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| fightmagazine.com |
North Philly native Anthony Morrison, 26, is one of the best 145-pound Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighters in the world. He fights for World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC), a 10-year-old company that, in the past 18 months, has surged in front of a sea of competing MMA promotions. This Saturday is WEC 48, the brand's inaugural Pay-Per-View event the first (and possibly only) chance to galvanize its emergence. Morrison is on the undercard, meaning he will only be televised if 1) he fights his ass off and 2) some quick knockouts on the main card free up time in the broadcast.
So I why is Morrison important?
This event should succeed, as WEC is pulling out everything in its arsenal. The real question is if the company can maintain its momentum. That is where Morrison comes in. He's one of many young contenders trying to distinguish himself of course, they need to win, to do that but they also need to become a draw. Basically, a fighter needs to have aggression and style that makes the fans call for more. Those who draw attention keep fighting and keep the promotion going.
Morrison still lives and trains in North Philly, save for excursions out of state to work with other camps. We caught up to Cheesesteak while wrapping up a training session in Georgia earlier this week.
Charles Cieri: Before we go through your rise to prominence, can you talk about "dojo crashing" back in the day?
Anthony Morrison: Funds was low. I used to go to a gym and see the free week pass [promotional trial offer]. I knew if I beat people up straight of the gate, they would be like "sign the contact" and I knew I didnt have anything to pay them with. After a while, people seen my passion and some gyms would let me train and say, "pay us when you can."
CC: Now that everyone knows not to get lippy with that new white belt at their gym. How did you get started on the path?
AM: Because of my stature I was a real small kid I was automatically a target for bullies and I used to tear them apart. After awhile, I started proclaiming myself the bully of bulliers. I had a little mean streak in me. Maybe its my Napoleon complex. If you came up picking for me, I didnt turn down no fights.
CC: When did the fighting start getting structured?
AM: I was 14, 15 ... I saw boxing and thought I could do it. I wrestled in high school and that was a good passion for me. I had three older brothers and, not thinking we were training by roughing each other up, [but] it was being bred into me. I started putting it all together in 2002. One day I was watching UFC 39, and I thought, "I can do that it's wrestling and boxing." I started training at my friend's house. We would move everything out of the living room and me and him would just go over what I already knew and put together what I saw on TV. Within two months of [competing], I beat two guys in one night that had way more MMA training. I was [training] out my friends living room and ran up my record to 5-0 until I ran up against a guy with more experience. As far as wrestling and boxing, no one could take me, but it was a guy with the jiu-jitsu. Thats when I realized jiu-jitsu is a big factor.
CC: Let's skip ahead a bit. Did things keep rolling, or were there bumps?
AM: Hell yeah, man. I messed up my back real bad and got pressured into a fight where I ended up losing because of the injury. I said, Im sick of this. If I had a job with benefits, they wouldve fixed me up with time off and I would have went back to work. It sucked. I stopped fighting for a while and worked two full-time jobs in Plymouth Meeting, 16 hours a day. I would go to Target and work 8 hours, and cross the street and work overnight at Lowe's. I wasnt training at all, but every lunch break I would go over to the Barnes and Nobles and look at fight magazines and see friends I used to train with, and it was motivation. One day, I got tired of it. I ran 6 miles and my lungs were burning. There was a burning desire telling me it was time to compete again to put all my chips in, And that's what I did.
CC: How do you end up on WEC's radar?
AM: I knew they where eyeing me because I was fighting prospects that were looking to get in there. I fought Jeff Lentz, and he is a tough guy out of New Jersey who trains with [UFC 155-pound contender] Kurt Pellegrino. I knew [Lentz] was on the tear, undefeated with wins in a variety of different ways. Then a month before, he knocked someone out in 16 seconds. I was like, "Damn, this guys a fucking beast! Then I went in and demolished him. Then, two weeks latter, for me to go out to Colorado, unacclimated and destroy a guy out there ... I was like, two prospects back to back, plus a lot of people I defeated in a long run they got to have me in their eyes.
CC: Your first fight in the WEC was a tough assignment: Mike Brown, in his first fight after losing his belt. How did you change your game after your debut loss?
AM: The biggest thing I wanted to work on was my life outside the cage. [A] lot of things werent right. Any fighter will tell you if things arent right outside the ring, they wont go right inside. You got to be 100 percent. I focused and dedicated a lot of time to my family and catching up. I got all that together.
CC: I have talked to fighters in the past, specifically BJ Penn and Kurt Pellegrino, who both like you have young kids. They described a need to separate themselves from their kids for a period of time before they fight, because the kids make them too happy and take away their anger. Do you find that to be the case?
AM: I isolate from the distractions, but my family isnt one of them. I train in Philly, and the two fights that got me here, I trained for them in Philly. I just isolate myself from my friends, playing around and the streets.
CC: Lastly, in the Brown fight you were introduced as fighting out of Virginia. You were yelling North Philly into the camera, but still, youre going to sort that announcer out for this fight, right?
AM: When I go back home, it's Philadelphia, and I got a lot of shit from my friends for that. I take pride in where Im from and this time he will most definitely be saying "from Philadelphia." [Morrison gives love to his coaches, Fred Jenkins at ABC Gym in North Philly and Brad Daddis at Daddis Fight Camps in South Philly.]
WEC 48 will be broadcast live on Pay-Per-View this Saturday, April 24, at 10 p.m. ($45 charge). Spike TV will be showing two undercards at 9 p.m.: Alex Karalexis v. Anthony Pettis in the 155-pound division and Leonard Garcia v. Chan Sung Jung in the 145-pound division. The Par-Per-View will also be shown at The Fox and Hound at 15th and Spruce. As of press time, they were not sure if they would charge a $5 cover or show the fights for free.
Social comments and analytics for this post... This post was mentioned on Twitter by citypaper: From @joeblo: Q&A with North Philly MMA contender Anthony "Cheesesteak" Morrison, who fights in WEC 48 tomorrow night. http://bit.ly/9S0Hl2...
[...] Interview: North Philly MMA fighter Anthony Morrison :: Thе Clog :: Blog Archive :: Staff Blog ... [...]
[...] Interview: North Philly MMA fighter Anthony Morrison :: The Clog … Posted in mma fighter | Tags: anthony morrison, contenders, stature, target [...]
Locked in the Cage 2, a Mixed Martial Arts fight featuring pro and amateur cage fights, goes down this Saturday night at the John Perzel Community Center in Northeast Philly.
Locked in the Cage 1 was, by my count, a big success. It was Philly's first major top-to-bottom local MMA show. (Not all fighters were locals but all local MMA gyms were represented and the promoters honored local interests.) The major selling point of that show was pulling off the co-main events featuring genuine Philly standouts — Wilson Reis, the former Elite XC champ, and Tara LaRosa, the No. 1-ranked 135-pound female in the world.
This event doesn't have the star power, but it does have citywide representation, as it'll feature Team Balance, Daddis Fight Camps, Fight Firm, Fight Factory, BJJ United and other local institutions. According to co-promoter Fran Evans, LITC2 is designed to address the most pressing task in establishing Philly's local scene — building up and refining new pros. Evans believes that this is the key to making homegrown MMA sustainable. If Philly does get a flow going, it can maintain its rep as a fighter's town in a sports world that's seeing MMA grow in relevance at an impressive clip. Otherwise, the local MMA scene will be vulnerable to rickety conditions and exploitation by slash-and-burn promoters.
The event goes down at The John Perzel Community Center (2990 St. Vincent St.) this Saturday night. (The full fight card is here, although some unpublished substitutions have been made.) Doors open at 6 p.m. and the fights start at 7 p.m. Wilson Reis, Fight Factory's Eddie Alvarez and others will be on hand to sign autographs.
Tickets ($40-$90) are available at lockedinthecage.com.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Philly City Paper, Yancey @YanceyG. Yancey @YanceyG said: Locked in the Cage 2: Local MMA scrambles for a toehold in Northeast Philly: Locked in the Cage 2, a Mixed Martial... http://bit.ly/53kMmW [...]
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Two of Philadelphiaâs best mixed martial artists will be on display tonight at Alexandra Hall. Locked in the Cage is headlined by Wilson Reis (check the CP e-trail on Reis) squaring off with Dwayne Sheldon, as well as the top-ranked 135-pound female fighter Tara LaRosa fighting Valerie Coolbraugh. Though they're both based in the area (the Brazilian Reis fights out of Jenkintown's BJJ United, while LaRosa fights out of nearby Woodstown, N.J.), neither athlete has appeared in the ring within city limits until now.
The card features three other pro fights and 12 amateur fights.
LaRosa and Reis are both top-level contenders, known for showing up; the duo alone could make the night. (Check out my Oct. '08 feature for more on Reis.)
Tickets are still available here for $45, or $65 with four 16-ounce beers. Quick math: That's 64 ounces of muscle to help you properly root on our homegrown bloodletters.
The show starts at 7:30 p.m. at at Alexandra Hall in Sherman Mills, 3510 Scotts Lane in East Falls.
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