San Franciscan Luke Stewart (5-1-0) is a professional in more than one field. Not content with being a master of one discipline, he is a fighter and tattooist known for his large colourful tattoos as much as he is his dangerous ground game.  

The Ralph Gracie-trained Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt juggles being a full-time fighter with his tattooing thanks to the fact he part owns one of San Francisco’s hottest studios, Seventh Son tattoo. “I own a tattoo shop right downtown in San Francisco with a couple friends, we’ve had it a couple of years now. It’s called Seventh Son,” said Luke. If you’re wondering where they got the name from, rest assured it wasn’t from the Iron Maiden song. “My partner named the shop, we just thought it sounded kind of cool,” he laughs.   

The 27-year-old artist has actually been doing BJJ longer than he has MMA, as he explained. “I’ve been tattooing for about seven years professionally, I was training before I started tattooing, I’ve been doing jiu-jitsu since I was 18. I met some other tattooists actually through jiu-jitsu, they got me started tattooing out of my house. I managed to get a job in a shop and worked my way around a few different shops in the Bay area until me and couple of friends decided to open this shop that we have now.”  

Owning your own tattoo shop makes life a lot easier for Luke, as he is able to fit his training around his work, and sometimes the other way around. “I’m able to make my own hours and schedule my appointments around the time where I’m training. Actually my shop is two blocks away from my gym. We go train, go to work, then go back training after work.”  

MMA can be pretty brutal on the body, and Luke admits to suffering when going to work after a hard training session. “For my last fight I had a problem with my sciatic nerve in my back. It hindered my tattooing because I had to schedule my appointments on days where I wasn’t in too much pain. After I’m done training sometimes my body is just so beat up it’s hard for me to sit there, especially on my hands, for me to tattoo for a long period of time.”  

Of course, a tattooist’s job lies in his hands. I asked if he ever worried about damaging his hands so that he wasn’t able to carry on tattooing. “It definitely crosses my mind sometimes,” he said. “I try not to think about it in a fight. I’m not going to hold back because I don’t want to hurt my hands, if it happens it happens, it’s a risk I’m willing to take. So far so good, I haven’t really faced any hand injuries. I definitely wouldn’t want to deal with having my hand in a cast and not being able to tattoo or train.”

Being a tattoo artist and fighter means that Luke is never short of clients, with a steady stream of business coming his way from the gym he trains at. “There are a lot of guys at my school who I’ve tattooed,” he said. “It actually works out because every time I fight it reminds people, ‘oh yeah that’s the tattoo guy, I gotta go get a tattoo by him’. It seems like every time I fight I get more clients. Free advertising! All the guys at the gym are getting tattooed at my shop.”  

Rather than come to Luke and get a particular tattoo, it is more a certain style that is popular with members of his gym. “A lot of guys at the gym are getting extensive Japanese tattoos. Japanese body suits, sleeves, back pieces and stuff. Pretty much all the black belts at my school are extensively tattooed – a lot of them by me!”  

Rumoured to face Shonie Carter on the next Strikeforce in San Jose, Stewart will count on plenty of support from his fellow tattooists and clients. “All of the guys I work with are really into MMA, sometimes more than me! They’re always at the fights and watch UFC when it’s on. It’s cool, the sport is blowing up and a lot of my clients are getting into it, I’m selling a lot of tickets from my shop and they’re really interested in my next fight and my career, which is cool.”