Sunday Reading

Hi guys a lazy start to me keeping the blog active again, apologies 9-5 is killing me slowly but I digress... Lewis wrote this a while back before Tol's fight at the Troxy where he defeated his opponent in typical Tolly fashion but its a good read I thought I would share with you.

As Eastbourne mixed martial artist Tolly ‘The Pitbull’ Plested prepares for an April 7 showdown, he continues to fight the bigger battle of getting the sport understood.
While MMA’s growth is so rapid that it’s often referred to as the fastest growing sport on the planet, many still don’t recognise it as legitimate, and that’s something that Plested is strongly committed to changing.

Taking time out between training sessions Plested said: “MMA stands for mixed martial arts, and I’ve studied various different forms of it since I was nine. It’s about respect, and people who think it’s mindless violence are wrong. It’s made up of multiple Olympic sports. We study wrestling, judo, boxing, Taekwondo, freestyle wrestling, and many more.”
Despite gradual shifting opinions, Plested feels that it’s still far from being fully accepted, and he often feels that the violent image being attached to it detracts from his athletic commitment.

“People I know still ask me if I’m a cage fighter, and I hate that term,” he says. “I’m a professional fighter, and what I do is so much more than that. People just think I’m fighting in a cage, but they don’t understand that I’m a professional athlete, training three times a day.
“It’s just about trying to get round people’s misconceptions, but slowly we’re getting through. We’re teaching children respect in martial arts with the shows we put on, and slowly people are beginning to understand.”

Outside of the gym, Plested is a relaxed and popular character, but when competing, the 31-year-old’s determination is thinly-veiled. Having earned a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, an undefeated MMA record, and a handful of jiu-jitsu national championships, Plested is as lethal on the ground as he is with his striking when competing in the diverse arena.
In his last fight he showed his home crowd of Brighton how dominant he can be, by mauling his opponent and ending the main event by TKO early in the first round, capturing the Ultimate Championship Mixed Martial Arts (UCMMA) step-up belt. While he’s a submission expert, he enjoys putting on fights that entertain the fans.

In the build-up to his upcoming fight, he’s been training relentlessly while preparing to face fellow middleweight, Dan Movahedi, with a punishing schedule that requires him travel to several gyms in order to prepare for a tough fight on the main card of the upcoming UCMMA 27 show.

“I’m training hard at 1st Generation Fitness, and I’ve been travelling up to Slough to train my jiu-jitsu at Ze Marcello’s Jiu-Jitsu Academy,” Plested adds. “I also train at Crossface training centre in Harrow, as well as training a lot at ZT Fight Skool in Hove.”
Despite a grinding schedule, the middleweight has found a way to balance preparing for the clash on the UK’s biggest stage, as well as teaching MMA to those who train at his gym, 1st Generation Fitness, on Hammonds Drive, Eastbourne.

“Training my students is basically the same,” Plested says. “What I have had to cut back on is my one-to-one day time teaching, but I’m still there for evening classes, except one, where my top students are helping me cover.”
Having had a troubled past himself, he believes MMA is important to young people who need an outlet. “I wasn’t an angel when I was younger, I was always getting into trouble. Competing in martial arts gave me an avenue in which I could express myself, something I could apply my energies to and get me away from a lot of the negative stuff that people around me were doing at the time, like going out and doing drugs, drinking, street fighting and other troubles associated with those things. It keeps me away from all that, keeps my life focused and makes me a better person.

“I think it can help a lot of young people with the same sort of issues and problems. I coach children from the age of four, right the way through to teenagers and adults. My oldest student is 50-years-old.”

For Plested, a usual day consists of rigorous workouts, teaching students until late at night, before driving to his second job. Having trained for 22 years and competed at a high level for much of that time, Plested was never handed the keys to the empire, and it’s clear that he believes that hard work is the key to success.

“Every day I wake up, have breakfast and go straight to training,” he says, causally. “The first session is boxing, where I do bag and pad work for an hour and a half. I then go and eat and rest before my next session where I’ll drive to Brighton to meet with my strength and conditioning coach, Christian Vila. I will do an hour’s intensive circuit training, cardio vascular training and strength training.

“Depending on where I’m training that night, I will usually continue onwards to Slough, where I will train in my chosen art of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, before driving home, getting back around midnight.”

As well as being a joint owner of the gym, he often heads from late-night training sessions to his second job as the deputy manager of The Long Room, formally known as Slaters, on Bolton Road, Eastbourne.

Having won the UCMMA step-up middleweight title, Plested has secured his place on the main show in London, and will enter riding an impressive 4-0 record. He’s has admitted that joining sparring partner Oli Thompson and other MMA titans in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) would be a high watermark in his career, but says he isn’t looking past his UCMMA debut.

He insisted: “I’m just trying to take one step at a time, and I’m not looking past the fight that’s ahead of me. Obviously fighting for the UFC would be a dream, but I’m focussed on what’s ahead, and that’s UCMMA on April 7.”

His fight, which will be televised on Sky Sports 3, will take place at The Troxy Theatre in East London, and has the potential for Plested to forge a pathway through the rankings at 185 lbs.

Lewis Smith