It all started…
…one fateful evening while scrolling through facebook. I see that one of my favorite professional Thai boxers, Nathan “Carnage” Corbett, is in NYC for a seminar. I had worked as a combat sports writer and journalist for 5 years so Carnage and myself were already vaguely acquainted through the several phone interviews we had done. Feeling nostalgic about my days working in the fight game, I reached out to say hi and we ended up meeting for coffee the next day. Nathan briefly delved into how difficult his life had become since he retired and felt he was without purpose now that the fighting was done. “Seminars”, he said in his smooth Aussie accent. “If I can’t fight, I will teach”. Expressing decisive plans to move here to the US, I offered some assistance in booking some stuff through the many contacts I had made in the industry. After a few days of emails and phone calls, the elbow master had a couple months of seminars lined up. Fast forward 6 months… Carnage arrives in America and begins his official US seminar tour and Strikers International is born.
I started thinking there had to be other legends and superstars out there feeling and thinking the same thing Carnage was feeling. Even active fighters on the verge of retirement must be thinking about what comes after the gloves are hung up. Reaching out to some of Nathan’s peers on the championship Muay Thai circuit, the client list began to expand, along with our network of gyms, dojos and academies worldwide that strive to bring the best martial artists and technical strikers in the world to pass that invaluable knowledge onto their members and students. Now Strikers International is home to some of the pound for pound best in the world in the disciplines of Muay Thai, Dutch Kickboxing, Savate, Karate, Catch-Wrestling, Laamb (Senegalese wrestling), Mixed Martial Arts and even the ancient fighting art of Lethwei (Burmese Bareknuckle Boxing). Specialists in Judo, Kali/Escrima, Krabi Krabong, Muay Boran and other combat sports/fighting arts still to come so stay tuned!
