Leicester Mixed Martial Arts Academy would like to thank Ross Pearson and Andre Winner for the fantastic seminar they taught today at the gym.

This event was sold out well in advance and really was something special.

Video and review coming soon…

Over 40,000 hits on YouTube in 3 days!

Check out for yourself the video everyone is talking about….

Front: Circle/dragon logo, Back: "Leicester MMA Academy" Text

Desgined by LSF student Pritesh Chauhan and printed by our friends at Meesha Graphics, these new tops have just arrived at the gym and are already flying off the shelves.

They come in black with a white print; on the front is a new Leicester Shootfighters logo and on the back is “Leicester MMA Academy” text.

This new design is available at the gym as both a T-shirt and a hooded sweater.

LSF Team at WTKA 2010 Open English Championships

On Sunday January 31st a team from Leicester Shootfighters attended the 1st WTKA Open English Championships and swept the Amateur MMA tournaments taking gold in every division we entered. Once again we showed why we are head and shoulders above the rest and I’m very proud of the guys who competed and would also like to give a big thanks to everyone who came along to support them.

Leicester Shootfighters Team results:

Aaron Brown – GOLD u61kg
Kieren Lewin – GOLD u66kg
Aiden Hayes – SILVER u66kg
Jamie Molyneaux – BRONZE u66kg
Liam Corrigan – GOLD u77kg Advanced
Jacob Constantinou – BRONZE u77kg Advanced
David Mawdsley – GOLD u77kg Novice
JD Hylton – GOLD u93kg Advanced

We also cornered our friends Sam and Jordan who took Gold and Silver in their divisions.

LOTS MORE VIDEOS ON OUR YOUTUBE PAGE

LOTS MORE VIDEOS ON OUR YOUTUBE PAGE

LtoR: Dan Hardy, Jim Wallhead, Nathan Leverton, Dean Amasinger, Andre Winner

The Team Rough House fighters are all training hard with Leicester Shootfighters head coach Nathan Leverton for their upcoming fights:

February 6th – Dean Amasinger vs. Alberto Mina for Ultimate Challenge title.

March 27th – Dan Hardy vs. Georges St-Pierre in New Jersey for UFC title.

March 31st – Andre Winner vs. Cole Miller at UFC Fight Night 21 in North Carolina.

April TBC – Jim Wallhead makes Bellator debut in Florida as part of welterweight tournament.

Leicester Shootfighters is proud to present a seminar by two of the biggest names in UK MMA: Ross Person & Andre Winner

* Meet two stars of The Ultimate Fighter Season 9
* Learn the techniques and training methods that have led to their UFC success
* Photo and signing opportunities

Seminar: Ross Person & Andre Winner Seminar
Date: Sunday 7th February 2010
Time: 12 to 4pm
Price: £20 to train, £5 for spectators

Full address:

Leicester Mixed Martial Arts Academy,
Unit 22 (top floor),
St Mary’s Works,
Burnmoor Street,
Leicester
LE2 7JL

The building is on the corner of Burnmoor Street and Brazil, not far from the Walkers Stadium. The entrance is up “Stairs E”, which is located by the rear of the building next to the gates.

**LIMITED SPACES AVAILABLE**

If you have not already booked a place at the gym please email leicestermma@hotmail.co.uk asap to reserve a place and receive payment information. Spectator places available on the day.

Facebook Event Page – Join Now To Keep Up to Date!

** Leicester Shootfighters Reopens Monday January 11th 2010**

Subjects Taught at Leicester Shootfighters

Submission Wrestling
Submission Wrestling is the grappling aspect of MMA and an excellent sport in it’s own right. With Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) as its base art, this style also includes the most effective techniques from other systems such as Freestyle and Greco-Roman Wrestling, Judo and Sambo. It is the ultimate in practical grappling. A wide range of skills including takedowns, pins, escapes and submission holds are covered in classes that cater for all levels.

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)
Mixed Martial Arts, as popularised by The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), has revolutionised the martial arts world. Sometimes called “Cage Fighting”, this dynamic training and competition format combines the best of a variety of fighting arts. Techniques and strategies from striking arts such as Boxing and Muay Thai are blended with Submission Wrestling to create the pinnacle of combat sports.

New 2010 Timetable (Trial Period from January 11th)

Monday

6:00-7:00pm – Submission Wrestling Fundamentals
7:00-8:00pm – Submission Wrestling + 8:00-8:30pm – Submission Wrestling Sparring*

Tuesday

6:30-7:30pm – MMA + 7:30-8:00pm – MMA Sparring*

Wednesday

6.30-7.30pm – Submission Wrestling Fundamentals
7.30-8:30pm – Submission Wrestling + 8:30-9:00pm – Submission Wrestling Sparring*

Thursday

6:30-7:30pm – MMA Fundamentals
7:30-8:30pm – Open Mat**

Friday

6.30-7:30pm – Submission Wrestling + 7:30-8:00pm – Submission Wrestling Sparring*

Saturday

10:30am-11:30pm – MMA + 11:30am-12:00pm – MMA Sparring*
12:30-1:30pm – Submission Wrestling
1:30-2:00pm – Open Mat

* 30min sparring sessions after MMA and Submission Wrestling classes are for regular students only unless by prior arrangement. No beginners.

**Thursday Open Mat will eventually be an MMA Fitness Circuit class. Other Open Mat sessions to be confirmed.

Guide to Classes

Submission Wrestling Fundamentals – This class covers the basic techniques, drills and principles of our grappling system. Suitable for complete beginners as well as those wishing to brush up on their technique.

Submission Wrestling – Our main grappling class. All levels are welcome but basic knowledge of our system will be a big benefit. These classes feature drilling and combinations of basic moves mixed with more advanced grappling techniques and strategies + Submission Wrestling Sparring – Optional 30 minutes sparring held at the end of Submission Wrestling classes, for regular students only unless by prior arrangement. No beginners.

MMA Fundamentals – Technical Mixed Martial Arts class teaching a wide range of skills from stand up, clinch and ground ranges. Suitable for all levels.

MMA – Our main Mixed Martial Arts classes combining strikes with grappling techniques. All levels are welcome but a basic level of fitness will be a big benefit. These session are regularly taught by professional fighter “Judo” Jim Wallhead + MMA Sparring – Optional 30 minutes sparring held at the end of MMA classes, for regular students only unless by prior arrangement. No beginners.

Bit of inspiration for the new year….

PRESS RELEASE:

British Welterweight Star Jim Wallhead Inks Multi-Fight Deal with Bellator Fighting Championships

CHICAGO, Ill. (December 21, 2009) – In yet another off-season coup, Bellator Fighting Championships announced Monday the acquisition of one of the top free-agent mixed martial artists in all of Europe, 18-5 British welterweight Jim Wallhead.

Wallhead—also known as “Judo Jim”—has won each of his last six fights and nine out of his last 11. He was recently lauded by Sherdog.com as “the top 170-pound fighter in Europe yet to be signed by a major promotion.”

With his signing, Wallhead has been invited to compete in Bellator’s upcoming eight-man welterweight tournament, which commences during Bellator’s Season 2 kickoff on April 8, 2010. Bellator will also conduct tournaments at 145, 155, and 185 lbs. with the winners of this year’s tournaments being declared No. 1 contenders to Bellator’s current roster of champions.

“Adding Jim to our welterweight division is magic for Bellator,” said Bellator founder and CEO Bjorn Rebney. “As one of Europe’s top welterweights, Jim will no doubt use our April tournament on Fox Sports Net to introduce U.S. MMA fans to what European fans already know. Jim is the real deal. As a fan, I can’t wait to see Wallhead, Askren, McClintok and Hornbuckle face off.”

A native of Leicester, England, Wallhead, 25, earned his black belt in Judo at age 16 and won Britain’s under-21 Judo championship at the age of 19. He made his professional MMA debut in 2005 at the age of 21 and has since compiled wins over top MMA talents like UFC veterans Jason Tan and Steven Lynch. In his most recent fight, Wallhead won a unanimous decision against former TUF participant Che Mills in Wales.

Wallhead said that he was drawn to Bellator because of the opportunity to match up against other top welterweights and the chance to spread his notoriety to MMA fans in the U.S. via Bellator’s historic multi-tiered TV distribution alliance. Each of Bellator’s 24 fights during Seasons 2 and 3 will be distributed live in primetime on Thursday nights on FOX Sports Net and its regional sports network affiliates. The top moments from each week’s live events will then be condensed into an action-packed 30-minute highlight show, broadcast every Saturday night, late night, on NBC. A one-hour highlight show will air in Spanish on Telemundo every Saturday night from midnight to 1 a.m.

“I’ve been looking for a home in a big promotion for quite a while, so I’m just over the moon about signing with Bellator,” said Wallhead. “I watched the Bellator shows last year, and it’s really just a great, high-standards promotion. I’m relishing the challenge to let it all hang out, to take some risks and, hopefully, to have some success against the top competition in the world.”

Wallhead currently resides in Loughborough, England, with his wife and three-year-old daughter.

For more information, please visit Bellator.com.

About Bellator Fighting Championships
Bellator Fighting Championships is a Mixed Martial Arts promotional company with offices in Los Angeles and Chicago.  Bellator’s founder/CEO, Bjorn Rebney, is an experienced fighting sports and entertainment professional with a deep commitment to the purity and integrity of the sport of MMA and its athletes.  Bellator Fighting Championships’ executive team is comprised of top industry professionals in the areas of live event production, television production, fighter relations, venue procurement, sponsorship creation/development, international licensing, marketing, advertising, publicity and commission relations.

* apologies for low audio quality *

Leicester Shootfighter of the Year: Jim Wallhead

For his contribution to the club as a coach, being an indispensable training partner/warm up man/corner man to his teammates, his continuing winning streak in the cage and his growth as a martial artist this year.

Most Improved Student: Jamie “Daywalker” Molyneaux

“Daywalker” has evolved from just another kid at the gym to an absolute terror on mat (and the unofficial team mascot!). He’s been dominating bigger, stronger and more experienced grapplers and had some fantastic performances in competition. He’s been an inspiration to many at the gym and short ginger people worldwide.

Best Grappling Competitor: Liam “Bermuda” Corrigan

Liam has had a breathtaking year. 10 competitions and over 20 wins with numerous gold medals coming his way including the advanced division titles at Ground Control, GrappleMania and UMA. Against more experienced opposition he’s still managed to win most of his fights by submission. Inspirational.

Best MMA Competitor: Jacob Constantinou

With only a year and half training, Jacob proved his worth in competition with gold and silver in successive amateur MMA tournaments and a 2-0 record in single bouts. Hungry to compete and always looking to improve he’s quickly become one to watch in the squad.

Honourable Mentions:

JD Hylton – for his infectious positive attitude, superb results in competition and huge contribution to the club giving up time and expertise to help his team mates.

Kieren Lewin – for training hard and making constant progress under the radar due to his modest and no trouble attitude then putting in two excellent competition performances to round out the year.

Caz “Ghost Owl” Tweedy – for her contribution to the club helping out new students, support of the team, obsessive drive to improve and inspiring performance in competition under stressful circumstances.

Andre Winner – for an exceptional run of finishes on The Ultimate Fighter 9 TV show and being robbed of “KO of the Night” at UFC 105.

Leicester Shootfighters had an amazing 2009:

- Over 45 students competed in MMA and Submission Wrestling
- 58 medals/trophies in Submission Wrestling and amateur MMA.
- 22 Gold, 20 Silver, 16 Bronze.
- Pro/Semi-Pro MMA record of 13-1-1.
- British, European and World MMA titles.
- Amateur MMA record (not including tournaments) was 3-0.
- We competed in England, Wales, Italy, Germany, America and Poland.

Mixed Martial Arts

We kicked off the year training through the holidays to get the lads ready for The Ultimate Fighter season 9 TV show. Andre Winner, Dean Amasinger and Nick Osipczak all made it on to the UK team with Jim Wallhead there during the qualifiers as an alternate. It was a great experience for all involved and Andre put in an amazing performance on the show finishing all his opponents to get to the final where he lost a close final to friend Ross Person. Nick also made it on to the Finale show in Vegas where he submitted Frankie Lester in the first round by RNC. Later in the year we were visited by TUF winners Ross Person and James Wilkes who dropped by to train for upcoming UFC fights.

Also on the UFC we saw Dan Hardy pick up 3 straight wins to make it to a title shot against GSP. First he KO’d Rory Markham in 69 seconds at the O2 in February, in June we travelled to Germany for the win over Marcus Davis at UFC 99 and finished up the year with the unanimous decision win against Mike Swick.

November 14th at UFC 105 in Manchester was our highlight of the year going 3-0. In addition to Dan’s win over Swick we had Andre Winner defeat Roli Delgado by KO in round 1 and Nick Osipczak put in his best performance yet stopping Matt Riddle by TKO in round 3.

That brings our UFC record (not including fights on TUF9 show) in 2009 to 6 wins and one loss!

Outside of the UFC we kept the MMA successes going. Dean Amasinger submitted Scott Jansen at Ultimate Challenge UK in 44 seconds by side choke then we flew to Poland just 7 weeks later to get another first round submission, this time over Maciej Gorski at KSW 12.

After being told he was too experienced for TUF, Jim Wallhead didn’t get back in the cage until May, but when he did it was to devastating effect, knocking out BJJ blackbelt Fabio Toldo in the 1st round at Ultimate Force in Doncaster. Finishing of the year strong, Jim beat Marius Buzinskas by RNC in round 1 at Clash of Warriors in Nottingham to win their Welterweight World Title belt and Che Mills by unanimous decision at Knuckle Up 3. All the hard work paid off, Jim has now signed with Bellator Fighting Championships and is part of their welterweight tournament in the US next year.

Karsten Lenjoint started training at Leicester Shootfighters this year and in November he had his first fight with us in the corner. We couldn’t have been happier with the performance, a first round tap out due to strikes and the Clash of Warriors British Featherweight title. Also on the card we had Mahmood Besharate making his MMA debut, stopping his opponent with low kicks in the 2nd round.

October saw JD Hylton travel to Italy to represent the UK at the ISKA European Championships. He took the ISKA Amateur MMA European title, putting his opponent to sleep with a Brabo/Darce choke in the first round.

Also in amateur MMA we saw Jacob Constantinou win two fights and had team success in two tournaments picking up 16 medals/trophies. Gold medals went to Liam Corrigan, Jamie Molyneaux, Chris White, Sanjeet, Ranjeet Baria and Jacob Constantinou.

Grappling

It was on the grappling circuit this year that we took the lion’s share of our wins. We had hundreds of bouts and took over 40 medals competing in events such as Ground Control, GrappleMaina-UK, Combat Academy Groundfighting Championship and U.M.A. Grappling Championships. More than a quarter of those medals were advanced division golds and silvers.

Liam Corrigan truly deserved his LSF Grappling Competitor of the Year award with an incredible run of performances. His achievements in 2009 included winning the advanced divisions in 5 different events! Ranjeet Baria, Jacob Constantinou and Jamie Molyneaux also had a great year, picking up a slew of medals between them.

We finished the year with an incredible month. In December Tony Richards took gold at the Police National Submission Wrestling Championships, Ranj took medalled in the advanced division at Ground Control Nationals and the team won 1o medals at the UMA British Open NoGi Grappling Championships.

Leicester Mixed Martial Arts Academy

November saw the move to our new facility on Burnmoor Street near the Walkers Stadium. Not only is this the first time we’ve had our own place to train but it is twice the size of places we’ve shared with others over the past 5 years.

Leicester Mixed Martial Arts Academy is the new home of the Leicester Shootfighters team. It is the number one source of grappling and MMA in Leicestershire and with classes already topping over 50 students we are so excited about the possibilities for 2010!

Look out for lot of competition success in the new year as well as special events such as open mats, seminars and more.

2009 LSF Fighters

Students that have represented the Leicester Shootfighters team in competition this year:

Aaron Brown, Aiden Hayes, Andre Hayes, Andre Winner, Baz Keshwala, Ben “Ninja” Harrison, Brady Hudson, Caz “Ghost Owl” Tweedy, Charan “Cheese” Singh, Chris Barton, Chris Neal, Chris White, Christian Schaefer, Courtney Rawle, Dan “The Outlaw” Hardy, Daniel Swan, Dean “The Renegade” Amasinger, Deniz Atalar, Dilesh Patel, JD Hylton, Jacob Constantinou, Jamie “Daywalker” Molyneaux, “Judo” Jim Wallhead, John Robinson, Julian Davis, Kamran Mumtaz, Karsten Lenjoint, Kieren Lewin, Liam “Bermuda” Corrigan, Mahmood Besharate, Matt Steady, Micah Liburd, Michael Panebianco, Nathan Matts, “Slick” Nick Osipczak, Parminder “Henley”Garcha, Paul Barton, Paul Nunez, Ranjeet “Suave” Baria, Rob Hannis, Sanjeet (Sunny), Satyan Mehta, Shivan Mehta, Tom Harris, Tony Richards, Wayne Sykes.