The fight game is an unforgiving, brutal industry. Zig when you should’ve zagged, and you can find yourself staring up at the lights not quite knowing what’s just happened.
You warm up in the back, then you get the call to walk, then your music plays.
Weeks upon weeks have led to this moment. You’ve been to hell and back on a daily basis in the gym in the pursuit of a chance at greatness. No guarantees.
How do you not freeze up?
Jake Perryman is the captain of the Thai-boxing team at Leeds Beckett University and describes what his mindset is when he makes that walk to represent his university and more importantly, himself.
“You’ve got to trust the process, you’ve got to trust that all of those mornings you get up at six when you really don’t want to, to get to the gym for seven and then get to uni for ten. Every time you do that it’s a small step in the right direction.
“You have to trust what your coach says and trust yourself. You’ve done this for this reason, don’t bottle it now, don’t do 99% of the hard work to throw it all away now.
“You think about everything in that moment, the reason you’re alive, your family, what you’ve done since you were a baby to get to this point and then when you get in there and the bell goes, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you are, a ring’s a ring and punches are punches.” He says.
‘I thought it was just a game’
After his rugby team folded, a 16-year-old Perryman was in search of a new sporting endeavour to embark on when he came across Thai-boxing.
“A guy that I was really good friends with on a whim invited me to go to Muay Thai with him.” He says.
“I only knew about Thai-boxing because of the UFC 2009 game on the XBOX. I thought it was just a game, but after Googling it I found out it was a real thing and people are really allowed to fight and that’s how it started!”
Perryman’s most notorious bout for Beckett took place in back in May when he had an absolute war with Sacha Afghahi from the University of Nottingham.
It was a high paced, car crash of a fight, in which both men had their moments. Unfortunately for Perryman, he was caught with a big uppercut at the end of round 3 and was pulled from the contest by his corner in between rounds.
It is often said in combat sports that you either win or you learn, and Perryman reflected on how having such a chaotic fight made him realise changes to his lifestyle and fighting style were required.
“Two big lessons. The first one was at that time, I vaped religiously until one time I felt a pain in my chest that I had never felt before and I thought, I know what’s caused this. Not that that’s an excuse, I gassed in the fight.
“Another lesson I learned was finding the balance between over and under exerting, I overexerted.” Perryman says.
Despite his aspirations of continuing to fight after university, with his end goal being to set up his own gym back home in Cambridge, Perryman is still competing regularly for Beckett.
His last contest saw him take on a challenge that many fighters avoid. Taking on a hometown fighter in their backyard and Perryman drew that exact assignment when he had to fight Jon Best, a Geordie, up in Newcastle where they fought to a draw.
“My fight before that was in a hotel lobby, this one was an actual fight night. I was walking to the ring on a platform that was raised up.
“My song drops and the lights go BOOM! The lasers are going with the music, and you look up to see all these people in the bleachers looking down at you and you’re like whew! This isn’t a hotel lobby anymore; this is the real thing!
“As far as the enemy territory goes, I wasn’t too worried about what people had to say. I was there to dance. And dance we did.” He says.
‘Getting back in there again did feel a little bit sketchy’
‘Panzer’s’ next fight is coming up on October 27th. Just three weeks after his fight with Best in Newcastle. Perryman admitted it is a quick turnaround from his last bout and there is a fine line between over training and maintaining fitness from his last camp.
“That was only three weeks ago and getting back in there again did feel a little bit sketchy.
“That’s just how my brain works, I can’t moderate! I go, I go, I go and when the ball’s rolling it’s a snowball that keeps building and doesn’t stop. I think you’d have to kill me to stop me!” He says.
Looking forward to his bout on the 27th, Perryman predicts that it will be his toughest test yet, but says that experiences from his previous fights will put him in good stead come fight night.
“I think this guy is going to better than my other two opponents combined, and I think I’m going to smash it because last time I out I under exerted.
“I was genuinely more scared of gassing out than I was of losing because I gassed out so much in the first fight. That was my kryptonite.
“Now that I’ve done too much, I’ve not done enough, I’m going to find a happy medium and bring it home.” He says.
