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Old School Mark Weir To Fight Jack Mason
26 Mar 2010
By Dean Parr
This Saturday night at the familiar haunt of the Troxy in London, UFC veteran Mark The Wizard Weir (19-17-1) will headline the Ultimate Challenge: Adrenaline Rush show when he takes on Jack Mason (12-5) in a bid to take the organisation s Middleweight crown. Going into this contest, Weir is confident and prepared.
I m looking forward to it very much, began Weir. I love fighting and it feels like I ve been doing it forever. The preparations have gone good. The guys at the gym have sacrificed a lot from a few years back, when I tried to get the level of the training and competition there up to a reasonable standard. Although it s taken a while, we ve got there, and a lot of them are starting to return it back now, so I feel pretty good and privileged to be having these guys I ve been working on for years returning the favour.
In front of Weir on Saturday night will be the aforementioned Jack Mason, a solid fighter with a very good ground game. The Wizard sees this to be a tough test, but at the same time a chance to prove that he still has what it takes to be the cream of the crop in the UK Middleweight divison.
He s on a very good winning streak, and he s young, hungry and got everything in the future to look forward to, said Weir of his foe. I stand in his way. With me though, I ve got a lot of experience. It s been a while since I trained at the level I know I deserve to be training at, and I feel like I m doing it now. It will be nice to see what I can produce on the day.
Mark also described how he thought the fight could play out. I don t think he ll stand up; I really don t, asserted Weir. If he does though, fair enough, that s great. I think all he ll try to do is shoot in and try to take me down. I know that he loves guillotines, and there s a few other submissions he might try, but we ll see. In the early days of my career I used to do submissions myself, but I strayed from it due to the fact I was concentrating so much on the other guys that I lessened my own ability, but I m getting back there now and the focus is on my fight, so I m good to go. I m using Mason as a guinea pig to see if I can get my old self back.
I d like to finish it standing; I would love that, continued the determined UK MMA mainstay, But if it goes to the ground, then it goes to the ground. I d like to see him try and keep me down so I can see what I m like there. There s no point doing all that training if you don t get to try things out, but there s nothing like an easy win.
A win here would put The Wizard in a great position. Mason is one of Britain s top middleweight prospects and will take some beating. If he does pull it off though, Weir wants to break the mould with his next move.
He revealed, I wouldn t mind trying to get down to Welterweight and fight for that title so I have two on the go. At my age now [42], I like to do extreme stuff, and I d like to go down to Welterweight, get that, then come back up to Middleweight and defend that and vice versa. It s unusual but it excites me to wonder whether I can pull it off or not.
On the other hand, a loss could be devastating to Mark, although as of now, he is having no thoughts about calling it a day. I try not to think about it, insisted Weir on the topic of retirement. Maybe when I m struggling at the gym; that will probably be the first sign and also when I m reluctant to get up and train, but I haven t got any of that. I m training all the time and there s no reluctance.
Weir did admit that fighting is more challenging in the present day than it used to be, although this is beneficial on the sparring front.
Back in the early days, it was like everything was in slow motion for me and I was the only one fighting, declared the Gloucester man. But when you ve got about six or seven guys fighting, it lessens you because you re concentrating fully on them keeping their confidence and working with them to get their level up. I knew over the years that it would bring my standard down. Now though, the level of the guys in the gym is really, really good, and the necessity isn t there for me to go abroad so much like I used to.
In his last contest, Weir beat Mark Epstein in a UK1 rules bout, and while he recognises this wasn t a full MMA bout, he thinks that the impressive performance of a sign of what is still to come from the veteran.
Mark noted, That was like my old school stuff. My old way of fighting is coming back, although to be fair, that fight was only in one area with the stand up. I ve got to see whether the full package is there now, and sometimes when there s something you ve not tried for a while it loses you, and you feel like a shadow of your former self. So I m going there to be myself and see what I can produce on the day.
Weir also revealed the pleasure it gives him to pass on his wizardry to his students at Range Fighting and OMMA in Oxford. It s going very, very good, he beamed. The level is so good now, and everyone is so enthusiastic that I don t need to motivate people so hard. There s nothing like passing your experience down either. When you work hard on someone then see their performace it makes you very proud.
Will Weir produce the performance necessary to stave off the threat of a hungry Jack Mason? The only time to find out will be on Saturday night, but one thing is for sure - The Wizard is not going to the Troxy to lose.
More information on the show can be found at http://www.ucmma.com
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