My next fight

[R. Devane]

My 6th professional mma fight will take place March 16th at Machine MMA 3 in Newcastle. My opponent is Khamzat Salmurzaev 2-0 and Nope, I know and have heard nothing about him. It'll be one and a half years since I fought last (not down to choice) and I'm delighted that Ian Freeman has given me the chance. He'll be in my corner for the fight too. It would be great to get as many people over as possible so anyone interested is more than welcome to attend. I have nothing to do with tickets though. Please call Ian's gym on 00441207234040 to get your ticket. I am also looking for sponsors so if you know anyone, please send them my way. Thanks in advance to all those who will be helping me with my training. See you at MAI.

[dkidd]

Very best of luck with it all man

[keithsood]

Excellent! Best of luck with that - give him hell!!

[Deleted]

Can't wait dude.. The whole of MAI will be behind you Druid!

[stephenlarge]

The very best of luck with the training Rob. I'll be around to help out with training and heading over. Would love to see a good few from the club make it as well.

[martinh]

That's great news. Great to have a short term goal in front. I'd be happy to help out with training.

[louise devane]

Better get my shouting cap ready. Love it

[R. Devane]

Eddie is helping organise tickets so please let him know asap if you want him to book you any. The 35 euro tickets always sell out first.

[R. Devane]

this is as good a place as any to start my training blog. My fight was just confimed last week so this has been my first full week of training with it in my mind. I did start training since the 2nd Jan and I'm increasing it each week. I was surprised by how much fitness I had lost over Christmas because I had been doing a lot of training up until then. I did take a proper and lazy break though! I quite happily put on about 13 pounds over Christmas. Yes, I said happily. I didn't have any guilt because 1) I trained very hard in 2012 2) I know I'll train even harder this year. I've already put in some good training for this fight. I've another 8 weeks to go so I've to balance hard training without burning out or peaking too early. It'll be about a year and a half since I last fought. This wasn't by my choice. I wasn't injured. I kept my training up but stuff just kept falling through and I did lose a bit of heart. The recession has greatly affected mma shows too. It's not like I don't have my hands full with the clubs too. Anyway, thanks to everyone who has already helped me out training. Thanks for all the support. Looks like I've loads of support coming over for my fight which is deadly! I greatly look forward to the training with everyone at MAI. I'm delighted Ian 'The Machine' Freeman has me on his show because he got me started in mma. He'll be cornering me too. I've got a week of training in the UK with him but most of my training will be done here with you guys. And if you know of or have any contacts that might be interested in sponsoring 'The Druid' to kick ass on Paddy's weekend, please send them my way. Thanks again for the interest and I'll keep you updated here.

[louise devane]

Yo guy's, just thought I would post up on this about tickets. I myself will be buying the tickets for the event on my credit card. I have loads of people messaging me and asking about getting them. I am booking the tickets no later than Thursday so if you have booked your flight and want a ticket it needs to be paid by Thursday as the 35 euro ones will be sold out. We were trying to organise this early as to get all seats together, but I'm only booking the tickets for people who have paid money. So guy's let us know please.

[R. Devane]

My training has been going well. I've been concentrating on grappling and wrestling for the past 4 weeks and I participated at a grappling competition in the UK yesterday. I have still been working on striking everyday but it's definitely good to concentrate on one aspect for a while. Although, I can't wait to add the strikes back to the grappling from here on in. I'm not at peak fitness yet but it's building. I haven't really worried about cutting a bit of weight yet either. Every week I'm getting a little bit more strict and training a little bit harder. I still have 6 weeks to go until my fight. In 2 weeks I head over to the UK for some training. No other news at the moment really, just trying to juggle training, work life and home life but sure aren't we all. See you at training this week.

[dkidd]

Good work going on man. Fair play to yourself and Steven for popping over to compete in wrestling at the weekend.

[R. Devane]

I'm ramping training up this week. Already did 3 sessions so far today and will try to squeeze another in later. Doing 3-a-days all this week. I'm off next week for 5 days at Machine MMA in Newcastle. It'll be a great way for me to test myself with new training partners and to go over stuff with my mma coach. There's less than 4 weeks to go to my fight. Up until now I was working on overall strength & fitness and technique. Now it's more about higher fitness and also fight strategy. The diet will also get a bit stricter too. I'm already looking forward to a little break this coming weekend and it's only Monday! See you at the clubs - don't be surprised if I look a little more tired than normal

[R. Devane]

This week was a bit tougher and I got plenty done. 15 sessions in total including sparring, grappling, strength and conditioning work. I wanted to be well prepared for my 5 days at www.machinemma.com and I am feeling good. I know this week will be tough. I've 3 weeks left to my fight so feeling more focused too. I only really have 2 weeks of hard training left. The week in the UK and a week when I get back because the last week is always reduced training and no sparring - nothing that could jeopardise the fight (potential injury).

Watching the UFC really motivated me today. Absolutely thrilled for Tom 'Kong' Watson. To think about all the times we have been together and watching his struggles and sacrifices and then he goes and has a savage fight and wins not one but 2 bonuses - Fight of the night and knockout of the night. He's loaded now! but I know he has quite a few coaches and people to look after first.

As for Dave Fogarty. What a jammy git ha ha ha Fair balls (of the football kind) to you for having the gumption to ask Dana to let you give out the championship belt. I hope you told him about MAI and your super coach (me!)

I do wish now that I had gone over to that UFC because quite a few of my friends were there (I didn't know they were going). The reason I didn't is because Tom has loads of coaches and helpers and people who have been with him since the start of his career and I'm sure they all want to be involved at UFC level. I never want to be a 'hanger on' so if I don't have a part to play and if I can't be of some use then I'll simply stay out of the way and watch it on tv. There are enough hangers on already.

I'm not sure what the internet access will be like where I'm staying and I don't know how tired my arms will be but I'll try to keep a daily training blog right here while I'm away. Keep up your training and try not to miss me too much at the Dojos.

[dkidd]

Hope it all goes well dude.

[stephenlarge]

Very best of luck with you training this week Rob it will be hard work as always but worth it. Looking forward to your updates if you get a chance.

[R. Devane]

Internet not working great here on phone or laptop so just a quick message to say hi. Tough training but everything good. Thanks for the messages. I'll do up a proper training report when I get back. In the gym now and about to train

[musclerunner1]

Good luck on the fight. BOSS.. You will win no worries their...stay positive at all times even when body is sore.. Do what your best at.... WIN

[R. Devane]

I'm back Apologies for not keeping a proper daily blog. I normally do when I'm away but the wi-fi where I was staying didn't work and the roaming on my phone was brutal too for some reason. I could read email but not send or do anything else really. Hopefully you didn't miss me too much

I arrived on the Monday and my first session wasn't until 4pm. Ian Freeman and Lee Curry (Heavyweight) decided it would be a great idea to start off my weeks training with a weights workout on my legs. So it was straight into squats, leg presses and weighted calf raises. Excellent for stiffening you up before the hard training even began! Then we had another 3 hours of training in a row! Ian does the bulk of his training every evening like this (3 hours) and I'm more used to splitting it up throughout the day so it was a challenge. the Machine was my partner for the Kickboxing & thai class. Then a BJJ & MMA technique session and we topped it off with kickboxing and boxing sparring. Ian himself has a boxing match coming up.

The Tuesday started with an 11am session which was very similar to our 1pm classes. A good, tough workout. Followed by another fitness session at 6pm, technique at 7pm and grappling at 8pm.

Wednesday & Thursday kind of repeated the same process. The weights & cardio circuit class was comparable to our strength & conditioning class.

Friday I again did the mixed fitness session at 11am. 6pm Kickboxing & Thai and 7pm was squad training. That was definitely the toughest and roughest session. I was Ian's partner throughout and we got through a total of 25 rounds. I was on the receiving end of his internationally famous ground & pound. It was great experience but I was definitely glad to be finished.

The above summary probably doesn't get across that it was a very hard week. I got to hang out with Ian loads. I enjoyed training with the lads at the gym and seeing how Machine MMA is run in Newcastle. I'm delighted I went and I'm delighted to be home.

BTW; this forum does look very quiet these days. I do know that people are checking in everyday (they tell me and also the viewing stats per thread). I know that the MAI facebook page has taken some of the shine off the forum but I couldn't have posted all of the above on FB. The forum is great for keeping people further informed. I would still love to see more members involved with it. Now, slap on the wrist to the other instructors - they all have blogs (like this one) on here but they either think that what they have to write is boring or they are just being lazy. Stop leaving it to poor old Robbie Wobbie - I for one am definitely interested in seeing you post more.

[martinh]

Thanks for the update Rob, interesting to see how much prep work goes in to training up for a fight. Sounds tough, but great experience alright!