Appleton MMA gym prepares first-time fighters for debut

APPLETON – One week before midwest-based MMA promotion Pure FC has its 15th event, 20-year-old Spencer Morgan stood across from his coach on the black and blue padded floor of the Appleton Roufusport MMA gym.

His coach raised the green and black punching mitts that he wore on each hand, and Morgan raised his fists in response. Their movements started slowly. Morgan threw strikes with calculated placement, not power, as their hands connected glove to mitt. Morgan’s movements gained speed, his punches became mixed with sharp kicks and knees. Morgan no longer waited for his coach to call out combinations. The pair were in sync, and moved in a manner that flowed like a dance. The strikes were violent, but the movement was art.

“It’s 15 weeks of training just to prepare for nine minutes at most,” said Morgan. “Looking at it that way it’s like ‘why am I doing this?’. But for me, I have all of that time to show off what I can do. I get to be the center of attention.”

Morgan wants to eventually go professional. First, he has to get past his amateur debut fight on Nov. 2 in Pure FC’s 170-pound welterweight division.

Other than training six days each week, Morgan attends the University of Wisconsin Green Bay and is majoring in business administration with a focus in marketing. Most of his free time leading up to his fight has been spent either training or thinking about it.

“I can hear my song playing as I walk out (to the cage),” said Morgan. “In my head I’ve probably walked out a dozen times.”

Some of Morgan’s friends and family members will be at the event. He anticipates a nervous state of mind for his mother and father, who will join him in making the drive from Appleton to the Waukesha Expo Center for the fight.

“My parents are very much against it,” said Morgan. “I think once they see me in my element, and doing what I love to do, they’ll come around.”

Morgan’s opponent will be Jason Foster, another first-time fighter representing Fostersport MMA. The gym, or gyms, that a fighter chooses to hold their training camp at is the foundation for executing a strategic game plan. With no state-sanctioned fighting experience between the two competitors, the roles of a coach are essential for a successful performance.

“You’re going to do well until you don’t,” said Andrew Kauzlaric, a competitor and coach at Roufusport. “If you’re not going to put everything you have into it, and treat it like a real art and sport, there’s just no point for me. A lot of people want to be fighters until it’s time to do what fighters do.”

Kauzlaric, 24, is familiar with the emotions that come with fighting. As a professional MMA fighter himself, Kauzlaric’s first fight for the Legacy Fighting Alliance promotion was in June. He previously held the Pure FC 155-pound lightweight championship belt, claiming the number one spot in the division statewide.

Kauzlaric’s fight experience has helped him view MMA from another perspective. When coaching in the corners of his students and teammates, Kauzlaric keeps their safety in mind. Part of his job as a coach is to determine the readiness of students who want to fight, but lack any fight experience.

“We get some people who want to become fighters because they think it’s cool,” said Kauzlaric. “Those are the people that I can tell it’s just an ego thing. I try to push them away from it as much as I can. The sport is just too hard to do.”

Paeton Olejniczak, a 28-year-old student at Roufusport and nine-time gold medal jiu-jitsu competitor, will have her first fight on Dec. 7 for Pure FC 16 in the 125-pound flyweight division. Like Morgan, it will be her first amateur fight. Olejniczak had a fight planned over the summer, but a knee injury caused her to pull out of the bout.

“It’s just not worth it,” said Kauzlaric about Olejniczak not taking the fight. “This is not the UFC where you’re making your debut. I’ll go in there with half a leg. I’ll cut thirty pounds the day before, I don’t care. It’s the UFC.”

To prepare for her rescheduled fight, Olejniczak trains six days per week for hours at a time. Her training methods are similar to women at other MMA gyms. It’s not uncommon for female fighters to train and spar with men, but her gym has fewer female athletes for her to train with. Olejniczak is the only female student at the gym who is training to compete at the amateur or professional level, however, this does not hold her back from training with her male teammates for a fight.

“Some of the guys are a little hesitant to spar or hit me,” said Olejniczak. “They pull their punches. It frustrates me because I need the hard training just as much as these guys do. I think I belong here just as much as anyone else does.”

Olejniczak recognizes the benefits of training with male athletes who are sometimes taller or physically stronger than she is.

“It usually doesn’t take very long,” said Olejniczak. “I just hit them in the face hard and they hit back.”

Olejniczak’s skills allow her to compete at a high level. Morgan and Kauzlaric train with her regularly to make sure she is prepared for her fight in December.

“When I’m sparring with Paeton, even though I’m taller than her, she still can crack me like a grown man,” said Morgan.

With both members of Roufusport Appleton having debut amateur fights, the constant support and training sessions are motivating factors during fight camp. After Nov. 2 and Dec. 7, Morgan and Olejniczak will have had their first experience using several refined martial arts techniques to defeat an opponent inside of a locked cage.

“It definitely takes a special kind of person to walk into an MMA gym in the first place,” said Olejniczak.