When I returned home to Australia in 2003 after a couple of years globetrotting around the world I settled into working life as a physiotherapist in Sydney’s Inner West.

Every month I’d see hundreds of injured patients with ailments from all different sporting endeavours and walks of life.

After sifting through the details of their problems most people would inevitably turn the tables on me and ask, “what sport do you play?”.

At the time MMA was still in its relative infancy so for a few years I did my best to explain the virtues of “reality fighting” but this was generally met with a sense of collective horror!

Eventually I just gave up and resorted to telling everyone I ‘did boxing and wrestling’ and even then most people were bemused (mainly the cyclists! 😉).

The other day I turned on the TV at my physio practice in Leichhardt to see the mainstream news channels sprouting the fact that the UFC would be returning to Sydney for the first time since 2017. The NSW premier (himself a big @ufc fan) stood side by side with “Bam Bam Tuivasa” celebrating that his government had specifically sought out and secured the UFC to come back to our city over the next 4yrs. It was surreal!!!

To think that our sport could go from being a sporting pariah to headliner in only 20yrs is nothing short of amazing. To top it off Australasia now has some of the best combat sports athletes on the planet to showcase in front of their home fans.

A sport that was almost over before it started, which was kept on life support by a worldwide grassroots movement at the advent of the internet and then catapulted into the public eye by some canny casino businessmen had finally arrived on the evening news.

Maybe anything is possible?

Go get training and find out : )

Ben Power

Head Coach