When I’m fighting, I’m at peace. I’m at peace in the chaos.
Fighting is one of the only things you can experience where once you’re in there, nothing else matters. It is you and another human being going at it for 15 minutes. You find something out about yourself. You find out what you’ve really got, and how bad you want it. Not only yourself but your opponent also. How they’ve trained with only one intention in mind, beating you.
I have always had that fight in me, that aggressive streak. I wasn’t a bad kid but not being great at school with heavy dyslexia you’re indirectly labeled as thick or slow. I had to fight in school just to keep up – and that’s not in the physical sense, but just hard work. Where I am from getting into fights can happen. I just happened to be good at it. I never sought out violence, but when it came around, I was always one to stand my ground.
Mike Tyson said everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. In reality, most people don’t know what they’re truly made of until they get punched in the face. When you get struck on the nose and you feel that sensation, you feel the taste of blood in your mouth, your eyes water and you have to ask yourself the question ‘do I want to be here?’ – it is a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. There are times when you may question your rationale but you bite down on your mouthpiece and you keep going regardless.
Fighting gives me freedom. You ask yourself why you do it. You want to be a normal person – but it is peace in chaos that sets me free.
Discipline from a young age made me the fighter I am today.
I was born and raised in Irvine and when it came to high school, my parents took me up to Glasgow to go to private school where I’d receive more attention from the teachers. I had to get four trains a day to get to and from school for seven years. I started fighting when I was about 14 or 15. I was getting up a 5am to go for runs, go to training, prepare my food for the day and still have to go to school - from a pretty young age I had to be disciplined.
I’d get home at five o’clock and then be in the gym for six. I’d stay in there until nine, get home, do my school work, go to bed and then repeat. If I hadn’t done these things, I doubt I would have the mental strength, discipline and determination I have today.
Seven years of hell in school meant university wasn’t for me – Thailand was.
Once we reached the end of school and everyone was applying for university, I knew that was not for me. I had just gone through seven years of hell, so then it was time to do something for me, and I knew that was going to Thailand.
About a week after I finished school I just got up and left for YOKKAO for three weeks. That was the place I wanted to go to train and for those three weeks I worked my arse off. Morning, noon, and night. Learning from the Thais, cleaning up the gym, tidying up the pads – it was just the right thing to do. They took good care of me and they trained me well so I gave back what I could.
They went the extra mile with me, and I did with them. Then at the end of those three weeks, the boss Philip Villa asked me if I wanted a full-time slot. I was 18 years of age and I already had about four fights lined up that year and I said I’d come back the following January and that was me. That turned into three years at that gym. I was training alongside some of my heroes. I was running alongside Singdam. Then Saenchai would be in the ring watching me work.
When Saechai gets in the ring to watch you, it is like getting a second and third wind. You just start smashing the pads like crazy, you know you have to show you’re A game. He doesn’t say too much, he just wants to make sure you’re working hard. In one breath you’re star stuck, but then it reminds you that you are there to work. When Saenchai is watching you then you fucking work.
It was all a bit of a dream.
I had always wanted to fight on YOKKAO cards, so to even be in the gym as a kid from Irvine just made me realise I was on the right track. It was completely unknown things would go as far as they have. I worked so hard for this, I gave up everything I was so determined this is what I was going for, and it was starting to finally pay off.
