Louisiana - Celebrating a Fighting State
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- Category: UFC News
- Published on Wednesday, 31 August 2011 05:00
- Written by By Thomas Gerbasi
Home to six UFC events from 1998 to 2002, Louisiana will once again welcome the warriors of the Octagon for September 17th’s “Battle on the Bayou” in New Orleans. For the fighters competing that night, it will be another opportunity to establish themselves in their respective divisions and for the main carders, a chance to do so before a national television audience on Spike TV.
But for those in the mixed martial arts community in Louisiana, it’s more than that. Never a hotbed of the sport like California, Las Vegas, or New Mexico, the state has only produced a handful of UFC fighters, with current battlers Melvin Guillard , Tim Credeur, Pat Barry , and Dustin Poirier , and vets Rich Clementi and Kyle Bradley being the most notable. So this isn’t just a fight card – it’s a celebration of the sport by some of its most diehard followers.
And despite not having a dozen fighters on the UFC roster, those who did come from the state didn’t moan about their place in the MMA world though, and instead of leaving for greener pastures, many formed a tight bond together, taking an ‘us against the world’ mentality.
Clementi, a New Jersey native who found a home in Slidell, Louisiana, appeared on season four of The Ultimate Fighter and fought ten times in the UFC. He also acted as a mentor to fighters like Credeur and Bradley, and as he explained in 2008, he was blunt about the obstacles fighters in the state were facing.
“A few years back, like five, six years, if you mentioned anybody that was from Mississippi or Louisiana, people kinda joked about them in the business,” said Clementi. “I promote and I manage guys too, and if you knew you were fighting a guy from Louisiana, you knew he wasn’t gonna have any wrestling, you knew his jiu-jitsu wasn’t gonna be that technical, and you might get a tough guy, but predominantly, if you came from a good camp, you’re gonna beat somebody from down south. That really bothered me, and it bothered me personally because I fell in that category. So it really was a goal of mine to try to create a whole scene and get guys who really had talent and bond everybody together. Now we’re pushing some decent guys out there. We have like 4-5 UFC-caliber guys from down there, and that was important to me. We all help each other out, and even some of the guys who aren’t on that level are still a huge part to being where I’m at.”
At the time, Clementi had used the “comeback” season of TUF to begin a career resurgence, and before losses to Gray Maynard and Gleison Tibau ended his UFC run, he reeled off six consecutive wins that included UFC victories over hot prospects Anthony Johnson , Guillard, Sam Stout , and Terry Etim . 2008 was also a big year for Credeur, who brought a 9-2 record into his own season of reality TV – TUF7. And it wasn’t just big for him, as he looked to change the stereotype of Louisiana fighters.
“It’s really tough out there,” said Credeur after his stay in the TUF7 house. “There’s not a lot of 
coverage with the media, not a lot of internet sites covering fighting in the south, and it’s kinda like a lost corner. It’s pretty difficult to get out of there unless you get on a show like Melvin Guillard did, like Rich (Clementi) did. And Rich had a lot of the same problems – he fought once in the UFC, lost to Yves Edwards (in 2003), and the guy had like 30-something fights and he was still fighting anywhere anybody would give him a paycheck. And they weren’t big paychecks, but that’s kinda how it is for fighters in the south, and I hope to change that because it’s difficult. If you’re from Renzo Gracie’s team and you’ve got three or four wins, you get a big fight. Down south we’ve got guys with 15-20 fights and they’re trying to get in shows for 500 bucks. Hopefully I can change that and bring some recognition down for...
