{"id":146715,"date":"2025-09-16T06:04:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T06:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/146715\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T06:04:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T06:04:13","slug":"tommy-gantt-heads-to-octagon-for-exciting-dwcs-82-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/146715\/","title":{"rendered":"Tommy Gantt Heads To Octagon For Exciting DWCS 82 Clash"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the doorstep of the world\u2019s biggest MMA organization, the UFC, another star stand in the midst, waiting for his moment to walk through and shock the world. This man enters the Contender Series<\/a> with a perfect 10-0 record (with one \u201cno-contest\u201d we will address), with nine of those wins coming by stoppage. With a collegiate wrestling background and a touch over five years of professional MMA experience, Tommy Gantt will look to put the fighting world on notice.<\/p>\n


\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tommy Gantt: Finding A Path To MMA<\/p>\n

As with many successful MMA fighters, and MMA world champions for that matter, Tommy Gantt\u2019s first experience in the world of combat sports came via his introduction to wrestling. \u201cI loved wrestling in college and I loved wrestling internationally after college. Wrestling will always be a part of my life but after doing it for so long, it just started to feel a little stale to me. I wasn\u2019t really as excited to compete anymore,\u201d Gantt told MMASucka<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opportunity came up for me to take an amateur fight and I was curious to see what it would be like. I ended up taking the fight and performed well. I really enjoyed the whole process and I knew at that point I was probably done with wrestling internationally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tommy<\/a>Image: NC State University.
\nThose Who Paved The Path for Tommy Gantt<\/p>\n

There are many coaches who pave a way for a successful fighter. Becoming an MMA fighter will only add to your list of supporters in the cage due to the required knowledge needed to compete in so many different facets of combat sports such as your boxing, wrestling, ground game, etc.<\/p>\n

Competing at the highest levels of wrestling, earning a bronze medal at the USA World Cup, along with being an All-American while wrestling at North Carolina State, Tommy Gantt picked up a whole new list of important people to develop his sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of mentors across my time in wresting. As far as MMA goes, I\u2019ve been in it a much shorter time compared to wrestling. But I\u2019ve been fortunate enough to have some really knowledgeable people help me out. Just a few of the names I\u2019ll mention are Remy Fullwood, who is my boxing coach back in Raleigh. He started me off my first day boxing and has been with me ever since. He taught me very good fundamentals,\u201d said Tommy Gantt.<\/p>\n

Gantt continues, \u201cMy MMA coach back in Raleigh is a guy named D\u2019Juan Owens. D\u2019Juan was a very talented fighter who would fight anyone at anytime, even in their hometown. D\u2019Juan has helped me a lot in sharing his technique and experience with me. Derek Brunson has also a positive influence in regard to fighting. He encouraged me to take a fight years ago. I knew Derek long before I ever considered taking a fight and he tried to help me out however he could.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSince have I have relocated to California to train full time, I have been fortunate enough to work with Bob Cook and Leandro Viera,\u201d Tommy Gantt mentioned. \u201cBob has coached quite a few world champions and most people don\u2019t know this but he fought in the UFC himself a long time ago. To be able to work with a guy who has fought and coached at that level has been amazing. I learn something new from him everyday. Leandro Viera has been very helpful in teaching me how to defend BJJ and implement a lot of what he does into my wrestling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paving The Way For Others<\/p>\n

An ACC champion and and All-American in 2016 while attending NC State, Tommy Gantt joined the coaching staff In July 2023 to give back to his alma-mater, helping lead young men, as he was led.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am grateful for the time I had as both an athlete and a coach at NC State. I have spent half of my life in that wrestling room as either an athlete or a coach at this point,\u201d stated Tommy Gantt. \u201cI just felt that even though I was done wrestling competitively, I still had the fire in me to go out and test myself and I wasn\u2019t going to be able to reach my ceiling in fighting while continuing to coach wrestling full-time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a conversation with my former college coach who was also my boss at NC State, and he felt that I could beat anyone in the world in MMA if I was in the proper training situation. He encouraged me to go all in fighting and we both agreed that was the only path forward for me. I didn\u2019t necessarily enjoy the office work and the travel that came with being a wrestling coach but the actual instruction and live wrestling with the guys on the team was\u00a0 something I really enjoyed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the guys that I coached in my two years there as an assistant still reach out to me and ask me questions about wrestling or ask me to work with them 1 on 1 in the off season. That means a lot to me that they I helped them enough that they continue to reach out to me for guidance,\u201d Tommy Gantt told MMASucka.<\/p>\n

So About That \u201cNo Contest\u201d We Mentioned\u2026<\/p>\n

As we mentioned in the introduction, there is a \u201cno contest\u201d blip on the otherwise perfect record of one of MMA\u2019s rising stars. Why tell you what happened when the man himself has addressed the ordeal perfectly in his own words\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cKyle Wright was my third fight in three weeks. Kyle was big and relatively strong but I was out wrestling him pretty easily in the first rounds,\u201d Tommy Gantt said. \u201cI felt break a little bit each time after each takedown I landed. Finally with about one minute and 30 seconds in the second round I hit him with an ankle pick and I felt him quit once he hit the mat. As soon he was on the ground he started illegally grabbing the inside of my glove and holding on for dear life. I used my shin to pin his forearm to the mat to free my hand from the illegal grip he had.\u201d<\/p>\n

The referee did an atrocious job and said that I illegally kneed Wright in the head when he was on the ground,\u201d he said. \u201cOnce Kyle Wright actually realized that referee was calling a foul that didn\u2019t happened he flopped on the ground and tears started streaming down his face and he was claiming he couldn\u2019t see. I just started laughing. He deserves an Academy Award for his performance\u201d.<\/p>\n

You can see the fight by clicking here.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Contender Series Showdown for Tommy Gantt Tuesday<\/p>\n

Tommy Gantt will battle another undefeated fighter in Adam\u00a0Livingston on the Sept. 16, 2025, showing of the Contender Series. With five of his six career victories coming by finish (four of those by KO\/TKO) we can expect to see an instant classic Contender Series showing, but what does the next big thing in the UFC have to say about what to expect?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe can expect to see me push a world class pace and use everything I\u2019ve learned in the past three years inside of that cage. I plan on finishing my opponent violently and making a statement to the rest of the lightweight division that I\u2019m coming for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the doorstep of the world\u2019s biggest MMA organization, the UFC, another star stand in the midst, waiting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-146715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}