UFC Lightweight Prospect Tony Martin (9-3) Looking to Climb Rankings at UFC Fight Night: Johnson vs. Bader

Tony Martin (9-3) – the UFC Lightweight training out of famed Sityodtong USA in Somerville, Massachusetts – is ready to show the best version of himself inside the cage when he faces Felipe Olivieri (14-4, 1 NC) at UFC Fight Night: Johnson vs. Bader on Saturday, January 30th, 2016 at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

Returning the Prudential Center for the second time in his career, Martin now comes into the fight with a new gym and new set of skills. Since moving to the Boston, Massachusetts-area in 2014, Martin has worked exclusively with legendary coaches Kru Mark DellaGrotte and Eddie Alvarez to round out his technique – becoming a dangerous striker in addition to his high-level grappling and Brazilian jiu jitsu game.

Beginning his professional mixed martial arts career four years ago with a first-round Submission win over Bruce Johnson (9-52) at CFX 30, Martin opened his career with eight consecutive wins – six coming from six different submissions.

After defeating UFC veteran and former Ring of Combat Lightweight Champion Phillipe Nover (11-6) at Dakota FC 14 – American Dream for the first Decision victory of his career, Martin won twice more before getting the call to join the Ultimate Fighting Championship promotion.

In February 2014, Martin made his UFC debut at the aforementioned Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. Martin faced former M-1 Global Welterweight champion Rashid Magomedov (19-1) and experienced his first career loss, as the judges awarded Magomedov a Unanimous Decision victory.

In August 2014, Martin returned to the Octagon to face another tough opponent in Beneil Dariush (12-1), a former RITC Lightweight champion currently ranked #8 in the UFC; Martin lost via second-round Submission.

In October 2014, Martin took a short-notice fight against UFC veteran Fabrício Camões (14-9). Fighting overseas for the first time in his career, Martin made quick work of the 3rd-degree BJJ blackbelt, earning a first-round Submission in the first fight of the UFC 179 card in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In March 2015, Martin took another short-notice fight, this time against The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil 2 winner Leonardo Santos (15-3). Martin suffered the third loss of his career – a second-round Submission in the co-headline event of the UFC Fight Night 62 card in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

On January 30th, 2016, Martin will look to return to his winning ways against UFC rookie Felipe Olivieri, a Nova Uniao student coming off three consecutive first-round T/KO victories. Martin will showcase his developed striking arsenal while maintaining his grappling and jiu jitsu acumen.

Finishing up the final preparations of his current training camp, Martin took the time to speak about his relocation to Boston, his striking and his self-confidence going into UFC Fight Night: Johnson vs. Bader.

ON BRINGING THE FIGHT EVERY TIME

I’ve been fighting my whole life. I grew up in Chicago; grew up in lower-class places, so I grew up fighting my whole life. It’s kind of one of those things where I’m not trying to look for easy fights, easy wins. And I’m going to try to look for the finish, always.

I’m going to go in there and not concentrate on winning so much as just going out there and having a good time and bringing the fight. Going after him, try to take him out and take him out fast.

ON WORK ETHIC

Obviously work ethic’s been a huge part of my success throughout my whole athletic career. I don’t know if I was technically the best athlete, but I was definitely always in the gym early; always there late. Always trying to learn as much as possible.

The work ethic I learned a little bit from my foster dad Todd Albert. He instilled in me – when I was in high school, I moved in with him – that hard work. He always was a perfectionist, so everything that we did had to be done right, even though it took us twice as long as the average person.

But when you do stuff right, you don’t have re-do it ever again.

It’s one of those things I’ve taken into my whole career of fighting: do it right the first time even though it might take longer. Instill those good qualities and stick to the grind and eventually it will all come together at the end and pay off.

ON NEVER BEING SATISFIED

You always look back and – no matter if it’s a ten-second win – there’s always those things you can improve. So every single camp, I write down a lot of stuff: I write down what I’m doing throughout camp, I write down how my weight’s at exactly.

Then after every single fight, I go back and: how do I make it better? Even if it was a perfect fight, there’s got to be other things I can change to better myself and make the next fight even easier.

There’s always room to improve, no matter how good you look. Once you start getting that edge gone and you think that you know everything and you have everything already figured out and you don’t need anymore help – that’s when these guys start falling off.

So my main thing is always keep striving to learn more, to better myself as an athlete and I think that’s a good quality to instill in people.

ON BOSTON

I’m married, and my wife is going back to school to get her Double Master’s at Boston University, and she’ll be starting work here in Boston in July. I’m working for my dreams and she’s working for her dreams, so I’m not going to try to push her dreams out, because I want to push her to succeed.

But I also got to stick to my own dreams, so I looked up right away where to start training. I found Sityodtong, and that was just one of those things where I ended up falling into the right spot. I found Eddie Alvarez and started working with him and Rob Font and all those guys.

Everything seemed to come together perfectly for this.

They’re more striking out here and I was more of a grappler back home, so I put all my energy into learning as much striking as I can. Some day’s are obviously better than others, but as long as you keep pushing yourself to your limits, it’s going to pay off in the long run.

ON STRIKING IMPROVEMENTS

Dramatically. Obviously I was a grappler, so my comfort zone wasn’t my striking. And I always like to get out of my comfort zone, so we show up for sparring and we go right away. I call out the best strikers in the gym and say: that’s who I’m sparring with and that’s who I go with every single sparring session. Eddie brings in a high-level boxer for me, and we spar with him once or twice a week.

And it’s always just getting out of the comfort zone; it’s always just pushing myself. I feel ten times more comfortable with my striking than I’ve ever felt; it’s not even close.

My striking’s gone way up since I’ve been here, and obviously I already have my grappling; it’s high-level. I still grapple daily, so I haven’t dropped off in my grappling department – I’ve just become a lot better striker. Which is going to make me a lot better fighter in the long run.

ON SELF-CONFIDENCE

I think that just comes with the experience of your training and where you’re at mentally at the time. I feel like I’m definitely in the best mental spot I’ve ever been in going into a fight. When I first came into the UFC, I might’ve thought this guy might’ve been a better striker than me.

But now I don’t think anything like that. I think I’m a better striker, I think I’m a better grappler and a better all-around mixed martial artist. I think that I’ve worked harder; I’ve put in the time. And that just comes from training hard and putting in a long camp of long grinding. Putting a plan together from the beginning.

I think the confidence comes with all that.

ON MAKING THE UFC

Really, the biggest satisfying thing was I was having trouble getting fights in Minnesota. I lived in Minnesota and it was kind of tough – no one wanted to fight.

Some people have a goal to get to the UFC; my goal wasn’t to get to the UFC – it was to become UFC champion.

Even when I got signed, it was more of just part of a long-term goal and being happy that everything’s coming together; the plan is working.

It’s always nice to start seeing your plan start to come together. Now I just have to start putting some wins together and keep working, keep getting better every fight. I think with my work ethic and my new team and coaches, we have a great system set up right now and it’s going to pay off, for sure.