With only a few short weeks leading up to his first professional MMA fight, We sat down with Broderick Rene and talked shop.
How did you become interested in MMA?
My dad and older brother always watched MMA as a father-son bonding thing, and I was playing video games, but I wanted in on their time. We could probably watch it together, and it would be like a trio. I said, “Alright, like this will be our thing.” so I started watching with them and my brother and me just kind of like started wrestling around, and that’s where it all started. I wanted to spend time with them and just realized that I am obsessed with MMA.
Watching it is one thing, but you took it one step further…
I was 17 and in grade eleven. I see this promotion out of Richmond, Virginia, and you must be 18 to fight, but I could fight underage at 17 if I had parental consent. Anyway, I asked my parents if they would fill out the forms, and My mom said Yes and even drove me out there, and the rest is history.
So, you said Mom, “I want to do this,” and it just so happens to be 500 miles away, and she just nodded and said, let’s go, or what was it like?
She was all for it immediately!! She just got super excited about everything we did. Anything that her kids liked, she somehow managed to love it more, and she was never one to push. She would always be supportive. I was playing lacrosse about two weeks before my first fight, and I was playing in Hamilton. This huge guy was playing dirty and asked me to drop gloves. We take our helmets off, drop the gloves, and I got maybe like 7-8 punches in, and I came out still standing. I go off the floor and talk to my mom, and she’s like, “I was a little nervous you being young and going to fight way out in the States and stuff like that, but you just took all that right now like shows that you can handle yourself, You’ll be fine.”
So, when I was looking at your amateur record, you’re pretty much a 50/50 split.
I never want my record ever to be like that ever again, but I’m glad I went through it because I already experienced the embarrassment. It’s a clean start, my amateur record will be reset, but you can’t lose at the end of the day because every pro fight gets you closer to UFC like you’re building your resume.
How well prepared will you be psychologically going into the fight? Where are your thoughts?
So, my thoughts branch out; I simulate the fight in my head and say he comes in issue all stuff it and what I do from there if I like to switch over to put my head down and like what do I do from that? Branch out and then after French caps like 15 minutes of like just like a like it just like a tree of like. As the possibilities and that backtrack to like the beginning again, I’m like, OK, so the weather went this way like I have set over. It’s crazy, but no, I think that it is an advantage for me.
I read on the BTC website that this will be Pay-per-view.
It is a big opportunity for me. They partner up with broadcasting networks here so that it can reach over 125 million homes. That’s a big audience potential
Stick around as Broderick talks shop with another Yakowennahskats reporter.
