Fight Path: Patrick Vallee's unique past prepared him for Paul Daley bout

Growing up between Brazil and France, moving several times between both countries as changes occurred in his family, Patrick Vallee has learned to anticipate quick movements.

It happened when he started training for what would become an MMA career and left taekwondo. It happened again when he started his professional career.

This time, the quick change could help catapult Vallee into a bigger MMA opportunity, now that he is fully healthy following a tough stretch.

Cage Contender, an Irish fight promotion, announced this week that Vallee (9-4-1) will fill a vacated spot to take on welterweight notable Paul Daley (30-12-2) as the headliner for the organization's Feb. 23 show in Dublin. It is perhaps the biggest chance yet for a fighter who began his career back in 2003 while continuing a sports interest that stretched back to tennis, basketball and soccer.

"Daley is one of the best (welterweights) in the world, so fighting him is for me a great honor," Vallee, a 32-year-old who lives in a suburb of Paris, wrote to MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) in an email. "(It is) also a great opportunity to show what I can do, and a huge challenge because with a puncher like him, no mistake is allowed. One mistake and you pay in cash."

Vallee's growing popularity in the sport was underlined as Cage Contender asked fans to help the organization pick Daley's next opponent when a slot opened. He was awarded the fight, which will continue a path that began with judo training at age 6 and then a series of grappling tournaments in 2002 that got him closer to the MMA world.

Now he's preparing for his next chance, which is growing in attention.

"Daley is known the world over, and Vallee is a veteran of Pancrase, M-1 Challenge, BAMMA and Superior Challenge who (sees) this fight as his ticket to the big time," Cage Contender CEO John Ferguson said in a news release announcing the fight. "Never before have we been lobbied so hard to make a fight happen."

A moving childhood

Vallee is Brazilian by birth, but he spent his youth moving between two countries.

He was born in Sao Paulo. By the time he was 4 months old, the family was in a Paris suburb, and a brother was born when he was 5 years old. Shortly after, he began training in judo, which he continued until his father died when he was 11.

That caused another change. He, his mother and his brother moved to Brazil, where an interest in sports and martial arts continued. He played numerous sports, but he stopped his judo training when his father died. He did, however, closely watch Bruce Lee and Jean-Claude Van Damme movies, still hoping to continue in martial arts.

That interest helped him get started in taekwondo. Living in Brazil, it was easy to become enchanted by martial arts and even the early stages of MMA. He and other boys heard constant stories involving the name Gracie and the emergence of MMA.

When Vallee was 17, his family moved back to France, and this time the move didn't interrupt his training. He stayed with taekwondo, and he also gained the life experience of living in multiple places.

"Leaving in France, then Brazil and back in France was a great experience," Vallee wrote. "Discovering another way of life and thinking was very interesting even if I was young."

Before long, he would make another change.

Hooked from the start

When Vallee was 22 years old, he was working at a gym. He knew another taekwondo specialist who had recently left that training because he discovered MMA.

The friend encouraged Vallee to try also. Vallee wasn't convinced it would work.

"He told me, 'If you do one training, you'll give up taekwondo and go to MMA,'" Vallee wrote. "I told him that that I was skeptical, but he was right. After one training, I gave up Taekwondo and started MMA."

With his early training, he participated in grappling tournaments. His first amateur MMA opportunity arrived in 2003, when he was asked to fight in Holland. He agreed, and he lost by decision. Even more important, he watched another fighter that night, Siyar Bahadurzada, dominate an opponent in a win.

Not long after, one of Vallee's coaches asked him if he wanted his first professional opportunity. He agreed, and he learned shortly after who is first opponent was: Bahadurzada.

"I thought, 'Ouch!'" Vallee wrote.

His debut against Bahadurzada ended in a draw, and Bahadurzada went on to a 21-4-1 record and a UFC contract. Vallee was also encouraged, so he continued to fight. He started his career 7-1-1.

In December 2011, Vallee was scheduled for a fight in Canada, but he required surgery not long before the bout and had trouble putting weight on one leg. He lost that fight, and he went 1-3 in a four-fight stretch while still struggling with injuries.

But, when he fully recovered, he scored a first-round submission at October's Superior 8 show in Sweden, which convinced many that he was back to his old form. Once a slot against Daley opened, his strong performance in his last fight helped him get picked for the opportunity he considers perhaps his most important to date.

"All I want to do," he wrote, "is a good fight for the fans who asked for it."

http://www.mmajunkie.com/news/2013/01/fight-path-patrick-vallees-unique-past-prepared-him-for-paul-daley-bout