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The Afterburner claims another title
03 Mar 2010
By Del Hillan
A little over a week ago Graham "Afterburner" Turner won the 4 man tournament at the Scottish Fight Challenge: The Brave event held in Stirling. Turner managed to win 2 fights in one day to lift the trophy and increase his record to a very impressive 15-5-1.
At the age of 13 Graham started out with Karate and also Thai Boxing before making the move into MMA with current coach James Doolan. Now 22 Graham has pretty much grown up with us in the gym says Doolan. Although his dad wanted him to become a footballer Turner was to move into a different sport and chose MMA ahead of a career kicking a ball about. My family are really supportive says Turner, My mum has always supported me but she never wanted to come to my fights. The event at Scottish Fight Challenge was the first time she has ever seen me fighting so it was great to have her there to see me.
Turner is the current Total Combat British Lightweight champion and he hopes to add to that title before the year is out. Since winning that title he has dropped down to featherweight. His coach Doolan explained, The featherweight division is one of the UK's most talent stacked but Graham can hang with any the guys in the top ten, his pro record is now 15-5-1 which is nuts considering he has just turned 22, he is getting better all the time, everything is on him.
Although Turner trains very hard he still manages to do it all with a full time job in a bakery. I really want to train full time but its hard to put in the time when I also work full time but I am dedicated to this and I want to train as much as I can, he added. I start at 5am so that I can finish early and get straight into training.
The 4 man tournament is not something that comes along very often for a fighter, so when the opportunity came along to take part Turner jumped all over it. His coach Doolan said, he was desperate to do it after finding out it was taking place. He trained hard for the show. In terms of performance he showed bits of what he is capable off but has fought better, the original line up changed a few times, we couldn't find much on them to prepare a game plan so we went into the fights blind. The first fight against Arvydas Zilius, Graham was close to
finishing just as the round ended, but stopped him and wasn't bashed up.
His second fight of the day against Carlos Prada in the final. Turner was dropped early in the fight but managed to compose himself and control the rest of the fight to take the judges decision. Doolan added, After 2 rounds I thought it was going to go to a third. I was sure Carlos hadn't won but you never know with judges. Judges gave it to Graham so I was happy. He did drop me but I wasn't hurt said Turner, he held on quite a lot but I feel I did a lot more work.
So what is next for the Afterburner? Well work is going on to find him an opponent for the next Absolute Combat card in Edinburgh on 1st May and there is also talk of a 4 man tournament at lightweight in the near future. Doolan said, We have had top fighters and coaches tell him since he was a kid he can
go as far as he wants in the sport. If he dedicates himself like he has
done recently then there is going to be a bunch of titles for him. Plan
for him this year is for him to settle into the featherweight division
and get some exposure down south on the bigger shows.
Whatever the future holds Graham Turner is a name that everyone needs to keep an eye on and with James Doolan, Paul McVeigh and the rest of the Dinky Ninja Fight Team behind him well the sky is the limit for this very talented young fighter.
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