Fight Path: Van Damme movies helped set Jan Blachowicz on a path toward MMA

Jan Blachowicz grew up more as a soccer player, basketball player and a boxer in Poland.

He was in an area with plenty of mountains and other outdoor activities available, especially because few in the country had Internet access at the time.

But he found a way to find a future career with a more technologically advanced method.

"Don't laugh," Blachowicz (15-3) wrote in an email to MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com), "but if not for Jean-Claude Van Damme movies, I wouldn't be a professional fighter today. He opened my eyes on martial arts. I realized that competing against my peers in fighting sports is a thing I want to do."

Later, he found a way to do it. Jumping to MMA once some friends showed him the sport, Blachowicz has produced a steady increase in wins and is hoping to continue a streak that includes his most significant victory.

The Polish light heavyweight will test his three-fight win streak and 15-3 record on Saturday when he faces Houston Alexander (13-8) in the main event at KSW 20 in Poland. Blachowicz also has won 12 of his past 13 fights, marred only by a loss against then-KSW light heavyweight champion Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, which he avenged during his current win streak.

Even after trying various martial arts disciplines like judo, karate and kung fu, the 29-year-old Blachowicz didn't find his strongest passion until a friend showed him videos of MMA fights. He was part of a boxing team that eventually folded, so he also needed a new sport to take over his training.

The result was two years of MMA training before he took his first fight, and he became a professional three years after that in 2007. Since, he has shown a mix of submission skills and stamina to go late into fights, and he hopes the upcoming matchup can be another step on his career resume.

"My goal is to fight my fight and don't allow him to dictate the terms of the match-up," Blachowicz said. "I know that he hits like a truck, so I need to avoid his heavy shots. If I'm able to do that, I think I'll do good in this bout."

With the help of friends

Blachowicz grew up in the Polish town of Cieszyn in the southern part of the country. He described it as a place near the Czech Republic border that provides access to several mountains.

Because the town was near the border, it had a more multi-cultural flavor than some of the other areas of Poland. Blachowicz even wrote that among his pastimes with his friends was "exploring building sites or picking fights with our Czech neighbors."

His father had played some soccer, and he joined the sport as well. He also played basketball, but martial arts entered his life relatively early when he started training in judo in the third grade.

He went on to try karate and kung fu, as well, though boxing became his main fighting interest as he grew up. But once his friends exposed him to Brazilian jiu-jitsu, his interests changed.

"I was probably about 16, and I was really into boxing then," he said. "In the local gym, I had a few friends who were training Brazilian (jiu-jitsu) and I heard them talking about this martial art being the most effective martial art in cage fights. As a sweet science disciple, I was obviously confident of the superiority of my discipline.

"After a short sparring session, they quickly knocked it out of my head. That's probably when I saw my first MMA fight. Back then, not many people in Poland had computers, not to mention the Internet. I went to my friend who had Internet access and he showed me Igor Vovchanchyn's fights. I really liked his ultra-aggressive style, and to this day he's one of my favorite fighters."

That put him on the path for his new career.

Settling in

Blachowicz trained for about two years before he took his first amateur fight. His MMA training increased when his boxing team folded and provided him with more time.

After about two years of training, he started with amateur tournaments, which were labeled amateur – but which he said closely resembled the current professional fights in his country. By 2007, he made his professional debut. That ended in a loss, though Blachowicz considers it a loss with an asterisk because of difficult conditions.

He then joined KSW for several tournaments, and his success allowed him increased work with the promotion. After a November 2007 loss against Andre Fyeet during which Blachowicz said he was called to fight before he was warmed up and was awestruck by the large crowd, he won nine straight.

That streak ended with a March 2011 loss against Sokoudjou, during which, as Blachowicz wrote, the opponent "kicked me silly." He began to doubt that he could find success outside of Europe.

In the rematch, last November, Blachowicz outlasted Sokoudjou in a three-round unanimous decision victory.

"By beating him in the rematch, I conquered my greatest nightmare and proved to myself that I may become an internationally recognized mixed martial artist," he wrote.

His next opportunity comes Saturday. With increased training after moving to the Polish capital of Warsaw in 2010, Blachowicz is matched up with more appropriate sparring partners and hoping to boost his winning streak.

It's a career and a streak that began, Blachowicz can now admit, because of Van Damme.

http://mmajunkie.com/news/30616/fight-path-van-damme-movies-helped-set-jan-blachowicz-on-a-path-toward-mma.mma

Haha That's interesting. It's cool to see how many fighters and martial arts in general were inspired by the classic fighting/action movie guys. Well but in Blachowicz case he was inspired by the mini monster Igor Vovchanchyn too, which makes it even better.

I'm always interested in seeing these type of stories of how these guys with no internet, no full MMA gyms everywhere learned how to fight and adapt to the sport.