WHEN I WAS ABOUT 16, I WAS WORKING ON BUILDING SITES AND KEPT THINKING “THIS ISN’T FOR ME”.
I knew I didn’t want to do it for a living. I wanted to be an athlete – a sports person. But at that age, there’s not many sports you can turn pro in and make a career out of it. If you’re doing boxing or football, you have to start from a very, very young age because the competition is sky high. You also have to rely on scouts and people connected to the sport. In most sports it’s about who you know, not what you know.
I was watching a lot of the UFC at the time. I’d always been a big fan of it and my dad was involved in martial arts then. It wasn’t until I started to watch the Embedded series [behind the scenes videos of UFC fighters] that I realised that a lot of them didn’t get started in MMA until they were about 20 years old. I thought if they can do it, I can do it too.
I did feel like I was instantly good at it [MMA]. Mainly because my dad had been showing me little bits and bobs from the sport for fun. I’d tried kickboxing at 10 years old. I did that for about two years, so I learned how to throw a kick. I always knew what a “submission” was. I’d be playing with my mates on a trampoline at 13 years old and I’d be trying triangle chokes on them. I knew how to throw a jab and what a takedown was, so I felt like I had a head start before I began. I’d always been an athletic kid growing up and picked things up quickly.
I felt like MMA was one of those sports where if I just kept winning, I’d eventually make it to the top. And here we are now getting ready for another fight for the UFC on Fight Island.
NOT EVERYONE BELIEVED I WOULD MAKE IT. IT WAS MOSTLY OLD BOSSES.
I was trying to do part-time work and telling them that I needed to do this so I could train to be a pro fighter. Even colleagues who I thought were big supporters of my dream eventually turned on me. They were saying “Come on, Nath. It’s time to do some more work here and get realistic.” And this really hurt my feelings. It was always when I picked up a loss or hadn’t fought for a while and they were instantly doubting me.
I don’t have these people in my life anymore. But I do have some still in my circle that didn’t quite believe I could make it. I was telling them that I was going to make it to the UFC and become a champion and they were just saying “Yeah, yeah, course you are.” They’d ask me what I’d do if it didn’t work out with MMA. And if someone is doing that then you can tell they don’t believe in you. But it just spurred me on.
But the people that actually mean a lot to me, my parents and fiancé, they’ve always believed in me. They’ve never fed me with negative thoughts or doubted me. And I’m grateful for this.
