By RUSSELL BENNETT
LOCAL MMA fighter Nick Patterson won the first headline bout in Victoria since the cage ban was lifted by the State Government, and now he has his sights set on a place on the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) card in Melbourne later this year.
Patterson, from Cranbourne, edged out former UFC fighter Ben Wall by a majority decision on 15 March at the Melbourne Pavilion in the main event of ‘Hex Fight Series 2’.
And now Patterson, a 32-year-old family man who has suffered from Type 1 Diabetes since the age of five, is hell-bent on competing on the biggest stage in his sport.
“It was a special night because it was a historic event,” Patterson said of the bout earlier this month.
“I don’t think people realise how important it was for us, because without that cage ban being lifted we can’t get the UFC to Melbourne and that’s the biggest fight event in the world.
“It was just such a special night.
“We have a lot of friends – we probably had about 450 people there and I could definitely hear it.
“My fight name is ‘Banjo’ and you could hear them chanting throughout the fight. It was just amazing.”
Patterson said lifting the cage ban made his sport that much more safe – improving the flow of fights and providing a proper enclosure for each bout.
Patterson has so far had 29 professional fights – 21 in mixed martial arts and eight in K1 kickboxing.
“I originally just wanted to have one fight to experience it and see what it was like,” he said.
“I had a good win and got such a rush from it.
“I just wanted to do it again and see how far I could go.
“We’re still going now and we’re nearly there – we’ve beaten guys who are really good fighters and the next step is the big show, so we’ll see how we go.”
One of Patterson’s biggest constant challenges is monitoring his weight cut and his diet, given he’s a diabetic.
“I’ve been managing it since I was five and I know how to manage it but we’ve had to learn some hard lessons while we’ve been cutting weight where the sugar has dropped and I’ve had to have the paramedics come out and revive me,” he said.
“I know I can do it, and I improve a bit each time, but if I try too hard sometimes I have to take a few steps back and it slows me down.
“The body can only do what it can, but sometimes I forget that I have a chronic illness.”
The natural boxer, who runs Kimekai Mixed Martial Arts in Smethurst Street in Cranbourne, aims to focus on his business full-time in the next four or five years. But in the meantime, he’s moving heaven and earth to climb the mountain inside the octagon.
“We can all be OK at something, but it’s very hard to be great at something,” he said. “I hope that this is what I can be great at.”
