Jayden Blake\u2019s self-confidence was way down. The Greensburg Salem graduate\u2019s weight was on the rise and he needed a change.<\/p>\n
Blake, 19, turned to mixed martial arts three years ago to try and fix some of his problems. Blake, who is 5-foot-7 and topped out at 265 pounds when he was at his heaviest, found what he was looking for. Blake weighed in at 145 pounds Saturday night at Sunny Days Arena in North Versailles and collected his second amateur MMA win at the 247 Fighting Championships event.<\/p>\n
Blake submitted Chase D\u2019Angelo via guillotine choke in the third round of a featherweight bout.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up overweight a lot of my life,\u201d Blake said. \u201cI\u2019ve never really played sports and at the time I was really depressed. This sounds weird, but I was looking for a way to hurt myself and benefit myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Blake decided to use combat sports to get into shape, he chose to start with kickboxing. From there Blake, who trains at High Ground Jiu Jitsu, started to pick up other skills.<\/p>\n
Striking didn\u2019t come naturally to him, but he feels it has developed thanks to the confidence he has in his ground game. Blake also noticed as soon as he started training, the weight started to quickly drop off.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt built my confidence immediately,\u201d Blake said. \u201cWhen I started losing weight, I started seeing the results of my training almost immediately. I\u2019m a natural at jiu jitsu. Striking didn\u2019t come to me as naturally, but I put in so much work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blake trains six days a week. D\u2019Angelo gave Blake a good test. D\u2019Angelo opened up a nasty cut above Blake\u2019s eye with some stiff strikes.<\/p>\n
In the first round, D\u2019Angelo slammed Blake to the canvas to attempt to get out of an armbar. Blake felt like D\u2019Angelo was well prepared for the fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI planned to use my strikes to get to my wrestling, but he came out with a good tie clinch,\u201d Blake said. \u201cI lost my first fight because of that. He must\u2019ve watched the tape and learned, but it worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blake improved to 2-1 in his MMA career with both wins coming by submission. He would like to try and compete in the advanced amateur division.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was fantastic,\u201d Blake said. \u201cFrom the moment I walked in here, I had so much excitement to be able to be one of the first fights in this venue to be a part of Pittsburgh MMA history. I wanted to give this crowd a great show.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jayden Blake\u2019s self-confidence was way down. The Greensburg Salem graduate\u2019s weight was on the rise and he needed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-57933","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\/57933","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=57933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}