by Monta Wiley
Behind every great fighter stands at their side a great coach. They are considered the generals building and preparing their warriors for battle through rigorous training exercises and strategic development in order to give them the tools necessary to obtaining successful careers in mixed martial arts. Being a leader is a tough role to take on. With the committed obligation of building legions of fighters from nothing to something, the assignment is met with difficult hurdles through the venture. Nevertheless when the smoke clears and fighters and the coach’s academies blossoms to great heights it makes all that pain and struggle worth every moment.
Kicking off where part one left off, in the final part of this in-depth series Fight Hub TV talks with the head instructor of Legends MMA Chris Reilly and head instructor of AMA Fight Club Mike Constantino as they take us through a chronological journey which has led them to the greatest reward they got out of teaching and building young fighters to reach success.
Chris Reilly: I began my martial arts training at the age of four and started teaching in my early teens. Teaching Tae Kwon Do to kids was my high school summer job. After a career as a professional Thai boxer, opening a school and training fighters was the natural progression. It sometimes feels to me as if it happened without any conscious thought, just the next step in a life of a martial artist. In 2004 I realized I would soon need to retire from competing and focus primarily on teaching. I was fortunate to have a small but very successful boxing and Thai boxing gym where we trained both the hobbyist as well as pro and aspiring pro strikers.
I grew up in Los Angeles and have been involved in amateur boxing, kickboxing and traditional martial arts my whole life. My first school, “The Bombsquad” attracted top talent from several different combat sports. World Champions like Frankie Liles, Vince Phillips, Michael Bentt and Lamont Brewster were regulars from the boxing world. Dutch super star Rob Kaman was there daily, taught privates and spent time with anyone there who wanted to learn, my fighters and I included. It did not take long for those names to draw top talent from the MMA world. I didn’t realize it at the time but that gym was one of those really magical places that will never be recreated..at least not for me in my lifetime. Even after thirty years of martial arts training, years spent living and fighting in Thailand and black belts in several martial arts, the education I got during that time was priceless. Specifically the time spent with two great fighters, Frankie Liles and Rob Kaman. These men gave me a completely different perspective on unarmed combat and how to teach it to others. The chance to work with arguably the best super middleweight boxer ever and arguably the best kick boxer ever, at the same time, provided me an incredibly rich environment. Under their influence I was able to test and refine everything I had learned up to this point. I also had a unique opportunity to observe an astounding amount of similarities between these two men and their fighting styles. Despite the fact that they had never met, came from different parts of the globe and competed in different sports, many of the things they taught me were the same. The time and the knowledge these men passed to me was extremely valuable. I will always owe them an incredible debt as do all of the athletes I have trained since.
My first serious exposure to MMA came through a young fighter named Gerald Strebendt. Gerald was Brazilian jui-jitsu artist who competed in mixed martial arts. He had read an article about me winning a fight on the Kings Birthday in Thailand, and showed up at the gym asking to improve his Muay Thai. Gerald eventually moved in to my house and trained under me daily. He went on to become the Cage Rage Lightweight Champion, a UFC veteran and introduce me to his coach, Eddie Bravo. This was prior to Eddie defeating Royler Gracie and receiving his black belt from Jean Jacques Machado. When Eddie earned that famous win and his black belt, Gerald convinced me to allow Eddie to open 10th Planet inside The Bombsquad. This addition of BJJ to the striking program at The Bombsquad was the seed for what eventually became Legends MMA.
By 2006 several things had changed. First, my little gym The Bombsquad had been open four years and we were literally bursting at the seams. It was time for a larger location. Second, the addition of Eddie Bravo meant that every serious MMA fighter in the world came through the doors at one point or another. Lastly the rapid rise of MMA as a popular sport was putting a serious dent in the local Muay Thai scene. Now, not only was I working as striking coach for big time fighters like Rampage Jackson, Mayhem Miller and many others in MMA, but my strikers who I head coached in Muay Thai and boxing, we’re being forced to transition to MMA just to stay active. It is at this point that I partnered with two of the biggest names in the sport, Randy Couture and Bas Rutten to open the first full service and complete MMA training center where people could receive expert training in BJJ, Muay Thai, Boxing, Wrestling and work on combining them in a cohesive course for MMA competition. Since that time, I have trained and cornered several famous fighters for big fights. Training Mac Danzig for the first ever United States Pride Fighting Championships was an amazing experience. Taking former boxing champion, Jeremy Williams to 6-0 in MMA was fun and exciting. Working for Quentin “Rampage” Jackson for his first four UFC fights, including his knockout of Chuck Liddell and claiming the light heavyweight championship, was of course one of the highlights of my coaching career.
Since then, the partnership with Randy and Bas has dissolved and left Eddie Bravo and me and at the helm of the Legends MMA. Many big fighters have come and gone and I have cornered literally hundreds of MMA fights. I have fully taken the plunge and gone from a striking coach helping MMA fighters to a full time head coach of an entire MMA team. The most satisfying part of my coaching career is getting to watch fighters who started their careers under me like: Chris Brady, Alan Jouban, Eddie Jackson, Conor Heun and Christian Palencia develop and succeed. These individuals have had me in their corner from their first amateur fight and are now climbing the ranks of the pros.
Those long-term relationships, the loyalty and dedication those young men have shown to me and me to them, the feeling of team and family and ultimately the validation of my techniques and skills as these fighters succeed is an unparalleled high. It is greater and longer lasting than some of my personal successes as a fighter and competitor. Now it is all about the future, watching these guys reach for the top as the next generation comes in and studies not only under me, but also under them. That is the best feeling about coaching and implementing a successful program. The knowledge that I have built something that has stood the test of time and will grow and expand taking on a life of its own and eventually out live me. My goal is there to be Legends MMA fighters long after I have passed.
Mike Constantino: Having the pleasure of being involved in Mixed Martial Arts has been very rewarding & satisfying. I am fully immersed in the sport as a coach and manager. I have had many rewarding experiences along the way but my most proud moment is to reflect on what I actually built. I am a life log martial artist and have been involved in all levels of the sport from taking various forms of the arts as a child to earning a black belt in the combative martial art of Hom Do under Grandmaster Tom Patire. Also in my early adult life I began training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai.
I opened my first training center American Martial Arts in 2004. At the time we taught kids martial arts and I had an adult program that consisted of a blend of what I knew. We had the self-defense aspects of Hom Do, the striking of Muay Thai & the ground framework of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu & Submission Wrestling. After opening AMA I had a vision of taking it to the next level and wanted to start a fight team and compete in MMA. I received my instructor ranking in Muay Thai under the legendary Master K (Kumron Vaitayanon) and I brought in Renzo Gracie black belt Jamie Cruz to teach.
The only thing we were missing was the fighters for the fight team. I then decided to train to fight in an MMA match and get the ball rolling, so I was the first and only member of the AMA “Fight Team.” After my debut which I lost via submission to Jonathan Helwig, I went up to him after the match and said that I have trained very hard for the fight and for many years in the martial arts and I felt that he had the talent to be special and I wanted to help train him. He looked at me like I was crazy because he just choked me but was cordial and said we will talk.
We had the framework for a successful MMA program, a nice facility and I was teaching Muay Thai. I had Jamie Cruz for Jiu-Jitsu and the word spread. Two brothers walked into my school one day looking to take their training to the next level, those brothers were Jim and Dan Miller. Both were already talented fighters on the local circuit and it was the start of “AMA Fight Club” – I remember our very first training session and discussion afterward. I looked them both in the eye and promised them that if they did their job and continued to train hard and learned and grow then I would do mine and get them into the UFC. I look back and laugh now because that was also the start of another career, this time in MMA Sports Management.
The team continued to grow and sure enough Jon Helwig came and joined the team and we assembled quite a bit of talent. All of the best guys from surrounding gyms all came to AMA to be a part of the team that we were building. It continued to snowball from there and we continued to improve in all areas, me in MMA business management and training fighters and Jamie now came on board full time to teach Jiu Jitsu.
Fast forward to present day and we now have brought on the legendary Kaensak Sor Ploenjit to teach Muay Thai and now have several black belts to assist Jamie with the BJJ program and fighter training. I have signed 12 fighters to the UFC and now train & manage over 70 professional MMA fighters.
The thing that I am most proud of is seeing what I have built from the bottom up. I took something that was an idea and turned it into two of the most successful businesses in the MMA world. MVC Sports Management & AMA Fight Club. My reward as a coach comes by seeing my fighters succeed and improve not only in the cage but also as Men in life.
For more information on these gyms visit: http://www.amafightclub.com/ and http://www.legendsmma.com/
