2X North American Champion • THOMAS HUGHES

I'm Brock Gibson with The Standard Examiner and I came to One Hit MMA today to do a feature on Thomas who is competing in the Waco tournament. He won it last year. And I talked to Thomas, I talked to a couple of his guys he spars with, teammates, Jordan and Lucas. I talked to Casey, I also talked to Jarrett and also Aldo. And I'll be writing a story on it in the paper soon. Thanks. One, two, three, let go, re-clinch and start firing the knees again. I didn't know there was a three-step rule. Yeah, you'll see them break the fighters up and be like, oh, break. And then sometimes you see them let them clinch on and people are like, break, break. But they don't understand that kickboxing is release and re-grab. Those little tricks. Yeah, kickboxing is so different. I feel like kickboxing is so much more advanced at striking around the world because it never died. In America, kickboxing went away for a while and it's making its comeback. But the rest of the world never gave up on it. It's ruined my, kind of my hormones a little bit because it's not good what we do. Weight cut is awful. I actually have my vlog lady and my MMA wife, she's filming right now, right Tessa? That are going to come down with me to my weight cut to document it, you know, do a little documentary vlog on it because of how stressful it really is. Now, because I started doing the cut to 45, now I walk around to 85. Yeah, so how do you lose 40 pounds? So, I diet and diet down to about 65, 63 and then I do the water cut from there to 45. I have to diet perfect for 8 weeks. What's a daily training session? So, I wake up in the morning, I do an hour of cardio. What's that? What's that involved? I do anything from like the elliptical to the treadmill, you know, just I keep my heart rate up for an hour and I'll do 2 minutes of sprinting on the elliptical or the treadmill and then 2 minutes of break. 2 minutes of sprint, 2 minutes of break for an hour. Okay. And then, usually Lucas meets up with me right after over at Vasa Fitness in Auburn. Meets up at Vasa Fitness? Yeah, they have a turf area and we run a mid-session, you know, I do 3 rounds of mids with him. And then I, I train here at 5.30. Bang Muay Thai, Jared. And then at night, I do another hour of cardio. One hour of cardio. Now, how has Bang Muay Thai helped? You know, honestly, it has transitioned me and made me twice the fighter I was when I last went. That's, that's what I've grown, learning their system. Dwayne Ludwig's system is a kickboxer's system that he's been able to transition and incorporate in MMA because he was originally a kickboxer, you know. He fought for the K-1 world max. He has multiple world titles under his belt in kickboxing. And to take what he teaches and really focus on, he's not so much about sparring every day. He's more about drilling, repetition. You know, I'm an orthodox fighter, but I fight Southpaw almost every fight. And I can switch back and forth easily because I've taken his system and drilled back and forth. You know, I've sat in the mirror for hours at a time in my Southpaw stance and worked on my cross, just my cross alone, over and over and over until I felt like my cross from Southpaw matched my cross from orthodox. So, repetition. Repetition. Everything he does is drill, drill, drill, drill. Drill the same drill over and over again until it's that muscle memory of, you don't have to think about the combination. You know exactly what's coming and you just fire. How many rounds a day? So, I'll do three full fights a day. Three full fights. That's a lot. Yeah, so nine full rounds. I'll take a break between each round. It's usually a fresh guy every round. Where do you want to see yourself in about three years? I've made a promise to my wife that I wouldn't fight for too long. You wouldn't fight for what? I wouldn't fight for too long. As in, I know that the weight cut, the damage you pay, everything about a fighter's life is very detrimental. And I don't want it to affect me in the long run. I want to go for a world title in professional kickboxing and hopefully fight for one and win that belt. Hopefully be training and be a coach. I enjoy very much coaching other fighters here and helping them when I see something. Yeah, I'll coach eventually. Maybe open something up farther north, Ogden. Bring more coaches in. I would be the kickboxing coach. It would be more like a booth type thing. I'd pay for the building, I'd pay for the gym. But the coaches in there bring their own students and you just pay a fee to use the facility as a coach. Like a booth, like they do for her. That way you can get a variety of coaches in there. You can tie things together as a team. You're a wrestling coach, I'll coach your wrestlers, your strikers. You coach them in jiu-jitsu, you strength and conditioning coach them. Let's mix them all together. Everyone pays their own coaches, but we pay a gym fee and we take care of the gym. Because I don't care to make money. My wife is very successful in her business. We're always dabbling in business opportunities and making more money. I would love to just make it. If it paid for itself, I would love to make it happen. Yeah, I would actually have Lucas hold some mitts for me. Yeah, no problem, thank you. Someone like Thomas has made me a fan of people. I've had to learn how to move differently, how to strike differently. Good? It's good. I don't even have to ask, I already know I'm pretty. You can't do brain damage to the body. Right, Tess? Right. No brain damage to the body. The best thing I was ever told as a fighter, not was ever told. I read it from an article from Gabriel Varga. Have Johnny pull his face up. Blond-haired, world-champion kickboxer right here, okay? He says, when I want to fight, I don't go party, I don't go to the club after party. I go to my room, and I take an ice bath, and then a hot bath. And the next day, I let my body recover, because my body is what won me that fight, and I gotta take care of it. Treat your body like a temple, and it will take care of you. Tess, can I get a picture of you pointing at the rock water? That's Tess. Want to know a true story? Thomas is a bully. When Lucas is better, or when he's healthy, I try to knock his head off, in a non-friendly way. You try really hard. I try. That's the idea. One time I uppercut him, dude, and I replayed it in my mind every time. It was right there. See where that X is? Jab, rear uppercut. Boom! It was like a peasant specimen. It was actually where the other X is, I liver kicked him and put him on the mat. But at that same X, I liver kicked you and almost put you on the mat. Almost still counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. It doesn't count. Horseshoes and hand grenades, man. You're close to a hand grenade and you die. This is my weight cut coach, my dietitian, my nutritionist. Strength and conditioning. You can never use any of the footage with me and Thomas because all of it is me making fun of him. I'll start blurring his face out for my vlogs, that's it. I like the sweat. Working on my model skills here. Make sure we're taking notes, okay? I gotta remember this stuff. Don't even worry about it, dude. I love it. I do a lot of photo shoots, actually. Thanks, man. See you tomorrow night? Yeah. See you, guys. See ya. See ya! Very much, Tessa. When you push yourself until you wanna pass out, instead of saying, I'm gonna pass out, I'm always like, I'm just gonna take a little nap real quick and fall asleep. That way, if I fall asleep and hit the ground, no one gets mad. No one freaks out. You're okay, Tessa. Just chop that down as a brain fart. Oh, you know, just boiling. Oh, hey! Double camera. Oh, my gosh. Look at your poor wife. Oh, you're sweating. She's not lactating either. Ah! He's scared for a minute. Standard examiner. Go check it out.