Issue 038

June 2008

One of the greatest minds in all of mixed martial arts, trainer and Muay Thai champion Mark Dellagrotte is known and respected worldwide for his uncanny ability to break opponents down – their game, that is. He’s cornered Marcus Davis through 11 consecutive victories in the Octagon, and is the same man who took Kenny Florian from a skinny young soccer player to one of the top ten lightweight fighters in the world.

When it comes to training champions, Dellagrotte says, “It takes dedication, but more importantly passion, because if you don’t really want it, it’s easy to get distorted with the money and fame.

“Turning guys into champions is also a lot easier when you’re not twisting guys arms to get into the gym. Kenny has been so successful because he’s always in the gym. Before I even open the door he’s in there, and he’s the last one to leave.”

Dellagrotte’s job never stops. When he’s not training Florian for a showdown in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado (or the ‘Irish Hand Grenade’ for another trip to the United Kingdom) he’s either back and forth to Thailand or training hometown newcomers like Scott Rehm and Greg Rebello for fights in organisations like Reality Fighting, Combat Zone or Untamed.

“A lot of people don’t know that MMA is so prevalent in the New England area,” he said. “We’re going way back to when I first got into it, but I remember Kipp Kollar doing his NAGA shows when Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was around but not really around … back when nobody was going to Thailand to train Muay Thai. I like to think New England was ahead of the curve as far as fights go. These guys have been doing it for awhile while everyone else [in the United States] is still catching up.”

In the late 1970s, an uncle of Dellagrotte accompanied a team of climbers from Great Britain on an expedition to Mount Everest. His uncle made it 29,000 feet up the mountain but did not make summit, as there was not enough oxygen to fill everyone’s tanks for the final stretch of the journey. While the uncle didn’t make it to the very top, the story has always motivated the 34-year-old Muay Thai mastermind from Melrose, Massachusetts. So much even that Dellagrotte has pledged he and his own son Dante will one day make the climb. “He’s only 15-months old right now and he’s already begun his training. He can’t walk past a bag without hitting it.” Dellagrotte said. “Whenever he gets whiny or crabby I just take him to the gym and he calms right down. He’s going to be a natural at it … not sure if he’ll be a fighter… but I really want him to continue my legacy and take over the school one day.”

In addition to creating MMA champions, Dellagrotte has a much bigger mission at Boston Sityodtong. After spending years in Thailand studying the ways of Muay Thai, Master Yodtong Senanan appointed Dellagrotte to teach, conserve and promote Thai boxing worldwide. He is Kru Yodtong's United States’ representative and honoured to be an international conservator of Thai style boxing.

So how does he do it? No one spends as much time as Dellagrotte around fighting without picking up a few tricks, but he’s the first one to admit there’s no big secret behind the effectiveness of his game plans. “There are a few things that help, but there’s really no secret. You spend enough time in the sport and you get an eye for it. Like a poker player watching the cards move across the table,” he said.

“When I’m training a fighter, I look at my guy and then I picture me training their opponent. Now I critique my guy’s strengths and weaknesses. So with Kenny and Joe for instance I think to myself, ‘If I was Joe Lauzon … what would I do to beat him?’ and then I go from there.”

It’s a formula that has worked quite well for Dellagrotte through the years. Back in 2006, Marcus Davis was set to fight Forrest Petz – an aggressive striker – and Davis believed he could defeat Petz and neutralize his power from a distance with better boxing. But Dellagrotte disagreed and challenged Davis to take Petz head-on and bully the bully.

“I thought he was crazy,” Davis said. “But I completely trusted him and said we’ll do it his way… Long story short I stopped him in the first round and have never questioned Mark since. He’s a genius when it comes to that stuff. I trust him100 percent no matter what he tells me to do. We’re always ready for anything at Sityodtong with Mark.”

While plenty of Boston Sityodtong fighters have excelled at the UFC level, few of them are pure Muay Thai fighters. Davis comes from a successful boxing background and Patrick Cote only recently joined the ranks of Sityodtong. Dellagrotte feels at least in his own mind that it’s much easier to teach a striker grappling than it is to take a jiu-jitsu guy or wrestler and teach him how to punch and kick.

“It’s a lot easier to take a striker with real fluid movement, great footwork and timing, and teach him jiu-jitsu. With grapplers-gone-strikers there’s definitely a longer learning curve,” he said. “It’s like Carlson Gracie once said, ‘With ju-jitsu guys, you take any black belt, hit him good once and he’s a brown belt. Hit him twice and he becomes a purple belt,’ and so on.”

While Dellagrotte has reached an elite status among fighters and trainers worldwide, he’s not rich by any means. But like he said before, it’s all about passion and dedication, not illusions of grandeur. Dellagrotte is simply giving back to a sport that has given so much to him. “I never did martial arts to get rich, I only did it because I was very passionate about it. I come from a rough part of town and all my friends were into bad things [growing up]. Now half of them are dead or in jail… You see while my friends were out in the street getting into trouble or shooting each other – martial arts kept me on the straight and narrow,” he said.

“Maybe I’ll make a decent living doing this one day, but to me it’s more about passing it on to others, carrying out a legacy, like having a sword in a Japanese family. You never die without passing it on.”