Craig Machado’s MMA Fight Win Video
Here is the long awaited video of Craig’s third submission win inside the cage. Note his strong wrestling and ability to work from the bottom position. Look for more hard hitting MMA action from Craig in the near future.
I wanted to write this post to show you what I did with MMA (mixed martial arts), and explain where I stand with it now.
When I started training in jiu jitsu, MMA was nearly as widespread or popular as it is now. MMA wasn’t legal in Maryland until 2009. Of course I knew about MMA from seeing the early UFCs, but it just seemed kind of far away.
I got into MMA helping a training partner get ready for his first fight. I wasn’t sure if I was going to fight myself, but since I was a gym rat, I was one of his main training partners, and I was familiar with the preparation. When we got to the event my training partner knocked his opponent out in 9 seconds, and I was pretty confident about being able to handle the competition, so I began training for a bout myself.
I won my first match in 2005 by TKO due to strikes from the mount.
Later that year I got busy opening my school and kind of put MMA on the back burner. I wasn’t sure I was going to ever do MMA again, so I didn’t really think about it. I love jiu jitsu and grappling very much, and MMA isfun to me, but not as much as jiu jitsu.
By chance I saw the ad for the Ultimate Fighter auditions in New Jersey while watching the UFC. On a whim I decided to go see what it was all about. Well despite only have one fight I made it all the way through the audition process to the interviews. I got to meet UFC president Dana White and grapple for him. I was not selected for the show (this was the season that Amir Sadollah won, I believe season 7). I felt that all I was lacking from my resume was some more MMA. I decided to actively pursue it.
My next fight was January 2008 for the Valhalla MMA promotion. I won rear naked choke in the first round.
After competing in more grappling comps and the BJJ world championships, I fought again in October 2008. I won in the second round by knock out from a knee to the head.
Through 2009 I was again focusing on BJJ and grappling competitions.
One day in the fall of 2009, I was helping some friends get ready for their MMA fights with sparring and drilling. After the sparringI was doing some pullups. All of a sudden I saw a shower of black dots floating around in my right eye. I wasn’t sure what it was, so I waited a while before going to the doctor.
Well, as it turned out I had detached my retina in my eye. This required 3 surgeries to fix. The most serious of which I had to lie face down for one week with minimal movement. It wasn’t fun. I still have some lingering after effects from the injury.
The doctor was not able to determine if the detachment was from trauma(a blow to the head) or if I was just prone to it. He told me I shouldn’t get punched in the head unless I was able to wear protective gear. Since this wasn’t an option for competitive MMA, that was pretty much out of the questions.
One of my goals was to do some professional MMA fighting, so it was a little frustrating not being able to accomplish that. I’m glad that I did fight in Virginia which is essentially Pro Rules MMA but with shorter time limits.
I am still able to jiu jitsu and grappling, so I stay focused on competing in those areas.
-Lee Synkowski