Fight club
Apartment for rent: no smoking,
no pets — fighting no problem
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| Amateur MMA fighters train kickboxing at Sam Agushi’s apartment in downtown Princeton. Don Groff (from left) works on his kick while Kevin “Hawaii” Ahulua holds the pads. Sam Agushi trains solo while R.K. Maloy works with Phil Nelson. |
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PRINCETON — It’s 4:45 p.m. on a Thursday and training has begun. The three men in the room shadow box in circles, working to maintain their footwork and form. After a couple of minutes, the radio in the corner, serving as a makeshift timer, changes songs. One of the three calls out “burpees,” and each man hits the mat and quickly pushes himself back up.
The three men continue their workout, dripping sweat onto the wrestling mat below them as they continue the drill, hitting the ground and popping back up in a move simulating a wrestler’s sprawl. A few more minutes and the song changes again, and it’s back to shadow boxing.
It is a scene somewhat reminiscent of Spike TV’s “The Ultimate Fighter” reality show, where athletes hopeful to earn a spot in the sport of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) biggest venue, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), train and compete in the various martial arts disciplines that comprise the growing sport of MMA.
Only on the show, the contestants train in a multi-million dollar athletic facility in Las Vegas with a chance to win a six-figure contract.
Here in Princeton, the training is taking place on Main Street, in a second-floor apartment above an ice cream parlor and antique shop, for the chance to fight for free, as an amateur.
After the first series of drills, the group moves over to a couch in the adjacent room, and they begin wrapping their hands for padwork, like in boxing.
Don Groff, who is leading Muay Thai kickboxing training this Thursday, talked a bit about the unusual training arrangement. The team used to train at the Metro Center, Groff says, until issues with insurance coverage necessitated a change in venue.
With no place to train the group, “made do with what they had,” and with the help of a wrestling mat on loan, converted Princeton resident and amateur fighter Sam Agushi’s apartment into their own gym.
Sure it’s cramped, (Groff said that practices can draw up to a dozen participants), and they can’t practice wrestling on days the antique store downstairs is open. But for the members of the group, it’s home.
“The normal response we get is a laugh,” says Groff, who holds a 1-1 amateur record in MMA, about the response he gets when he tells people their training situation. “They think we’re joking, and don’t believe any team with quality would really train in an apartment.
“When I won my first MMA fight by headkick knockout, a guy came up and asked were we trained. When I told him he started to laugh and said, ‘No, really.’ After about 10 minutes of the discussion, and him not believing me, I pulled out my camera and showed him pictures.”
Groff said after the initial moment of uncertainty, that people soon find out that members of the “apartment bums” (a joking nickname bestowed on the group) are for real.
Agushi has fought for and held amateur titles, and other members of the group like Sam’s brother, Matt Agushi, and former Princeton High School wrestlers R.K. Maloy, and Justin Swanson are carving out names for themselves as amateur fighters, while former PHS linemen Kevin “Hawaii” Ahulua, current St. Bede wrestler Dan Rucinski, and Michael Shipp will soon be making their debuts.
Groff said the common thread between the group is their love of athletic competition.
“Most of our guys are former high school athletes who weren’t good enough in high school to earn a scholarship. This gives them an avenue to excel in a new sport,” Groff said. “Many people view it as a side show, but to those guys who train and sweat in the living room, they know it’s a sport.”
While MMA has come a long way since bursting into the public consciousness in the early ‘90s with sanctioning and rule changes, Groff said the sport is unfairly demonized in a lot of public perception.
“A lot of people still see it as brutal, just a competition of two guys beating the hell out of each other,” Groff said. “Most people don’t see it as a sport.
“When you take a closer look at the guys that are doing it, it’s athletes who have not been able to move on. So they find a different outlet. Most all of us still want to compete at something, but these three-on-three basketball leagues or these other small competitions just really aren’t for us.”
While the fighters are ready and willing to take some punishment training kickboxing, wrestling, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu six days a week in preparation for upcoming fights, how much of a beating has the apartment taken?
“Not much at all,” Groff said. “We had one incident where one of the guys went through the wall, but we fixed that right off the bat. The whole point is to not make people think we’re barbarians or rednecks.
“The landlord knows; he’s been a very nice and generous man, always nice and understanding. As long as we don’t wrestle and slam on the days the antique store is open, he’s been OK with it,” Groff said.
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