling ability is a disaster waiting to happen. Regulatory bodies for MMA prevent people with pro boxing/kickboxing experience from participating in ammy MMA, but they do nothing to prevent guys with years of wrestling experience(even collegiate) or high level jiujitsu fighters from entering amateur MMA bouts.
 
dafuk? GTFO out of here. You're 19 and you're talking about too late? Many UFC champs started in their 20s. FRESH! Some are successful in the UFC and they started in their 30s FRESH!

I started in late 20s, 10 years older than you and I'm a champ. I fucking hate kids nowadays. You millennials is what i wrong with today. You want everything handed to you. Get to work and quit bitching.

Don't listen to the other spoiled Americans about working too much. Thais in Thailand work 7 days a week 8+ hours a day. They wake up at 5am and jog until 6-7am before starting their MT work out. Then a small break and lunch then they continue. It's full time work for them. Training 40+ hours a week. And they fight every week unlike you American "fighters" crying about fighting too much while only fighting 3x a year.
 
freaky said:
dafuk? GTFO out of here. You're 19 and you're talking about too late? Many UFC champs started in their 20s. FRESH! Some are successful in the UFC and they started in their 30s FRESH!

I started in late 20s, 10 years older than you and I'm a champ. I fucking hate kids nowadays. You millennials is what i wrong with today. You want everything handed to you. Get to work and quit bitching.

Don't listen to the other spoiled Americans about working too much. Thais in Thailand work 7 days a week 8+ hours a day. They wake up at 5am and jog until 6-7am before starting their MT work out. Then a small break and lunch then they continue. It's full time work for them. Training 40+ hours a week. And they fight every week unlike you American "fighters" crying about fighting too much while only fighting 3x a year.
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I'm pretty sure you're trolling but if you want to have a short career ts should definitely listen to you.
TS is talking MMA, not MT. Most MT fighters are peaked out and finished fighting in their early 20's and look like they could be steam rolled in an MMA fight by a sophomore highschool wrestler.
 
freaky said:
dafuk? GTFO out of here. You're 19 and you're talking about too late? Many UFC champs started in their 20s. FRESH! Some are successful in the UFC and they started in their 30s FRESH!

I started in late 20s, 10 years older than you and I'm a champ. I fucking hate kids nowadays. You millennials is what i wrong with today. You want everything handed to you. Get to work and quit bitching.

Don't listen to the other spoiled Americans about working too much. Thais in Thailand work 7 days a week 8+ hours a day. They wake up at 5am and jog until 6-7am before starting their MT work out. Then a small break and lunch then they continue. It's full time work for them. Training 40+ hours a week. And they fight every week unlike you American "fighters" crying about fighting too much while only fighting 3x a year.
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Chill out dude.

Thais also take a much larger break than you realise. They don't tend to train weekends and tend to have a break of about 6 hours between training sessions. It changes from gym to gym, but the 'spoiled american' is correct. He will burn himself out. He's new to it, and those Thai's that train 5 times a week, twice a day have been doing it for much longer... and certainly didn't train with that intensity as children.
 
Ravo said:
I know, I know... Millions of these threads about, but this goes out to anyone who had maybe started out around the same age as me? I'm 19, and really want to start pushing my potential MMA career. I've been doing Muay Thai for around 6 months, a bit of wrestling and No-Gi BJJ here and there. With my work it is difficult to train at one place all the time, because of schedules etc, but have made myself up a training schedule that my current situation would allow me to do, it's between two gyms but I can do it lol.

Monday: Thai Boxing 6:15pm - 7:45
Tuesday: Thai Boxing 6:15pm - 7:30 + Gi BJJ 8:30 - 9:45
Wednesday: Thai Boxing 6:15pm - 7:45
Thursday: Thai Boxing 6:15pm - 7:30 + MMA 8:00 - 9:00
Friday: Thai Boxing: 6:15pm - 7:45
Saturday: Wrestling: 9:00am - 10:00 + MMA 10:00am - 11:30
Sunday: Gi BJJ 12:00pm - 1:15

Following that schedule, plus any extra boxing sessions and 1 to 1's I can fit in for each martial art, do you reckon I'd have much of a chance of being decent at MMA?

For reference the coaches are pretty good for each art. Multiple Muay Thai champions at the gym, BJJ instructor is a long time Black Belt, one wrestling coach is a former British wrestling champion, the other has practiced Greco-Roman for over 20 years. The only thing is there is no solidified MMA coach, usually the Greco-Roman coach will take the MMA class, but his stand-up can seem a bit odd at times. I know the gym is looking for an MMA coach, as it's such a rising sport and such.

I know you're randomers on the internet, but I feel like it may be too late for me and am purely wondering if any of youse had started around my age and have found any success? My Thai boxing game is decent, I feel like my striking is pretty neat and I'm naturally flexible and agile, which suits me well for the Jiu Jitsu.

Cheers fellas! :)
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You really should just be training or better yet, sparring MMA rules, and not doing Thai boxing most of the time, and a little bit of wrestling.
 
19 is absolutely not late. JDS started when he was 21 lol and look him now. as others said you just have to keep training. if you want to get to somewhere you have to train twice a day and no excuses.
 
I don't think you even have to train twice a day, you just have to be smart about training and not fool yourself about what works and what doesn't. Proficiency is more about strategy and good judgement than wholesale amounts of raw effort. All those meatheads that come in get rekt, and they're used to putting too much effort into things- they're among the very WORST. Hear me?

*[Later when you're already good and so are your opponents, then you will know and have the experience to put those long hours of CAREFULLY MEASURED effort in if you're competing. This gives you the conditioning edge. If you're not really good, cardio/conditioning wont even come into play because you'll lose very quickly]

(This is all referring to striking. Not talking about the grappling game where you can stall and use conditioning to defeat someone better.)

Everyone wants to believe you can just grind like hell and you'll become great. Naw, everyone thinks that and everyone sucks who thinks that. Dedication-- okay, but not mindless buttclenching tension and unwavering overdone attitude. That mindset is exactly what makes most people fail hard and have to quit quickly because that's not how it works (except it works kinda for weightlifting, not for fighting- they are basically opposites). Rocky movies are cheesy and fun to laugh at but not what you want to learn from. You want finesse and for that, you gotta use your brain. To use your brain, you have to have patience and think a lot.
 
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Ravo said:
I know, I know... Millions of these threads about, but this goes out to anyone who had maybe started out around the same age as me? I'm 19, and really want to start pushing my potential MMA career. I've been doing Muay Thai for around 6 months, a bit of wrestling and No-Gi BJJ here and there. With my work it is difficult to train at one place all the time, because of schedules etc, but have made myself up a training schedule that my current situation would allow me to do, it's between two gyms but I can do it lol.

Monday: Thai Boxing 6:15pm - 7:45
Tuesday: Thai Boxing 6:15pm - 7:30 + Gi BJJ 8:30 - 9:45
Wednesday: Thai Boxing 6:15pm - 7:45
Thursday: Thai Boxing 6:15pm - 7:30 + MMA 8:00 - 9:00
Friday: Thai Boxing: 6:15pm - 7:45
Saturday: Wrestling: 9:00am - 10:00 + MMA 10:00am - 11:30
Sunday: Gi BJJ 12:00pm - 1:15

Following that schedule, plus any extra boxing sessions and 1 to 1's I can fit in for each martial art, do you reckon I'd have much of a chance of being decent at MMA?

For reference the coaches are pretty good for each art. Multiple Muay Thai champions at the gym, BJJ instructor is a long time Black Belt, one wrestling coach is a former British wrestling champion, the other has practiced Greco-Roman for over 20 years. The only thing is there is no solidified MMA coach, usually the Greco-Roman coach will take the MMA class, but his stand-up can seem a bit odd at times. I know the gym is looking for an MMA coach, as it's such a rising sport and such.

I know you're randomers on the internet, but I feel like it may be too late for me and am purely wondering if any of youse had started around my age and have found any success? My Thai boxing game is decent, I feel like my striking is pretty neat and I'm naturally flexible and agile, which suits me well for the Jiu Jitsu.

Cheers fellas! :)
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Deontay Wilder started boxing when he was 19.

If you have any aptitude for fighting or sports in general, there's no reason why you sould not give it a shot.

Worst case is you won't make a career of it but you'll undoubtedly learn alot and will get great benefits from it
 
I literally have shirts older than you, OP. Something is wrong with your brain.
 
Ravo said:
I know, I know... Millions of these threads about, but this goes out to anyone who had maybe started out around the same age as me? I'm 19, and really want to start pushing my potential MMA career. I've been doing Muay Thai for around 6 months, a bit of wrestling and No-Gi BJJ here and there. With my work it is difficult to train at one place all the time, because of schedules etc, but have made myself up a training schedule that my current situation would allow me to do, it's between two gyms but I can do it lol.

Monday: Thai Boxing 6:15pm - 7:45
Tuesday: Thai Boxing 6:15pm - 7:30 + Gi BJJ 8:30 - 9:45
Wednesday: Thai Boxing 6:15pm - 7:45
Thursday: Thai Boxing 6:15pm - 7:30 + MMA 8:00 - 9:00
Friday: Thai Boxing: 6:15pm - 7:45
Saturday: Wrestling: 9:00am - 10:00 + MMA 10:00am - 11:30
Sunday: Gi BJJ 12:00pm - 1:15

Following that schedule, plus any extra boxing sessions and 1 to 1's I can fit in for each martial art, do you reckon I'd have much of a chance of being decent at MMA?

For reference the coaches are pretty good for each art. Multiple Muay Thai champions at the gym, BJJ instructor is a long time Black Belt, one wrestling coach is a former British wrestling champion, the other has practiced Greco-Roman for over 20 years. The only thing is there is no solidified MMA coach, usually the Greco-Roman coach will take the MMA class, but his stand-up can seem a bit odd at times. I know the gym is looking for an MMA coach, as it's such a rising sport and such.

I know you're randomers on the internet, but I feel like it may be too late for me and am purely wondering if any of youse had started around my age and have found any success? My Thai boxing game is decent, I feel like my striking is pretty neat and I'm naturally flexible and agile, which suits me well for the Jiu Jitsu.

Cheers fellas! :)
Click to expand...
Youth is on your side Youngblood, go for it and good luck
 
Do they screen people with stand up experience? Never heard of this.
MaxMMA said:
7 days a week is to much, especially if you're not actively preparing for a fight. You're going to burn out. You also need to do more grappling, a large percentage of mma fights are spent on the ground, especially in the amateur and low level pro ranks.
Going into even an amateur MMA bout with limited grappling ability is a disaster waiting to happen. Regulatory bodies for MMA prevent people with pro boxing/kickboxing experience from participating in ammy MMA, but they do nothing to prevent guys with years of wrestling experience(even collegiate) or high level jiujitsu fighters from entering amateur MMA bouts.
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TroldeAnsigt said:
Do they screen people with stand up experience? Never heard of this.
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As long as you've never fought as a professional you can compete in ammy MMA, even if you have hundreds of amateur boxing/kickboxing matches.
 
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