Back in 1998, I participated in an event called The Ultimate Warrior Challenge in the Vancouver area. I’d been fighting NHB for less than a year and I was looking to get as much experience as I could. I was asked to fight a guy nameded Dennis Hallman and at that time you never really knew much about your opponents –there wasn’t any youtube or fighter databases.
There were actually a few well known guys fighting, including Denis Kang and Kalib Starnes, and Maurice Smith was there as a coach. Smith had beaten Mark Coleman by this point so was somewhat of a superstar to young fighters. He suggested that we implement some sort of rules to keep us all safe, to which I disagreed. I was a young, aggressive fighter and wanted to just have a scrap.

Maurice invited me to train with him and said he would break my fingers one by one because I wouldn’t tap. It wasn’t a threat, it was an explanation as to why we should agree to some safety precautions, but it was still awesome to have a guy like that berate me!

I met Dennis (Hallman) the day before and he was a nice guy. I think he cut a bit of weight, which wasn’t even something I knew was possible. Dennis is a well known fighter at welterweight and even at 185lbs, but back then he wasn’t all that much bigger than me: about 5lbs heavier at weigh in and maybe 10lbs come fight time. It wasn’t a factor in any case, which is just as well because there was no official weigh-in. Dennis and I just went to a scale together and agreed we would fight.

Dennis had a wrestling background with some submissions as well. I had no wrestling, and it showed. He took me down at will and I spent most of the match trying to avoid submissions. At one point, I got a heel hook but I let go to kick him in the face. Afterwards, Dennis said it felt tight and it worried him, so that was a good lesson. Speaking of leg locks, Dennis was trying to put me in a toe hold. I hadn’t seen one before but I figured I could escape by using my other foot. I let him get it on quite deep so that I could try out my theory. Fortunately, it worked, but what a stupid idea!

Then something ridiculous happened. The police busted the event! In the middle of our fight! Fights weren’t even called MMA back then and they certainly weren’t regulated. We were just a bunch of guys having bare knuckle fights in a warehouse (actually, I think Dennis wore one glove).

To be completely honest, it was a welcome respite for me because I did no conditioning whatsoever – I didn’t even know what cardio was. Although the fight was only a single 10-minute round, I was already exhausted from getting a one-sided mauling. And it was one-sided.

The promoters managed to blab to the police that we were making a movie and the fight resumed. I asked Dennis to towel down his neck as it was very slippery and he agreed. He was very good sport. Didn’t make any difference because I was on my back again very quickly and out of gas.

There were no judges and any matches that went the distance would be declared a draw, so in the last minute, Dennis turned it on. He went North-South and put me in a kimura. I’ve always been pretty strong and I powered out of it but I was tired. He kept the grip and tried it again and I yet again I managed to power out. At this point I was shattered.

He went for the kimura again and I had no energy left and no skill to escape the position. I’m a bit ashamed to say, it even ran through my head to bite his bum (I’m as disturbed by that as you are) but he was such a gentleman that I couldn’t do it. My elbow popped and he let off on the pressure and said, “Dude, your arm just popped!” I tapped and took away some very valuable lessons:

• CONDITIONING!
• Learn to wrestle
• Strength is very useful, but don’t rely on it
• CONDITIONING!

At the time I was pretty dejected. It was my first loss in about 5 fights or so but looking back, it was an awesome experience and certainly one I’m glad I had. My fighting background mainly consisted of scrapping with other thugs on the estate I grew up on and it was a bit of a culture shock (although very positive) to meet guys who liked to fight and were also great people.

About Leigh

Leigh started learning martial arts and self defense from his dad when he was a young boy. At the age of 8 he went to his first official martial arts class and started learning and competing in Judo, where he won his first trophy.

As a teenager, Leigh started to cross train seriously and trained in a few different styles of wrestling and striking arts, competing in amateur martial arts competitions to test his training. He also believed heavily in the value of athleticism and trained in a variety of sports, representing his home town of Ashford in competitions.

At the age of 20, Leigh moved to Canada and was awarded his black belt in both Kickboxing and Tae Kwon Do. He started training full time for MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) and had his first professional competition in July 1997 at the age of 21. Leigh pursued his fight career and after 7 fights, returned to the UK to finish his university studies.

Once back home, Leigh opened AVT (Ashford Vale Tudo) and started teaching MMA along side his studies. He continued to compete and worked his way up the ranks, winning numerous British and International titles and eventually a shot at competing in the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championships), whilst also using the perseverance and dedication he had learned from training to graduate with a First Class Degree.

Leigh has competed on some of the UK’s, America’s and the World’s top Mixed Martial Arts events and is well known for being a pioneer of MMA in the UK, traveling to Prague to compete when MMA was in its infancy and competing without gloves and with minimal rules. He is currently the House of Pain British Champion at Bantamweight.

Leigh also won some local strength competitions, including the SE of England deadlifting competition for U23 (he pulled just over 3 times bodyweight) and the 2008 Wiltshire’s Strongest Person, which included squat, bench, deadlift and dips.