Up and coming Canadian MMA fighters
Canada has been home to a lot of mixed martial arts talent since the early stages of MMA. Beginning as far back as Gary Goodridge’s iconic crucifix elbow knock out win at UFC 8, we’ve seen an evolution with Canadian fighters.
Carlos Newton joined the ranks becoming Canada’s first UFC champion in 2001 defeating Pat Miletich. Later, it would be David Loiseau who made a name for himself after fighting for the UFC championship against Rich Franklin at UFC 58.
In more recent years, Mark “The Machine” Hominick had made a large impact on the sport when he rose up the ranks, stringing together numerous dominating performances putting him in place as the number one contender in the UFC’s brand new featherweight division. Gaining fight of the night honours, Mark Hominick would, however, lose the fight to Jose Aldo in a five round war at UFC 129.
Nevertheless, one can say it was Georges St-Pierre who really put Canada on the map as far as mixed martial arts. With wins over some of the biggest names in the sport such as Matt Hughes, BJ Penn, Carlos Condit, Nick Diaz, and Johny Hendricks, GSP’s 5 years as the UFC’s welterweight champion created a new found popularity for the sport in Canada.
With that being said, there are a lot of young talent coming out of Canada. Although, it is early in most of these fighters careers, I can assure you that they have a bright future in the sport!
Starting with Brandt Dewsbery, a well-rounded fighter out of Lethbridge Alberta. At only 24 years of age, Dewsberry is on a four fight win streak. After suffering two back to back loses, it seems Dewsberry has re configured his game and created some momentum in the sport. With 7 KO’s/TKO’s and 6 submission victories, he poses a threat everywhere for his opponents.
Next, we have Hakeem Dawodu. Relatively new to the sport, Hakeem Dawodu is already making waves in the fighting world. Starting his professional MMA career in 2014, Dawodu already has 5 fights and 5 wins under his belt in the reputable organization World Series of Fighting.
All ending in either a TKO or KO. Although it is still early, I look forward to seeing the always explosive Hakeem Dawodu gain some experience and grow as a fighter.
Tanner Boser is the next featured young up and coming fighter. Standing at 6’2 and weighing in at 260 lbs, Boser has demonstrated some real talent at the young age of 23. Suffering his first loss in his career, Boser was KO’d in the first round against UFC veteran Tim Hague.
However, Boser quickly bounced back earning himself a first round KO of his own in his next fight. It will be interesting to see if he can string a couple more wins under his belt and gain some good experience in the ring in order to live up to his potential.
Lastly, unlike the others, this fighter has made his way into the forever sought after UFC. At only 25 Jordan “Young Gun” Mein has earned his way into the biggest promotion on the planet. Mein has earned respect in the organization with three victories in the organization (Two TKO’s) and only two losses.
It’s important to note that, his two losses were to two long time UFC vets (Matt Brown & Thiago Alves). I might also add that he was dominating Alves until he got caught with a devastating body kick. Mein is demonstrating a lot of potential, he is a well rounded fighter who looks for the finish in all of his fights.
Even though, the sport is not established here as well as it is in other countries, we are still seeing a lot of great young talent rising through the ranks. Mixed Martial Arts is a growing sport, not only here in Canada, but in other countries all over the world. Ireland has seen massive explosion of talent with the likes of Connor McGregor and Joseph Duffy bursting onto the MMA scene. This is an exciting time for the sport and the talent is only going to get better and more common from here.
Images courtesy of mmamanis.com & sherdog.com