Since the beginning of the year, 7News has closely been following the revival of boxing, but this weekend, the House of Shotokan, seeks to launch mixed martial arts here in Belize. This weekend they will hold the first tournament of its kind for the sport, and instead of us trying explain it to you, we got the experts themselves do so.
Here's what the Belizean big ticket fighter, and his trainer told us about what MMA is, and what the Belizeans audience can expect.
Jameel "Ice Man" Smith - MMA Fighter, House of Shotokan
"MMA is Mixed Martial arts. It's basically a mixture of all the Martial Arts. We're mixing the junior, wrestling, boxing, kick boxing - we mix it together and we throw in a couple rules to make sure that it's not - no holds bars of course. We mix it together and the best man wins."
Daniel Ortiz
"So tell us about what is expected of an athlete of MMA and what type of discipline does it take at peak conditioning?"
Jameel "Ice Man" Smith
"We train very hard. I've said this that it takes a lot of discipline so we have to go through all the different disciplines to get good at all of them. We have to a lot of cardio work to be able to complete these skills and techniques."
Shihan Ray Kelly - Grandmaster, House of Shotokan
"Well the expectation the athlete has to go through in preparation for Mixed Martial Arts is intensified. They have to do a lot of Cardio work, ground work, body work as far as grappling, unbar locks - a lot of different techniques, skillets from the martial arts- the standing up, boxing, jabbing, kicking, kick boxing - so they do a lot of work from the different Martial Arts as Ice Man said. It is very intensified for them because they are fighters."
Jameel "Ice Man" Smith
"I love the competition. It is the first time for Belize and I am proud to represent my country against Mexico. They are going to bring a war in this fight. He's coming from Mexico - he's going to bring it and i'm going to bring it. We're going to meet in the middle and it's going to be fireworks."
The King James Shooting Stars Classic starts on April 26, 2013, and ends on April 28.
Jameel "Ice Man" Smith goes up against his Mexican counterpart Alberto Galera Gomez in the competition's main event. It starts tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the Belize Elementary Gymnasium. General admission is ten dollars and twenty dollars if the spectators want to be near the cage.
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