I Missed the Sport-My Journey Back

About a month or so ago, well I guess around my birthday, nostalgia or whatever it was, hit me kind of hard. Maybe it was the age, 35, "mid-thirties", or the fact I talk to my best friend since age 8, Pro Fighter Casey Williams, quite often, and we talk about one of our passions, mixed martial arts, pretty much every conversation. Whatever it was, I just couldn't get the sport off my mind.

It's been a little over 2 & 1/2 years since I left Crusade Combat, and Premier Fight Series. Really, my last interaction in the sport and business of mixed martial arts was at sponsored fighter, Rashad Coulter's fight prior to his joining the UFC. MMA had been a big part of my life for near a decade (of course in my youth too), a 24/7 job, lifestyle, Gym til 9 or 10p, promoting till 1am, I'd be trading film with "Shooter" (Williams) at 2am, then go for a run at 4am to be at the gym at 530am. We had our names inside some of the largest venues in the sport. Trained with some of the greatest fighters in the world. At Premier, we had names like UFC's Paige VanZant, and Chas Skelly step in the cage, on their climb up the ranks. I'll always attest the sport was a lifesaver, I found growth physically, spiritually, and even professionally through the sport. 

(Picture from TexasFighting.com)

Almost 3 years ago 11/11 we welcomed my son to the world. I happily and easily replaced midnight radio shows, for midnight bottles and diaper changes. 

Well, about a week of feeling this nostalgia, and watching my UFC 1 dvd, a few dozen times while the family slept. I saw a post by Campbell McLaren about the first major mma tournament since he co-founded and brought us UFC 1. Copa Combate, happening coincidentally on 11/11, my son's birthday. In the midst of feeling nostalgic and in the wee hours of the morning feeling for certain the date was a sign from above (haha), I reached out to Campbell, and basically just laid it out to him. "Campbell, I miss being around the sport. I'm still on a mission in heatlthcare here in Oklahoma, but I know even through my network, or my marketing company HKB Services, currently being ran by my partners, that I could be of some service"

After a couple of conversations with Campbell, and Mike Afromowitz, I am happy to announce that I will be promoting and helping with sales for Combate Americas. Combate Americas, LLC. is the first U.S. Hispanic Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) sports franchise in history. The company’s CEO, Campbell McLaren, is universally recognized as the co-founder/co- creator of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). New York Magazine described McLaren as the marketing genius behind the UFC; and Yahoo!

I was 11 when UFC 1 happened. I grew up watching and loving boxing, and fortunately had a pretty cool dad, who saw the "sport" and respect, in combat sports even way back then, and he let me watch the event. If you don't follow mma, then maybe you remember a Friends Episode that aired in 1997. As seen in the Title Picture, the Episode, The One With The Ultimate Fighting Champion, had Monica's beau Pete (John Favreau) attempting to become the Ultimate Fighting Champion. Then, still a tournament style event, Pete fails at the hands of Tank Abbott, and in the second round, loses even more swiftly. Campbell a marketing genius and major play in tv and sports, was behind the famed episode.

Finally, Campbell is taking his idea to have a mma tournament to see who is the ultimate combat artist, and bringing this awesome event style back to life with #CopaCombate.

COPA COMBATE is a one-night, eight-man tournament, with the winner persevering through three bouts to take home $100,000. The event will occur on Saturday, Nov. 11 at 11:30 p.m. ET/ 8:30 p.m. PT live from Cancun, Mexico. The event which lands on the 24th anniversary of UFC 1 which also ended with an eight man tournament, will broadcast live on Telemundo.

The first event I will be a part of will be in my home state of Texas, and will be coming to the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, on December 1st! I would love for this event to be huge, so we can continue to come back often to Texas. I want to show Campbell and Mike A, that Texans are the best and biggest Combat Sports Supporters. I have almost 1,600 connections that are currently in San Antonio. You all will likely get a message from me, looking for a few things.

I am looking for people to promote the event in the community, it will draw International attention from its partner in Telemundo and Azteca. As well the main event is none other than Paulina Granados and Kyra Batara, in all rights, a title event for most all promotions. I'm also looking for salespeople who would like to earn a little extra cash just before the holidays, to reach out to their connections in their hometown and sell some tickets to an awesome event which I guarantee will be an incredibly entertaining evening!!! Lastly, I'm looking for local sponsors. If you would like to get your name out to hundreds of thousands to a million + viewers, look no further. Plus it's a fun sport to get involved with, for your employees, for your customers. It makes you look cool! Lol.

I'll have my ticket link, and also hard copy of tickets in this next week and will be sending it out to some of you, as well posting it online here, through HKB Services, and Crusade Combat. Shoot me a message if you're interested in helping out, selling tickets, promoting, and or if you just want tickets to a night of greatness.