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<\/p>\n\u201cEverything that I do, I\u2019m trying to be the best.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
Taylor, the only active professional MMA fighter in Kamloops, is scheduled to fight next at Samourai MMA 18 on March 27 in Laval, Que.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The tilt is a quarter-final bout in an eight-man tournament, the winner of which will move on to fight for the Samourai bantamweight title.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLots could happen if I win all three of my fights and then the title fight and I dominate and destroy everybody,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cThat\u2019s really going to put my name out there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taylor took up wrestling in high school, a NorKam Secondary graduate who trained under Kamloops Sports Hall of Fame coach Brian Dick in Grade 12.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been a very competitive person,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cTeam sports sort of didn\u2019t really work out for me because some people don\u2019t try as hard as me and I\u2019m a little bit of a try-hard. In wrestling, if I do well it\u2019s because of me. If I do wrong or bad it\u2019s because of me. It was always on me and I love that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taylor\u00a0added kickboxing, Muay Thai and jiu-jitsu to his toolbox, honing skills and compiling fighting experience that set him up well for a foray into MMA.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He posted a 4-0 record in a brief amateur career in 2023 and 2024, earning Okanagan Fighting Championship and Absolute MMA Championship titles along the way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last year, he joined the Samourai MMA ranks, one of the top promotions in Canada and a launching pad to the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Professional Fighters League for those with the chops.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taylor, who put his career as an electrician on hold to pursue MMA dreams, won his first pro fight last May, a TKO victory over Alejandro Alvarado-Jimenez.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was exactly how it was supposed to go,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cI dominated the entire fight, felt good all the way through and I showcased my skills and let everybody know that Kamloops and Lucas Taylor is someone to look out for.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taylor dropped his second pro bout, succumbing to a rear-naked choke against Isaac Herbert last September.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a really bad weight cut, which basically destroyed my nervous system and just left me more or less a shell of myself,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cIf you talk to anybody who watched the fight who knows me, they\u2019re like, \u2018That wasn\u2019t you.\u2019 Fortunately enough, the guy who beat me is in the tournament. So, in a best-case scenario, we meet in the final and I get to avenge that loss.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Losses at this stage of Taylor\u2019s\u00a0pro career are notable\u00a0blows to hopes of advancing to the top MMA promotions, while wins keep the dream alive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taylor said he can live with whatever happens next.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was not willing to live without trying.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, I\u2019m the only pro [in Kamloops], but I\u2019ve got lots of guys that are sort of coming up behind me, lots of teammates competing in the amateur scene,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cIt\u2019s sort of cool that even though I\u2019m the only pro, I\u2019m sort of leading the path and giving people the idea that they could do it, too.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cEverything that I do, I\u2019m trying to be the best.\u201d\u00a0 Taylor, the only active professional MMA fighter in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-502063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}