Youcef Dahmani travelled to meet Michael Russell, owner of the Mixed Martial Arts Clinic in Romford.
“I think technically there’s not a lot of clubs on our level and that’s the most [important] thing that I am proud of, the best thing I could have from my gym in the technical level”
Michael Russell is the current owner of MMA Clinic, which is situated in Romford [east London]. Amongst his many achievements Michael is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and a five-time British champion. He still competes but over the last year he has focused more on coaching and inspiring the next generation of MMA athletes.
It wasn’t hard to tell that Michael had a passion for mixed martial arts especially Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. He explained to me how this passion for the sport started from a young age by watching the first ever UFC’s; “I watched UFC one, UFC two and actually went on to train in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) with my teacher, because I intended to do MMA.”. Michael has had a lot of success in Jiu-jitsu competitions and grappling in ‘BJJ’, it eventually became something that he stuck to and turned into a successful career.
Michael is still young and shows a lot of energy, so what made him slow down on competing and want to open a MMA gym at such a young age? “In terms of opening gyms, it was always something that I wanted to do,” he explained. “I still train, striking and wrestling and every other aspect, I never really fought in MMA as such but I fought a lot of them in Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitions and that’s why I coach now.”
He went on to express how living and working in close proximity with other martial arts made it a logical decision to extend his gym’s services to other disciplines, “we had a Brazilian jiu-jitsu gym and then we started having Thai classes, boxing classes and it just evolved into a MMA gym.”
Bright future
The MMA Clinic in Romford is a fairly new gym but the experience of the coaches have made it a special place where anyone of all levels is welcome to come along, as Michael explained, “This gym we are in now has been here for about five years, nearly six years, the same group of guys have been training with me longer than that. I started teaching Brazilian jiu-jitsu in school halls and in gyms and eventually we got this one full time.”
Having trained and coached a group of professional fighters for as long as Michael had, he was eager to express how he felt about the level of talent at his gym, “We have got a lot of talented guys, a lot of high prospects, some real young up and coming killers really, but it depends on how hard they train and how motivated they stay, how dedicated they stay. But there is a lot of potential here.”
The founder of the ‘Clinic’ went further as to outline his ambitions for the crop of fighters under his colleagues’ tutelage, “They are all very exciting prospects, as well as all of the up and coming guys, who have all that potential to get into the UFC.”
The fighters that Michael was alluding to are Brad Wheeler, Karlos Kaminskas and Darren Stewart who are current WFS, Fury MMA and Killacam champions respectively. Wheeler, who fights as a lightweight, recently won his title in an epic fight that left his jaw fractured in five different places and you could sense that the success of Wheeler, Kaminskas and Stewart were a particular point of pride for Michael.
His ability to remain grounded despite his students’ success conveyed his experience as a practitioner and coach. As he waxed lyrical about the skill-set of his fighters, Michael underlined what he felt was the primary ingredient for stardom in the sport, “Again, it all depends on how dedicated they are and how motivated they stay. And it’s all about training, you know? That motivation to get up and come in, in the morning. If you stay hungry then they will all have the potential to go there. We had a guy who has trained with us, Joe Duffy, who is now over in Canada UFC and is doing really well. So hopefully that motivated some of the others to follow the same path.”
Technically sound
Though as Duffy follows a trail that was blazed by the likes of Michael Bisping and Conor McGregor in North America, I wanted to know how MMA was faring in east London. “It is huge, not only in London but all over the country. It’s growing all the time, it is one of the fastest growing sports in the world. Very popular in the area, there’s a lot of other clubs round this way, you get more and more people coming up every time there is UFC and it is shown in this country we have new people coming up joining the gym.”
Michael’s answer to if he had any big fights coming up was, “Well I haven’t competed since last year, I had a Jiu-jitsu super fight and that’s the last thing I did. I still train as much as I can, but when I was younger I was always training all the time and my main thing was to train and compete. I had a lot of success but nowadays I am more focused on coaching and teaching, earning a living and passing on parts of my knowledge, so I haven’t got anything lined up. I will again have something but not right now.”
Though his own competitive career had become sporadic, Michael was optimistic and ready for a torrent of fixtures for his fighters. “Darren Stewart who is a Killacam title holder, he will be defending it on the 12th of December in Margate, so that is a big one for us. Joshua Onwordi, he just fought last weekend and he is 5-0, in the rise of champions show, so a lot of things happening and a lot of guys out soon.”
It was clear by the facial expression and body language of Michael Russell that he is very proud of his gym and it was expressed throughout the whole interview, however he ended the interview by explaining that he was very proud of the teaching element at his gym.
“I think the technical side of it, I think that’s our strongest point. Whether it’s thai-boxing with Chris Carley, Brazilian jiu-jitsu with me, the boxing, the MMA… We are a very skilled team, a lot of teams have tough guys. I don’t feel a lot them have the skill set from coaches and I think it shows in the fights, jiu-jitsu competitions and in striking competitions, in MMA fights. I think that technically there’s not a lot of clubs on our level and that’s the thing that I am most proud of.”