MMA athlete pumped about April nationals
Colton Boxell is ready to fight for the top of the nation.
The local mixed martial artist will be returning to the octagon at the Canadian National Championships in April after settling for silver in 2017 — but this year Boxell has shaved off a few pounds while adding some power to his punches in the welterweight division.
“I’m more built for a welterweight,” said Boxell, who has fought at middleweight for the majority of his career, including a silver-medal performance at nationals in 2017, and gold in 2015. “I didn’t want to cut down to welterweight because I thought it would be too hard on the body and too hard on the energy system. But it turns out that when I’m more on peak and more committed to this thing, I can hit 170 easier and then I don’t have to wrestle so many big guys. I’ve got less of a size discrepancy between me and the guys I’m trying to beat.”
After winning silver in 2017, Boxell made the decision to dive head first into the world of MMA by hopping on a plane and travelling east to train at Tristar Gym in Montreal. Aiming to grow his game and become the best amateur in his weight class, Boxell immediately began learning from one of the most infamous welterweights on the planet —former UFC champion Georges St. Pierre.
“I had the chance to grapple Georges on my very first day. It was like I was face-to-face with a tsunami. It was just a tidal wave of being overwhelmed, it was crazy,” said Boxell, 27. “He’s a very intelligent instructor. He really explains the approach he’s going to take into the technique and the whole pedagogy of how he’s teaching and instructing.”
In training with St. Pierre and Tristar’s Firas Zahabi, primarily in jiu jitsu, Boxell says he managed to greatly sharpen the strongest aspects of his repertoire — takedowns and the ground game.
“The ground is my realm,” he said. “There are very few people who can hang with me on the ground, very few. I’ve been all over Alberta, all over the country and it’s only the top five per cent that can deal with my ground game.”
Boxell isn’t sure who he’ll be fighting first in the eight-man bracket at nationals, but given his vast experience in jiu jitsu, Boxell says he assumes his opponent will be watching out for takedowns — which is exactly why he’s been honing his skills as a boxer.
“I think people are going to expect me to want to grapple. I have no problem getting there. I can get there, I can do that no problem, but I’m really loving my hands right now. I’m having a lot of fun boxing,” he said, adding he’s been training out of the Medicine Hat Boxing Club, Element Jiu Jitsu and Southern Alberta Combative Arts since returning to Medicine Hat in November.
“You put those small gloves on and you’ve just got to touch him — you touch him 10-12 times over and over, and his face is going to start getting busted up, he’s going to start being a little bit demeaned, I get the momentum and then it starts going my way.”
The incredibly demanding national bracket will task fighters with as many as three bouts over just three days, with the eventual champion moving on to represent Canada at the world championships in Bahrain. As such, Boxell says he and his competitors will need to be aware of how much damage they’re taking in order to continue fighting the following day.
“I think there is obviously a fine line to be drawn. You’re always aiming to win the fight, but there’s that risk of winning a fight and taking so much damage that you’re not able to continue to the next day. I think you have to be aware of that and be planning for that long-term strategy,” said Boxell, adding if it comes down to it, he will do what it takes to win, but he plans on taking a smarter approach. “I’m a very intelligent and methodical fighter so I see myself taking the wins and taking minimal damage, and doing it in my typical, technical, finessed, methodical way where I just overwhelm my opponents with my pressure and grappling.”
While he will be on his own when he steps into the octagon on April 10, Boxell insists there’s simply no way he’d have made it to the mat on a national stage without the support of countless coaches, friends and family members along the way.
“My friends and family, everybody who supports me. At Element Jiu Jitsu there’s Peter Albano, Brandon Burton has been training lots and Fotis Lambiris is my longest-term coach. My mom, my dad, my sister, my brother in law,” said Boxell. “The city that you’re from has so much to do with the person you become and the way that you represent yourself. I feel like the octagon kind of strips away all those other layers you try to build on top of it, and it’s just the raw, most intense part of you. I think I carry the spirit of Medicine Hat through me into the octagon in a lot of ways.”