ONRA:TheCrankSpeaketh

taken from the Shoyoroll Forums–Frank Camacho sounds off on the bigger and better picture of MarianasMixedMartial Arts

Buenas yan Hafa Adai!
I’ve been keeping up with the forum and just thought I throw it out there… I just turned 21 this year and when I started fighting MMA 5-6 years ago It was really inspiring to see local chamorro boys train hard and put everything on the line to fight guys from Hawaii, Cali, Japan, and other international fighters! It was real cool to see local boys train to fight these guys from off island with a whole new game… Man we are a small dot on the map, anything we can learn from off island competitors is very important for MMA in the Marianas as a whole. Melc fighting Tyson, Terence fighting Kamaka, Luigi Fioravanti, Tetsuji Kato, Joe Camacho, and a whole lot more.

Even if the these top names didn’t fight a local guy, it will open up a young and up and comers eyes to one day fight at the high level “ONE DAY ILL FIGHT THAT DUDE AND BEAT HIM!” Or just watching high level MMA guys go at it… even a spectator can learn SOOOO MUCHHH! Its only for the evolution of Marianas MMA! Thats what we are trying to do right? See… Learn… Apply… and have a Local UFC World Champ!

Dont get me wrong… Local match ups are the shit! Guys fighting super hard, representing themselves! but when its a guam vs guam.. its only a guam learning experience. Get what im saying? Guam vs Greg Jackson? Whether win lose or draw he WILL learn something that he will apply in his game and show his teammates and his teammates will show their friends and its a domino effect! Guam WINS! GUAM LEARNS! Another weapon to add!

For example.. When I fought Luigi Fioravanti! I just turned 18, got a call from Ken or Eli.. (dont remember) “Frank you wanna fight Luigi from ATT?” With No hesitation I said of course! I was gonna go in there, balls to the wall and fight my F*C**IN* ass off to win…ANDD I wanted to taste the next level of MMA, and bring it back to my team and let them know what i learned and what i felt during the fight! I ended up losing the fight via TKO Cut. Oh yeah I was upset. Hell Yeah I wanted to Win. But the reward was way more that i had realized. That fight opened my eyes to MMA. That fight made me realize that “WOW I fought a 5 time UFC vet (at the time) and had a good ass time! I can really do this and bring back to the island!”

Here I am in Maryland training under Master Lloyd working on my skill sets. By the way someone mentioned that me and tuck are working on bjj and counting our money blah blah… idk what he said but.. check this… Look at Every Champion sir! Every Champion has at least ONE high level martial art under their belt. BJ (he just lost but he was a reining champ) High level BJJ World Champion, GSP High Level Wrestling, Brock high level wrestling, Shogun high level muay thai good overall mma game. anderson BJJ Black belt and good MMA Striking. The UFC was built on BJJ.. on the Gracies.. something must be working. and for these Champs.. Why not do what the champions are doing? They are making it work!

Sorry for the novel guys but just felt like I throw it out there! MMA is too beautiful to look at the smaller picture. Bring the Level Up! That definitely opened my eyes up! And I wouldnt be doing what Im doing if I didnt see our local boys fight tough big names.

Good Vibes yan Si Yu’us Ma’ase

http://CrankEffect.com

-Crank OUT!