Henry Fadipe
Former Cage Gods middleweight champion and current ISKA K-1 champion, Henry Fadipe, tells KAZEEM BUSARI how he became one of only four Nigerians in mixed martial arts in Africa
Not many Nigerians are known to feature
in extreme sports, and quite unusual it is to have Nigerians in Mixed
Martial Arts, a sport not practised at all in the West African country.
But a few of them have broken into the dreaded territory where blood is
spilled easily and bones are crushed without hesitation.
Henry Fadipe, one of a Nigerian quartet
that fights in the Extreme Fighting Championship in South Africa,
relocated with his parents from Nigeria to Ireland when he was just 11.
He never returned to the continent until he decided in March to fight in
the EFC Africa.
Quite unlike many Nigerians, Fadipe is
not a football lover, preferring rather to embrace combat sport, a
vocation that was reflective in him right from his school days.
“Team sports can be fun, but I’m a
warrior, a modern day gladiator who loves real competition and
one-on-one tests to see who the best is. I hate soccer,” he told
Saturday PUNCH.
Fadipe, who gets inspiration from watch
martial art movies, gave his mother a scare when she saw first-hand what
it meant to compete in the highly explosive sport.
He said, “When I told my mum I was doing
mixed martial arts, she assumed it was like karate or kung fu until she
came to see one of my fights. She must have freaked out because she
never came to see another after that.
“But she supported and still does in everyway because she knows it’s who I am.”
The 22-year-old wrestled for a short
period as a little boy before taking up boxing at the age of 13 in order
to be combat-ready in an area notorious for racism at the time. Two
years later he began training in karate because he wanted to learn to
use other parts of his body to fight.
“I got to green belt and had to stop
because of my School Leaving Certificate exams. I started college at 17
and was introduced to MMA, started training before shortly joining Lucan
MMA. A year later I turned pro,” he said.
“To prepare for fights, I try to eat the
right stuff and train the righ way, then I watch lots of Bruce Lee
movies to get me in the mood.”
Fadipe was introduced to the world of
MMA by a college friend, Alan ‘The Milkybar Kid’ Duffy in 2010, and
since then he has featured in various events including Cage Warriors 51,
Clan Wars 6 and 7, Cage Godz, Battle Zone 1 and 2, EFC Africa 19 and
23, Rumble in Rush and Man of War 4.
Despite having over a dozen professional
fights under his belt, his most memorable contest was with Christian
Itchim for the K-1 welterweight title last year.
“He used to be a K-1 world champion but
stopped fighting for a while and aged a bit. That made me sort of
underestimate him a little, a mistake I realised as soon as the fight
began,” he said on EFC Africa website.
“In the first round I hit him hard and
he hit back just as hard. I punched him so hard in the face and not only
did he not drop or even go on the back foot but he just rubbed his face
and kept coming at me. I threw a full force body kick which connected
with his elbow, damaging the nerves in my chin (this was only half way
into the first round). The pain was unreal but I had to fight through
that and the ‘Cyborg’ trying to knock me out.
“I won that fight by decision. I can’t
remember if it was unanimous or split, I just remember falling to my
knees as soon as my name was called. I couldn’t even celebrate after the
fight as I was taken straight to the hospital on a wheelchair.”
An MMA contest is scheduled for three
rounds of five minutes each, a system some athletes believe makes the
sport less tasking than boxing which has at least six rounds and can
sometime feature up to 12 rounds in title fights. Fadipe dismissed the
claims in some quarters that MMA only serves as an alternative for
boxing rejects.
“That’s the most idiotic thing anyone
can say. There are so many ways a person can throw a punch. As mixed
martial artists, we train everyday, discovering more ways to finish a
fight,” he said.
“We have a million and one techniques to
win a fight; eight limbs to throw at an opponent and in so many ways to
do so. There are a million and one ways to take a person to the ground;
a million and one ways to make a person scream in submission.
“I studied boxing, Thai boxing and
capoeira just for my stand up alone. I studied wrestling and judo just
for my takedowns. I studied Japanese jujitsu and Brazilian jujitsu just
for my submission. I have trained with professional boxers and beaten
them.
“How can anyone say mixed martial art is easier than boxing? Boxing is a substitute for people who can’t cope in MMA.”
The Lagos State-born athlete, whose
father is from Ekiti State and mother from Osun State, was a victim of
bullying when he moved to a new secondary school in Dublin, Ireland. He
and his older brother were the first blacks in the school so they were
prone to bullying. But a sudden display of bravery, revealing his wild
side not only earned him a nickname, it also brought respect in the
highly racist area.
“I was nicknamed Herculeez in high
school after a fight I had with four older boys. I ended up throwing one
of them through the window of a moving car,” Fadipe said.
That incident marked him out as one that should be respected and avoided when it came to fighting.
Fadipe’s first love was not fighting; his childhood love was building cars and working in the automotive industry.
“I wanted to build cars as a young boy
but as I grew older and cars started drifting away from loud and
powerful petrol engines to boring electrical nonsense,” he said.
He is not looking forward to leaving the
sport anytime soon and plans to introduce his children to the world of
martial art when the time comes.
“I’m in the sport as long as my body can
serve me. I want to achieve greatness and be remembered as one of the
greatest at something,” he said.
My kids will be disciplined in the arts
from the day they can walk. Weather they choose to continue when they
are mature will be totally up to them. I will support my kids in
whatever they wish to follow just like my mother did to me.
“I want for my children and
grandchildren to be financially independent and be able to show their
friends pictures and videos of me, saying, ‘That’s my dad or granddad.’”
No comments:
Post a Comment