Hamilton’s First Professional Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) event in History!

#throwbackthursday – I’m very proud to be a part of the team that brought Professional MMA to Hamilton for the very first time in history.

We had over 3000 fans come out to our “Slammer in the Hammer” event which featured some amazing fighters including 3 future UFC’ers (Francis Carmont, Daron Cruikshank and Jesse Ronson) and veteran competitor Jason Day who had fought in the UFC many times.

Without a doubt this was the most difficult challenge of my life. Not going to lie, the stress leading up to this event was insane! So much that it put me in tears on one occasion. I’ve never felt anything like that before.

In the end it was all worth it: we had an awesome night of exciting fights that created some great memories for the fans and athletes competing. There were great displays of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling, karate, muay thai and boxing throughout the night.

Big John McCarthy was our referee –such a awesome person– and we had MMA Legend Chuck Liddell as our special guest.

I will never forget addressing the Hamilton crowd to start off the event that night. I felt extremely proud to help bring live professional MMA action to the Hamiltonians that gave me so much love throughout my fighting career…

Jeff Joslin

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