I first saw Louis fight about 8 years ago now, it was on the Golden Team show and I remember him absolutely destroying a lad from Holland. It was obvious from first glance that he was super talented and had the potential to go to the top. After seeing him fight live for the first time a year or so later I then matched him on my own show, ‘HGH Promotions’ where, again, he impressed me be winning by head kick KO. Shortly after this, Louis came to me for a PT and we gelled on the pads straight away. Sometimes, you just click with a fighter, and their style of training/fighting and your style of coaching really complement each other.
Shortly after, Louis moved to Bad Company and had some big fights against some much older opponents. He went to Australia and fought for the legendary John Wayne Parr, whilst training at his Boonchu Gym, winning on points. He then had a very close and somewhat controversial points decision loss to Yokkao hot shot, Spencer Brown, and a very comfortable TKO win over Josh Hill. Whilst all this was going on, he was quietly working on his MMA game in the background with my good friend Danny Mitchell as his gym, AVT, and the win over Josh Hill was his last Muay-Thai fight before making the full-time switch to MMA.
For anyone who isn’t familiar with Danny and AVT, his credentials speak for themselves. He started training in kickboxing at 10 years old and started competing shortly after. At age 16, Danny began training and competing in MMA and turned Pro in 2008, going on to become 5x British and European Champion. He has fought on all of the biggest stages, including UFC, Bellator, ACB, Cage Warriors and Bamma, and was also the first and only fighter to finish a fight with a twister sub in Bellator history! His total record (including MMA, Boxing and K1) is a very impressive 83 wins, 18 losses and 2 draws. He’s also a world class grappler, and has won Gold at the national championships multiple times, and out of his 57 grappling victories, 47 have been by submission. On top of all this, he’s also a first degree BJJ black belt, so all in all he’s a bit of a ninja. He’s now retired and taking all his knowledge and experience and passing it on to his students at Yorkshire’s number one MMA gym, AVT.
AVT has 15 coaches working under Danny, who all specialise in different areas of MMA training, as well as guest coaches (myself included) and top fighters visiting from all over the world. Their fight team is thriving and currently have over 40 active fighters. I help work stand up with a few of AVT’s guys, not just Louis, and I’ve enjoyed being a small part of the team and adapting my coaching style to MMA.
This weekend I was AVT’s home show, where Louis took his amateur MMA record to 9-0 and, once again, has shown that he’s not ‘just a striker’ by winning by D’arce choke in Round 3. It was a textbook performance and he dominated in all aspects of the fight.
The next stop for Louis is the World Championships in Bahrain in November and at only 18 years of age, he has the world at his feet.