[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]UFC 193 is now in the books and the event will go down in history as featuring one of the biggest upsets of all time – Holly Holm knocking out the face of women’s MMA, Ronda Rousey! A huge moment in MMA and the event was also a big one for Absolute MMA too as we welcomed the UFC to Melbourne for the first time!
The UFC 193 hype started for us with UFC President Dana White and the biggest star in MMA, Ronda Rousey visiting our Melbourne CBD headquarters to shoot an interview with A Current Affair! Dana and Ronda were in the gym for about an hour and we got a chance to have a good chat with both of them, watch Ronda throw around a reporter a bit and shoot some photos with them.
You can check out some of the footage of Ronda and Dana in the gym and the interviews in the video below![/vc_column_text]
[/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]Next up we had UFC Women’s Strawweight Champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk in the gym to do some conditioning and then visit us again later do some more training and grappling with our own BJJ World Champion Livia Gluchowska.
Joanna’s conditioning training was unbelievable; she was really training as though she was fighting for her life! Afterwards she was always kind enough to hang around and take some photos with the guys in the gym. Knowing how nice she is, it was great to see her get another well-deserved win!
You can check out Joanna training at Absolute in UFC Embedded![/vc_column_text]
[/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]As always, it was a pleasure to have our good friends Dan Kelly and Jake Matthews in the gym to spar in our pro sessions. Seeing both guys really excel at this event and come away with huge wins was really special and we feel so privileged to have them training with us! A huge congratulations to both guys on career best performances!
Although the fight didn’t go his way, it was a pleasure to have Peter Sabotta visit us for a few weeks to train each day in preparation for his bout with Kyle Noke! Peter is really an outstanding grappler and he even brought in his coach, the legendary grappler Dean Lister for an amazing 3-hour seminar!
Next up we had #1 ranked UFC Strawweight and 3-time BJJ World Champion Claudinha Gadelha drop in to take part in our morning BJJ class! Just incredible that one of the very best fighters in the world would be humble enough to jump in with our members and do some training! Claudinha is likely to be the next challenger for Joanna’s title – that’ll be a hard one to watch for us now but it’s sure to be another great fight!
During fight week we also were lucky enough to have Hector Lombard and Valerie Letourneau in the gym to do some training for Valerie’s title fight with Joanna! It was really great to see Valerie execute all the techniques she practised while training with us in what was probably the best fight of UFC 193.
Our good friend Mark Hunt also dropped back in to Absolute a couple times to do some padwork before his rematch with Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva. I think quite a few of our members were pretty stunned when Mark just showed up to an open mat to hit some pads! It was pretty funny watching all of the guys spar when Mark was watching too – I think the intensity was raised a few notches! Mark also came back later in the week to sign some autographs and take some pictures with the 150-plus fans that came in to the gym!
The #2 flyweight in the world and UFC title challenger Joseph Benavidez visited us again to do a surprise private training session for one of our lucky members, Nina! Nina is hoping to have her first MMA bout soon so I’m sure it was amazing to learn from such a brilliant, technical fighter!
To cap off an amazing week, UFC 193 certainly delivered with nearly all of our favourite fighters getting huge wins plus that massive upset in the main event! A huge crew from the gym went to see the historic, record-breaking event and the excitement has rolled into gym this week, with massive numbers for all of our classes so far!
All in all, UFC 193 was one of the most exciting events in Absolute’s history![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
