Johnny Mercurio who put an opponent into sleep in one of the six MMA amateur fights he all won has just decided that this year, is his time to start working at professional circuit and the Predator or Prey at the Saipan World Resort on Saturday will be his ground.
In an interview hours after he arrived on Saipan with UFC veteran Kimo Leopoldo and California-based MMA promoter Bobby Gamboa last Tuesday, Mercurio said that in this upcoming fight, the pressure is on him knowing how far he is from home to fight, yet the people on Saipan has been so hospitable to him.
Coming from over an Ocean to fight, he said “is a very big deal to me.”
“I would have to say it’s almost an honor to be able to prove myself out here. I really appreciate it so much that everybody here is so hospitable to me,” he said.
Gamboa who gave Mercurio the opportunity to prove himself here said “it’s going to be an exciting fight,” as he announced during the press conference that the US-based fighter is one of those in the semi-main event.
Since it is “kind of up in the air because there have been changes, Mercurio can’t be so certain about who will be his opponent.
“But to tell you that truth, whoever he is I’m training as hard as I possibly can everyday. It does not matter if fight cards change, it is not going to change my preparation. I’m still working as hard as possibly I can,” he said adding that he had never ever taken any opponent lightly.
The 22-year-old cage fighter said he had been officially doing the MMA for two years.
Starting his martial arts with karate at the age of 7 to 13, Mercurio got into other sports in teenage years before he came back to martial arts again.
He recalled that he stopped doing the karate to to play football.
“And then I went to go run in college track,”
His track coach then, happened to help work out some of the legendary UFC fighters then.
All the while, Mercurio said that his coach, Don Turnble knew he was not happy running track.
“It is because I’m a little bit of an actual competitor. And (in track) I was missing that competitive element of it,” he said.
His coach then recommended him to fight, then he begun making up with the guys who helped him out to train in MMA.
That was two and half years ago.
Currently, he said he trains at Hunnington Beach Ultimate Training Center. He has fought in many local amateur shows back in California, some in the events promoted by Bobby Gamboa.
Mercurio’s very first fight was 30 seconds.
“I actually put my opponent to sleep. I ended up choking him to sleep,” he recalled.
Ever since then he said, he was nervous so he went to training for about two months.
“Honestly, it was my first time to ever put somebody to sleep. I never did that before. It shocked me. When I let him go, he fell down,” he went on to say.
And from that moment, he said, he fell in love with the sport.
That fight he said was the most gross he had in his life and in his fights, he always tried to obtain that goal again.
Mercurio said he prefer the stand up for the sole reason that he believes he is an entertainer and he is here to give the people what they want to see and he knows the people want to see stand up fights.
However, he said he also believes that “to be a fighter you have to move like water. Water has no shape. You take the fight where it goes even when it goes to the ground.”
There are so many people that classify themselves as either a stand up fighter or a grappler.
Mercurio said he doest not really like that because he knows it’s a mixed martial arts.
“We are not limited to one ground. We should move like water,” he said.
And in achieving that, he said he dosn’t train one thing more than the other.
