{"id":219865,"date":"2025-10-17T09:17:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T09:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/219865\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T09:17:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T09:17:19","slug":"stepanek-follows-fathers-footsteps-set-to-make-mma-debut-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/219865\/","title":{"rendered":"Stepanek follows father\u2019s footsteps, set to make MMA debut Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – One Cedar Rapids native is set to make his mixed martial arts debut on Friday. Although this will mark his first caged bout, fighting is in his blood. <\/p>\n

Twenty-one-year-old Blaine Stepanek has been training at Hard Drive Performance Center<\/a> in Cedar Rapids for about as long as he can remember. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in the gym since I was probably about five or six years old. I got thrown into what we used to call \u2018future sport.\u2019 We used to do some MMA and kickboxing as kids,\u201d he explained. \u201cI always knew how to defend myself and I always knew I would circle back to fighting, I just didn\u2019t know when.\u201d<\/p>\n

About two years ago he decided to stop playing college football and focus on MMA. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor football, you can do as good as you can, but your team could still lose. I just like the pressure to be on myself. I just like to put it all on the line, just go showcase my skills and see what I can do,\u201d Stepanek said. <\/p>\n

Stepanek is a second-generation fighter. His father, Brent Stepanek, who went pro, trained at the very same gym and had the same coach. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really cool because it makes me feel old, but it just makes me think back to a time when I had this athlete that\u2019s now a grown man competing in a cage. They were once a boy and I get to see that whole transformative process,\u201d co-owner and coach of Hard Drive Performance Center Keoni Koch said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted him to play college football, he wants to fight, so that\u2019s the way it is,\u201d Brent Stepanek said. \u201cI said to him, if you\u2019re going to do anything, don\u2019t half it. You\u2019ve got to go 100 miles an hour at it. I told him don\u2019t do it unless you want to be a world champion. That\u2019s what he\u2019s set out to do.\u201d <\/p>\n

Blaine grew up cage side because of his dad, so it wasn\u2019t a surprise he took this path. Those around him say his experiences give him an edge<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s competed in many different formats. He\u2019s done submission grappling, he\u2019s played football and he\u2019s played contact sports. I feel like he has a natural competitive mindset,\u201d Koch said. <\/p>\n

His dad won\u2019t physically be sitting in his corner on Friday. He may not be able to sit at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely not. There\u2019s no way,\u201d Brent said about being able to sit. \u201cI\u2019m going to try, but I\u2019m still very intense,\u201d he added. \u201cFootball was one thing, but now he\u2019s fighting another grown man. You want the best for him, he\u2019s put in the work, he\u2019s put in everything he absolutely can think of and you want that to come to fruition inside a cage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stepanek will be a part of the Caged Aggression XL \u201cThe Big Show\u201d<\/a> on October 17 and 18 at The RiverCenter in Davenport. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 KCRG. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – One Cedar Rapids native is set to make his mixed martial arts debut…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,134083,5975,134084,134089,134087,134082,41286,2976,786,134086,134085,10280,785,134088,85],"class_list":["post-219865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-blaine-stepanek","tag-bout","tag-brent-stepanek","tag-cage","tag-caged-aggression","tag-cedar-rapids","tag-debut","tag-fighter","tag-fighting","tag-hard-drive-performance-center","tag-keoni-koch","tag-mixed-martial-arts","tag-mma","tag-second-generation","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219865","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=219865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}