THE CANADIAN PRESS
For years, mixed martial arts fighter Jason MacDonald left Red Deer, Alta., to commute to gyms in Calgary and Edmonton to train. Now the UFC veteran has his own training facility.
Pure Fitness and Mixed Martial Arts has been open for three weeks and already MacDonald is planning to split the MMA class he teaches into two.
“Basically what we did — or at least we tried — is we took the best aspects of every gym that we’ve been in and tried to put them all under one roof,” MacDonald explained.
Jorge Gurgel, a UFC fighter based in Cincinnati, has 13 jiu-jitsu schools, including one in Halifax called Fitness Plus. Former welterweight champion Matt Hughes is opening his new mixed martial arts training centre next month just outside St. Louis. And in Toronto, the first Xtreme Couture gym in Canada is slated to welcome members in the spring.
The popularity of the UFC and mixed martial arts in general has prompted fighters and entrepreneurs alike to open facilities that cater to people who want to get fit and learn MMA.
Doug Urch, who along with his brother Robert owns a couple of fitness centres in Toronto, started noticing the popularity of mixed martial arts several years ago. He also realized that many fighters had to go to one gym for boxing, another for jiu-jitsu and yet another for wrestling.
His idea was to create “one big” MMA health and fitness training centre and to take a page out of the UFC owners’ recipe for success by mainstreaming the sport.
“Because it got so popular, I wanted to mainstream the training, give people a familiar place,” Urch explained.
He started working on his plan, eventually joining forces with legendary fighter Randy Couture’s camp, which was looking to spread its Xtreme Couture brand of gym into Canada.
Urch was delighted at the chance to hook up with the UFC heavyweight champion and Hall of Famer. The Couture name brings instant recognition and respect.
“What was I going to call it, Dougie’s MMA?” asked Urch. “Who would come?”
Couture’s original gym in Las Vegas, where a one-hour private session with the champion will set you back US1,000, is renowned as a home to a horde of elite pro fighters. He also has Xtreme Couture gyms in Washington state, Illinois and Florida.
Urch has not skimped on the Canadian version. His club will span 33,000 square feet and Urch estimates he and his partners will have sunk 1.5 million into it by the time it opens.
Fitness machines and facilities will be joined by a 24-foot boxing ring, 24-foot cage and more than 6,000 square feet of mats plus more than 50 punching bags. You’ll be able to run on a treadmill, lift weights or work on your Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, wrestling, boxing or judo — to name just a few disciplines.
The gym also boasts an impressive list of coaches including such fighters as Brent Beauparlant, Chris Horodecki, Mark Hominick and Jeff Joslin.
Adrianne Fekete, president of Xtreme Couture Canada Inc, is looking to seal licensing agreements for Xtreme Coutures across Canada. She hopes Toronto will become home to a string of them, followed by facilities in London, Ont., Montreal, Calgary and Halifax.
“It’s the new trendy, cool kind of sport and way to get fit,” she explained.
In Alberta, MacDonald still commutes to see his coaches but not as often. Now, they come to him some days. The gym will also allow him to bring in fighters to help him train for fights, since he can put them up at his house and have a place to train nearby.
“With four kids and a family, it’s hard to pack up and take off for three weeks or a month to prepare for a fight,” he said. “Now I have a great training facility so I’ll be able to maybe entice some of the guys to come on up here on my dime.”
MacDonald’s partners in the gym, which covers 5,000 square feet, are his wife Kelly and friends Rob and Jody Hagarty. All put in long hours to make it a reality.
“When I heard from the UFC that I wouldn’t be fighting until April, I was a bit disappointed,” MacDonald said. “And then once we started this project, I was thankful afterwards because it was a tremendous amount of work. We put in a lot of 16-hour days working up there and getting everything ready.
MacDonald’s gym features a full boxing ring, a 26-by-34 wrestling mat surrounded by cage, plus a rack of punching bags, weights and cardio equipment.
“We tried to provide one-stop shipping for our members,” he said
Finding a space big enough and with the proper zoning wasn’t easy. Strangely enough he found it when he took his kids to Red Deer’s annual Halloween haunted house and realized the building was perfect. He found the landlord the next day and snagged it .
“I took my kids to the haunted house and I ended up leaving with a new gym,” he said.
