Another Unexpected Surprise

One of the coolest things about Unlocking the Cage is how organic the process has been. When I started this thing back in May, I had almost no gyms lined up. I just said to hell with it and flew to the East Coast, hoped I’d be able to find some fighters that wanted to talk with me. Needless to say, I found more than a few, each fighter recommending one of their friends, pointing out gyms that’d be worth seeing. On my second trip to the Northeast back in June, I experienced the same thing and spent time at gyms that a lot of people haven’t heard of. Although I had a great time talking with the big name fighters and visiting the huge gyms, it was my time at the smaller schools that really stuck with me.

One of the gyms that I hadn’t planned on visiting was Youngs MMA. When I was passing through Maine on my way to see Marcus Davis and the hometown of Stephen King, I attended the New England Fights and interviewed Ryan Sanders who trains out of Youngs. I was seriously impressed with Ryan, both his interview and fight, and with his training partner, Bruce Boyington, who had a crushing knockout of a fighter I’d interviewed just days before. It was hard to watch because of that, but incredible nonetheless. Here’s that clip.

A few days after the fight, I made my way up to Youngs and had the pleasure of interviewing Bruce, Ryan (part 2) and Damon Owens, all great guys. I also spent a long time talking with Chris Young and really learned a lot. I enjoyed talking with someone who had similar experiences and fought back when the sport was called NHB. It was also cool to see what a great dad he is and I had fun watching his young son run around the gym, punching and kicking the bags.