MarkHolst.com

Hello everyone!

As everyone can see I was nice enough to bring some Florida weather back with me …at least it lasted a few days but now back to the Canadian weather.

I am going through a rough time these days. Also I still can’t train, my hand is not healing as fast as I thought it would be. I am getting nervous  because it will set back my training for my BJJ tournaments that I wanted to compete in. For now I teach and train the students at OAMA, even with one hand I do what I can to help the students out.

A few nights ago I saw some of the OAMA Muay Thai students put on great MuayThai DEMOs! We have many future champions who will be fighting at the CASK Nationals this weekend, I know they will do amazing and bring back some belts!

My month of March is packed with traveling and adventures check it out: Afghanistan trip for WRECK MMA followed by 2-3 days in Canada then fly back out to Costa Rica for the Gracie BJJ seminar then from there fly out to LA to train with Pat then drive to Vegas. That should take me around the end of March! And of course I will be sending out pictures and giving you guys updates on all those trips, it’s all going to be right on this website!

Take care everyone,

BoOts!

Hello everyone from Orlando, Florida!

A few days before my fight Pat had told me that if I won against Showtying, he would take me to Orlando for 5 days!

So here I am on V-day with my girlfriend in Orlando! This is our last day here and Pat and I will be driving back home tomorow morning (22hrs of driving). For the whole trip I have been enjoying the sunny and clear blue skies and a heated pool at the back of the house that Pat and his family are renting. I spent my days hanging out with Pat and having fun playing with his son and daughter (Renzo & Brooke) and of course spending some quality time with Dominik. We did some RC-ing, a tour of Planet Hollywood\Magic Kingdom and of course hitting up the best restaurants in Orlando for some delicious steaks and gator!

I really thankful for this opportunity and I have enjoyed everyday of my vacation with Pat, his family and my girlfriend. I feel relaxed and ready to get back to work at OAMA. Even with a cast on my right hand I still hold pads (one handed style) and teach the students at OAMA. I can’t wait to have this cast off and start training BJJ for my upcoming BJJ competitions.

I will be posting new pictures on here when I get back to Ottawa, I hope the snow started to melt over there! I’ll bring back some Orlando heat with me, don’t you guys worry!

Also I will let you guys know about next adventures and my crazy busy schedule, traveling all over the world in March, you guys won’t believe it!!!

Take care everyone,

BoOts!

Hello everyone !

 
Everything is going really good for me in spite of the fiberglass cast on my right hand. It really sucks but considering I have never broken a bone in 10 years of competing in martial arts, it’s not too too bad. Funny enough, I had to hurt myself in my retirement bout ! Six weeks in a cast the doc says (merci Dr Alain!). I am missing training a lot and I don’t know how I will be able to handle this … Like I said in my last blog, I got to do some sparring with Kru Jeff on Monday and, for the next while, I will be teaching and training the students at OAMA. So typing with my left hand is really annoying and slow. I will do my best for the recap, here it goes!

Leading up to the fight I felt really good. Kru Jeff and I really pushed each other hard on the conditioning and all around. I knew that one thing Showtying wouldn’t have is the conditioning in the 2nd and 3rd round, so I made sure to really put in extra time on cardio: swimming every morning and sprints at the end of almost every MMA training session!

The week leading up to the fight “Big Win” Don Wilson did an interview with me and told me that he had interviewed Showtying and said he was looking really lean, and that he was going to make weight, on the bing. I was happy to hear that for 4 reasons. One: I was going to get the best of Showtying has ever been. Two: he was going to follow up and follow through on what he said to everyone, he was going to make the weight on the bing and be a professional fighter. Three: he was going to shut everyone up who were saying he wasn’t going to make weight. And four: he was going to be killing himself to make the 171lbs weight limit, giving me the advantage in the 2nd and3rd round.

Kru Jeff and I arrived at the weigh-ins on time. Many of the fighters were late because they were still in the sauna. Kru Jeff and my opponent were still in the sauna.Everyone was telling me that Showtying was 178lbs and very close, he would make it for sure. At 1pm the weigh-ins started. Showtying arrived still in his sauna suit. He stepped on the scale and weighed in at 173lbs, 2 lbs over. I think it was the closest he has ever been in his last few fights to make weight. I was very surprised and pissed off to be honest. He and everyone had me really convinced that he was going to make it. 

After we both weighed in, we prepared to square off in our fighter’s stance for the media. I knew Showtying was going to be all in my face…The weigh-ins went a little different then I imagined. I remember telling myself before the weigh-ins “no matter what Showtying does, don’t give him anything and just smile back…” So he got in my face and added a slight head butt, which really pissed me off. I couldn’t believe he did that. I just smiled back and said that wasn’t necessary and he apologized. We posed for the media then gave each other a hug. He apologized for not making weight and we wished each other good luck for the fight. Not only did he not make weight, which in my opinion was very un-professional, but he had to head butt me at the weigh-ins! I was pissed but I also realized maybe that’s what he wanted all along, to get under my skin with all the talk and shenanigans … maybe that was the game plan for him, maybe he wanted me to get me all fired up and pissed off and, come fight night, he would want me to fight with emotions, not fight a smart fight. I realized that and did my best to control my emotions at the weigh-ins, during fight day and also during the fight.

Fight day, I felt amazing! I was full of energy and ready to go! I had a great warm up in the backroom with Garry working the pads and Steph working wrestling defence with me. I got a good sweat on, Kru Chris gave me the lucky tape job on my hands and off I went to fight Showtying.

As I walked towards the cage, all I wanted was to get this over with and start to fight! I heard all the cheers and all the boos! I was happy to feel all the positive energy from the spectators. Stephane gave me a message from Jean-Yves Theriault before I fought: “Don’t retire before the fight” and I kept saying that to myself during the walk out. I wanted to finish my career with a bang, with the best of my performances, a fight of the night!

Pat’s game plan: make it past the 1st round, be patient, don’t fight with emotions, fight smart, make him miss, make him tired, work his body, low kicks, 2-3 hit combo and disengage, in and out, watch out for the high kicks and big power punch, stay relax and weather the storm…don’t rush the finish, let it come.

This is how I remember the fight went down:

1st round Showtying andI touched gloves. I had a bit of a hard time to find my timing, as expected. Showtying rushed me to the cage and tried to take me down with a single leg and ankle pick. I was very confident in my take down defence (thanks to the MTL Wrestling Club) and defended all his takedownattempts. After feeling him out for a bit, I realized that he was big yes, but I didn’t feel him overly stronger than me. I thought he was going to out power me easily, especially in the first round. I reversed positions and put him against the cage. I tried to work strikes in the clinch but I was tied up really good. The ref broke us apart. On the outside, he was throwing wild high kicks and caught me with a side kick and then went for a high kick with his left andslipped. I remember Pat telling me: “if he ends up on the ground and you are standing, make sure to do some damage” and I did just that! I landed a big right handas he was trying to stand up and I think that first punch is the punch that broke my hand but I didn’t feel a thing until after the fight. I jumped inside his guard right after I landed the big punch and thought to myself “I landed that clean on his face with all my body weight and he is still in the fight”. He wasn’t even dazed. I knew that Showtying had a very good chin and heart, would not quit to head strikes andhad not been knocked out in his entire career. I did some safe ground andpound, nothing too crazy or risky, again I wanted to follow the game plan and take this fight into the 2ndroundwhere he would be tired. I also knew he had a good triangle so I was very cautious in his guard as everyone could see. The roundfinishes with me inside his guard not doing too much damage but I thought I had tired him out quite a bit. I was surprised the ref didn’t stand us up but that’s what I was hoping for anyways.

2ndround: we touched gloves. Showtying was working the inside leg kick a lot and on purpose I let him land a few, in hope that he would commit more and put more power into his next kicks. When he went for stronger kicks, I turned my knee in to block with the knee cap against the top of his foot. It worked once. Then on the 2nd I saw that he got hurt from kicking my knee. I had landed a right low kick previously before hurting his foot, so as soon as I saw that he hurt his foot I threw my right high kick to his head and connected. Once again, the tough Showtying didn’t even flinch. Right after that he tied me up again. I managed to reverse positions and pin him against the fence again. I felt him getting more and more tired. He surprised me with an outside leg hook takedown when he was pinned against the cage. It totally caught me off guard but right away I saw a good opening for my triangle choke. He defended the triangle so I switched to Omoplata and worked a sweep from there because he was stacking me. I managed to roll him over and get cross-side on him. I knew this was the beginning of the end. For some reason I never thought he would be a dirty fighter until he started to poke and rake my eyes from the bottom cross-side. I yelled to the referee “My eyes! My eyes!” several times. You clearly see on the video that he was eye gouging my eyes about 2-3 times. Even the referee pushed his hands away from my face several times and warned him. He still kept doing it. Now THAT got me pissed off! I felt like the time was right and I took his back, softened him up with a few shots under and over from the back. He spat out his mouth piece or it fell off, I don’t know. What I do know is the good old ”spit out the mouth piece trick”. I was in a very good position, I was staying active and doing a lot of damage; my hands were hurting from punching him in the face. He kept saying “My mouth piece! My mouth piece!” But I knew it was at the referee’s discretion to stop the fight when there was inactivity to allow him to put his mouth piece back in. So knowing that, I kept up the action. I heard the 10 seconds tap on the cage floor andthought to myself: “This is not going to the third round”.  I got mount position where I threw some heavy punches, then he gave me his back again where it was pure instinct to slap on the rear naked choke for the win. (The video clearly shows that Showtying’smouth piece was far behind him when I sunk in the choke).

There were a lot of emotions for me in this fight. It was the first time I had been challenged over Facebook and the first time I was fighting someone who hypes up the fight and talks a lot … I am sure you can see it in the fight. It sure felt good to end this and to settle this with Showtying. I hope he can move past this and stop the hate and the trash talking.

I never challenged any of my opponents to fight. Each time I have fought somebody, we were matched up to fight, no trash talk, bad blood or hate. I have respected my opponents before andafter our fights, whatever the result of the fight:  win, lose or draw. I find it unprofessional to challenge people via Facebook or by talking smack over and over again. It is not a fighter’s job to do that, it is the matchmaker’s and manager’s job to put the fight together. Showtying challenged me and I answered. I don’t know why people would want to see this fight happen again. In my opinion, I won this fight fair and square. I believe that this type of behavior gives a bad image to fighters and to our sport as we are trying to grow. The sport of MMA and MMA fighters have had enough bad image and bad reputation already, we don’t need to make it worse!

Despite the head-butt, eye gouging and trash talking, Showtying did step in the cage and fought me. Thank you for putting on a fight with me. From what I saw, everyone was standing the whole fight and it was a good scrap. We made it an exciting fight for the fans and that’s all I care about. A lot of it is thanks to you, hyping the fight up and all. Hopefully we won the fight of the night at WRECK. Keep your head up, Showtying, you are very tough and game opponent. I wish you all the best in the future and thank you once again for the fight.

I didn’t get to see my teammates fight. I heard after the fight night was 0ver about Remi got kneed illegally and despite that he got hurt he still fought his heart out. I heard that  Chris “Batman“ St-Jean possibly would of won his fight and it was a war. As for Kru Jeff`s fight, I saw some of it and it was one of his best performance yet, he has been on fire in the cage and at the academy kicking my butt! Look out for the “H-Bomb“ in 2011! 

I want to represent my family and my team the best I can - in and out of the cage, with Honour and Respect. After watching the fight tape a few times, I am happy with my performance that night. I had a great training camp and was very fit for this fight. I executed the game plan to a tee and listened well to my instructor. This is what I wanted: to go out with a bang and an exciting fight. Now it’s time to hang up the boots.

 I want to thank again everyone who attended or watched WRECK MMA: Strong & Proud. You guys are the reason we can fight, thank you!

Take care everyone,

BoOts!

Go time!

Going for the finish.

Hello everyone!

WOW! I am overwhelmed with support, encouragements, positive messages and love! You guys are the best! I have been enjoying my victory with my friends, family and everyone at OAMA this week. It sure feels good to get back on the winning track. I have many people to thank, they are a huge part of my victory and without them I would not of been able to do what I did on Friday night at WRECK MMA.

It is very hard to type with only your left hand: I am right handed and I have a boxer’s fracture and a cast. The doc gave me 6 weeks but you never know. On Monday I got to do 2 sparring sessions (1 with Kru Jeff, our little after fight…fight tradition :p) and also got teach and hold pads for the students at OAMA on Monday and Tuesday night.

I have many to thank for making this fight happen. First, I would like to thank Showtying. Even if he was unprofessional by not making weight and head butting me at the weigh in, he stepped in the cage and fought me…From what I saw everyone was standing the whole fight and it was a good scrap. We made it an exciting fight for the fans and that’s all I care about. Hopefully we won the fight of the night at WRECK. Keep your head up Showtying and thank you once again for the fight.
Big thanks goes to Patty C, my instructor and mentor. Pat took me in when I was just 17 years old. I told him my dream was to go in the UFC and go as far as I could go with PRO MMA. He believed in me and gave me all the tools and knowledge to achieve my dreams and goals. He gave me a job at OAMA, taught me Jiu Jitsu, he got me to travel to USA and all over the world to further my skills in martial arts and the list goes on and on…He is the one responsible for making me who I am today…he is the one who built Boots! On Friday night I wanted to make him proud and finish off with a bang, I dedicated this fight to his son who will be turning 3 years old soon; Renzo Ethan Cooligan and also to Pat Cooligan, for helping me achieve my dreams and believing in me. Thank you Pat and Happy Birthday Renzihno!

Thank you to the great team of Jiu Jitsu at OAMA, my training partners Hammer, Joel, Fred, Remi, Batman, Andrew and the great team of Muay Thai at OAMA and my training partners Kru Jeff, Kru Chris, Stephane Bernadel, Garry, Martello and all the students at OAMA who helped me train for this fight, thank you so much! I felt really good and was in great shape! I am very happy with my performance that night and I have all my training partners to thank for.

Big UPS to Nick (we did it, love you), Sami, Kris, Derek, Katie and all the staff at OAMA for making this awesome event and making my training possible!
Thank you to all my friends and family, you guys were there since day one when I decided to fight professionally. You supported me through it even though you might have not liked it and agreed with it. I am retired now and you don’t need to worry about that anymore !

Un gros merci a la famille Chartrand; Luc, Louise, Eric et Simon! On la gagne!!!

Merci maman et Dominik pour m’avoir enduré tout ce temps, je vous aime fort fort fort! xox

To all the fans, I hope you have enjoyed this WRECK MMA event. It was awesome to fight for a great cause and for all of you one more time. We all owe a big thank you and hug (because they love that stuff) to Nick and Kris for making this spectacular event.

Like I said in the cage, when I step in there to fight, I use all your energy that you give me to put on the FOTN. I hope I didn’t disappoint. It sure felt good to have my hand raised again. All of you are the ones who make it happen. Without the fans, who would I fight for? Thank you for all the positive messages and encouragements! You guys are the best!
All I want to do is represent my family and my team the best I can - in and out of the cage, with Honor and Respect.

Again I want to thank everyone who attended or watched WRECK MMA. You guys are the reason we can fight, thank you!

I will be posting a blog with a play by play of the fight in the next couple days, sharing my thoughts of the fight with Showtying and also an update on what is next for me

Take care everyone and thanks again for the incredible support and love!

BoOts!

Back at it! Training and teaching at OAMA Monday afternoon