Quote:
Originally Posted by Bybee1
I started working out in July of 2002 for my seventh grade year of school. I knew I had the North American Muay Thai Championships coming up on September 22. I trained with Bryan Medlin and Ryan Blackorby twice a day 7 days a week until school started. Then I trained once a day during the week and twice day on Saturday and Sunday. In August I won my region with a first round TKO and then I advanced to the Championship bout for the Muay Thai Title. There were 12 fights on the card that night with 4000 screaming drinking fans. I was the third fight of the night and when I entered the ring over the top rope everyone started pounding on their tables. I had to face a New Jersey kid and I saw him watching me kick while I was warming up. When they blew the whistle we touched gloves and I stepped back and then forward with a fake kick and then landed a right hand square to his nose. His nose broke and blood went everywhere and 45 seconds later the doctor stopped the fight. I won the North American National Champion Belt.
The following week I had found out that Jose Martinez opened a club in Sheridon, 80 miles away. I began attending camps there every weekend and then in November I joined Martinez Elite Wrestling Club. At the same I was still an active member of Overtime Wrestling. Two weeks into the season I noticed that Mikey Benefiel and Jose were butting heads every night because Mikey was going from Martinez to Overtime every night for practice. I was doing the same thing as Mikey but I kept quiet because I was practicing with Ryan Prater, Vince Hannon, and Danny Stelter. This is something I didnt want to jeopardize this. Then came the Midwest Classic in January and everybody that was anybody in wrestling was there. When I walked in with my Martinez gear on I knew I was in the middle of something I shouldnt be in. Overtime, Fox Valley, and Martinez Elite were all there. I wanted to just stay away from everybody but I couldnt because I had to wrestle. In the Semis I had to wrestle my good friend Jon Morrison and we had been working on a flying cradle all summer and I knew it was coming. Right at the begining of the match Jon tried to throw one and I posted my hand and stuck him.(Im taking nothing away from Jon here, he is as tough as they come) The problem was Jose went wild and Sean was there, Spangler was there. We immediatly left and I was never so glad to leave a tournament in my life. Next came the 2002-03 regionals. I made the finals against Jim Duffy of Fox Valley. They stopped all matches, the place was packed and everybody was watching. I beat Jim with a takedown with 3 seconds left and everyone went nuts(yelling, screaming, and argueing) Thats when I realized that wrestling was a team sport. Two weeks later I attended the IKWF State Tournament. I met Jake Nelson in the quarters. I knew him but I never watched him wrestle. He was tough and he beat me. I ended up taking fifth place and I promised myself I wouldn't let this happen again. At this point I decided to concentrate on freestyle and greco for the summer and thats what I did the entire summer. I had also wrestled a placed in 6 National tournaments over this season.
I'll be back soon,
jeffery
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Hey Jeffrey, how old are you right now? Is your brother Mark, did he ever take a coaching job or still have anything to do with wrestling after highschool? I use to wretle him years ago. Anyway, so your weighing about 144 right now, what weight you gonna drop to, or have you even decided? I noticed Tony Ramos was at 112 last year after the previous year at 103 along side Chris Spangler. Chris was at 125 last year, but noticed he jumped all the way up to 171. Just wanted to say, sounds like you have a great work ethic between all those camps etc. When I wrestled we didn't do that, had to rely strictly on natural ability, and we just cut weight. Anyway, take care, and best of luck!
09-02-2007
If you see things differently, that's cool too.
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