Issue 053

August 2009

It’s 62 miles from Temecula to San Diego, 130 miles from San Diego to Hollywood and another 95 miles home to Temecula. Even suffering through hours and hours of infamous California traffic, trainer Ryan Parsons and his fighters arrive at each training facility awake and focused.  

While others on the road are pulling out their hair, Parsons shrugs, “It’s not that bad, just a little driving.” Star of MTV’s Bully Beatdown and strangely entertaining DREAM fighter, Jason ‘‘Mayhem’ Miller, complains while inching along the 405 freeway, cursing at the cameraman following them, shouting, “Ryan Parsons is a fucking idiot!”. But he knows it’s all part of Parsons’ plan. When Mayhem pulls up to the Manhattan Beach Sand Dune Park, looking up that steep 100-foot high hill of soft, scorching sand, he’ll gripe as he climbs the whole way up. But at the top, looking at the perfect day around him, he shrugs and admits, “Yeah, okay, this was worth it.”  

Ryan Parsons is a trainer who has worked with some of the biggest names in the business, but things weren’t always going so smoothly. When he left Team Quest, he went from managing a high-profile team to managing just one promising Olympic-caliber wrestler with no striking experience, Mo Lawal. Having only one fighter to groom and no home camp, Parsons sought out the best training partners for his budding protégé.  

Knowing Lawal had the talent, Parsons sacrificed everything to bring Lawal’s career to light. Six weeks into Mo Lawal’s training, he won his first fight on Sengoku against veteran Travis Wiuff. Not bad for a guy who’d never fought professionally. “It’s only been ten months, ten months we’ve been doing this,” Parsons recalls, “But it’s been great. It was hard at first but it’s all coming together.” 

Parsons realized that individualized precise training is the best way to train a championship fighter. He searches out top athletes to train with his guys in an effort to tailor the training specifically to each bout and to the fighters’ strengths and weaknesses. Sure, all fighters train specifics, but Parsons now manages and coaches only Jason Miller and ‘King’ Mo Lawal, while advising and scouting a few others such as Shawn Bunch (a standout 135lb wrestler on the US National team), Raymond Jordan (who placed third in the 2009 NCAA wrestling finals) and Romulo Barral (seven-time jiu-jitsu world champion).  

After being part of a large team-based training camp, Parsons now prefers to keep the team small, tight and close. So close, in fact, Lawal lives with Parsons at his Temecula home when training. The group often crash at Jason Miller’s apartment, sprawled all over the couches, eating from a fridge that seems to only house various items for making protein shakes, along with almond butter and condiments.  

In addition to the long training sessions, Parsons helps along his fighters’ public relations by bringing in video crews to do stories on his guys. “It’s all about footage,” Parsons says while waiting outside a press conference in a Tokyo hotel. Mayhem rolls his eyes. Parsons notices Mayhem’s skepticism, responding, “It’s important, these guys need media on themselves, you can’t count on the promotion to do all the marketing work.”  

Why approach training this way? Isn’t it terribly exhausting and expensive? “Training has to be crafted for each fighter individually,” Parsons explains, “and sometimes that requires a great deal of sacrifice, be it time or financial investment. It’s an investment.” Parsons adds, “And in MMA at least, there’s a ton of guys ready and willing to come in and do the work – you can get top sparring partners and trainers without all the egos of other sports.”  

From San Diego for Muay Thai with Melchor Menor and jiu-jitsu with Dean Lister, to Hollywood for boxing with Justin Fortune, to Encino for more jiu-jitsu with Romulo Barral and Alberto Crane, then down to Babalu’s Gracie Barra gym in Cerritos and some wrestling wherever it fits, when do they rest? When the fight is over; that’s when they rest.

Back in March when Lawal was fighting on Sengoku, Parsons was suffering from flu all week. Yet he still cut weight with Lawal, sitting in the sauna despite his high fever. Parsons insisted he just had to “man up” for the week, that he would rest when the fight was over, but until then it was important that Mo was ready.  

Parsons admits that it wouldn’t work for everyone and that ‘King’ Mo and Mayhem are succeeding because they understand the investment and the sacrifice. Especially Lawal, who spent years on the amateur wrestling circuit, making little to no money grappling against the best in the world.  

Even though he lives nearly 100 miles outside of Los Angeles, Parsons still attends as many training sessions with his fighters as possible, all while trying to fit in time with his daughter and wife. It takes its toll, but everyone is supportive. Parsons and his fighters are enjoying a sudden change of momentum, a positive wave of good fights and great company. Parsons is ecstatic, “We have great people around us, everyone we train with, people we’re meeting, we’re all on the verge,“ he pauses and smiles, thinking back on the last ten months of hard work and results. “But most importantly, it’s fun again.”