LOS ANGELES -- Fight Club 29 traveled from the Combat Center all the way to Los Angeles for a boxing tournament at Heredia boxing club, Saturday, where two of their fighters lost their matches, but gained valuable experience.
Fight Club 29, which is usually Mixed Martial Arts only participated and trained in pure boxing to make them better in their main game, said Mark M. Geletko, the head coach for Fight Club 29.
“The purpose of boxing is to develop our standup game when we do pankration [fighting both on the ground and standing],” said the Pittsburgh native. “We want our fighters to be well rounded, and if we have them in grappling tournaments like the last one and boxing today, those will help us get to where we want to be.”
The fighters don’t have as much experience in boxing as they do in other areas, but they faired somewhat well considering it was their first time in the ring, Geletko said.
“We did okay today, but not everything turned out like we expected,” he said. “We’ve only trained in boxing for a short time. These other fighters have been doing this for much longer, or training for a much longer time for their first fight.”
Nate Wolf, a fighter with the club and a native of Jefferson, Wis., gave his opinion on the difference between boxing and MMA.
“Boxing and MMA are two completely different sports,” Wolf said before the fight. “We haven’t trained that long for this compared to some of these other guys, but I guess we’ll see how it goes.”
Wolf ended up losing his fight, but he said he did learn from his experience.
“I’ve never boxed in a real match like this before,” Wolf said. “But, even though it is such a different game, it will help with my cage fighting when I’m on my feet.”
With last week’s fighting behind them, Fight Club 29 will be going back to their original forte of grappling and pankration.
“We’re going to another Grappler’s Extreme next week. It’ll be ground fighting,” Geletko said. “That’s what we do and what we’ve got more experience in, so it should be a good turnout.”