MUSKOKA'S OWN FIGHTER.
Muskoka mixed-martial arts fighter Kyle Nelson is following up the success of his first professional fight with another three. Nelson first made headlines in Muskoka when he defeated a more experienced fighter at his first professional fight in Montreal on St. Patrick’s Day.
Spurred by the success of his first professional mixed-martial arts bout last month, Muskoka fighter Kyle Nelson has signed a deal for another three.
Speaking to this newspaper on May 14, Nelson said he is currently training hard for a new series of professional fights with Ringside MMA — a professional mixed-martial arts league — which are scheduled to take place in Quebec in the early summer. A Huntsville resident who trains at a martial arts club in Bracebridge, Nelson first made local headlines for his first professional fight on St. Patrick’s Day, when he defeated a more experienced fighter in Montreal.
“Hopefully I’m looking at a fight at the end of June, but nothing’s set in stone yet,” he said.
Nelson has also taken the unusual step of going back to school in preparing for the bouts. Aside from working out at the gym, his routine involves undergoing an exhausting personalized training routine at the soccer fields outside Huntsville High School.
“I sprint half the track, and I kind of run up the hill a little bit where there’s a big rock there,” he said. “I do 20 jump-ups on the rock, and then I come down, and then I do a light jog for a quarter of a lap, then I do a box sprint where I basically sprint 10 yards, touch the ground and turn a 90-degree angle and sprint … and then I jog a little bit further and do 10 burpees, then I jog back to the starting line and sprint around (for) 200 metres again four times.”
Nelson has also been busy honing his skills in the ring, placing second at a recent jiu-jitsu tournament. His ascent to the big leagues comes just months after he put everything on the line for his professional fighting career, quitting his day jobs as a bouncer and as a delivery driver to devote more time to training.
The gamble, however, paid off in his first fight against veteran fighter Mic Dufort. Though Dufort went into the bout with an 11-1 record, Nelson was declared the winner by a unanimous decision of the judges with scores of 29-28, 29-28 and 29-27.