By Sheldon Spackman

Red Deer MMA fighter wins world junior amateur title

Nov 28, 2018 | 3:00 PM

A mixed martial arts fighter from Red Deer is celebrating a Junior World Championship earned in Manama, Bahrain this month.

20-year-old Jett Grande won the gold medal in the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF) – World Mixed Martial Arts Association (WMMAA) Unified World Championships in the Male – Jr. Welterweight (170 lbs) category on November 17, defeating Irish fighter Paddy Wilkinson who took home silver.

Taking place as part of BRAVE International Combat Week, the five-day, nation vs nation, amateur MMA tournament featured 362 competitors from more than 50 nations across 16 weight divisions.

Grande, a former Lindsay Thurber High School student who recently finished his two-year diploma for general kinesiology at RDC, says he built up a 7-0 amateur record before winning the national title and entering the world championships.

“It was a great opportunity and definitely the biggest stage in my career,” he exclaims. “It was by far the largest amateur MMA event in the world and I’m very pleased it went my way. I got the gold and became a world champion, so I’m very happy.”

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Grande acknowledges a tremendous amount of sacrifice that goes into an achievement like this.

“I’m training twice a day, five-six days a week,” states Grande. “You have to watch what you eat, you have to put your 100 per cent full effort into it. This has got to be what you live for basically.”

Grande admits the level of competition at the tournament is obviously the best in the world.

“I fought some tough people in Canada but everyone there was super tough,” says Grande. “It’s just another level. No disrespect to anyone but most of the amateurs there are more high-level and more skilled than a lot of the professionals here in North America, so it’s very tough.”

Grande says one of his biggest challenges at the world championships where he had a four-fight sweep to win the gold medal, was overcoming his nervousness.

“I had never fought on that big a stage before but as the tournament went on, I had more and more fights,” states Grande. “Under those lights, I became less nervous and more confident and by the last fight I was very calm and confident and that helped me win the gold medal.”

Grande, who started training in mixed martial arts fighting at the age of 12 at Jason MacDonald’s gym, says it was one of the toughest things he’s ever done in his life.

“I had to make weight every day, you have to deal with the nerves and stress, the physical stress, you’re fighting,” says Grande. “I had four fights in five days, so it was very physically draining and dealing with injuries. It’s very important you don’t get injured or else you could be out of the whole event.”  

Grande, who has now trained at Arashi Do Martial Arts in Red Deer for the past six or seven years, says he’s most proud of being able to represent Canada on the world stage.

“I just showed that coming from Alberta and Canada, you can achieve great things,” he adds. “Winning the world title, that just meant a lot to me.”

As for the future, Grande says he plans to compete in a few more international amateur events and hopefully win a few more world titles before eventually turning pro and joining a large MMA organization.“I’m very fortunate because I’ve got an amazing sponsorship team and I wouldn’t be able to achieve any of my goals without them,” states Grande. “Without them, it’s very hard to do any of this, so I just want to say a big ‘Thank You’ to them.”