The Northern Cartel : Spenna Nostra - mixed martial arts training

While the more sensible amongst us would have been happily idling away the rare phenomenon of Monday night’s tropical style weather outside in a beer garden or in the back garden with a barbecue in full swing, it was business as usual for the Northern Cartel; record breaking temperatures aside, The Don expects and of course receives nothing less than one hundred per cent effort and Cartel members Aaron C, Matt Thorpe and the Fighting Photographer found them deep in the badlands of Batley, training at Fighting Chance Academy, under the watchful eye of the Batley Bonecrusher, Neil Hall.

The academy has to be one of the best in the Northern area, boasting one of the largest open matted spaces around, together with separate bag area and weights equipment situated at each end of the gym — it was also the most humid place to train, as the sweat poured out just through walking up the stairs. Owing to the fine weather, the attendance was better than expected and the evening was graced with The Don’s presence, resplendent in eye-catching Thai shorts and grapple top. A stickler for cardio and conditioning, Neil took the class through one of the hardest hour’s training this side of the M62, a session designed to take you to the edge and keep you there for an hour, with no rest and nowhere to hide. In scene’s reminiscent of the Keystone Cops, ten sweat drenched grapplers struggled to stay in one place with their partner and the less said about the knee ride drill the better. Striking drills, kicking drills, ground and pound drills and a combination of all three were the order of that killer hour and rightly so, as Neil bluntly comment’s ‘you can have all the techniques in the world, but run out of gas and you’re fucked.’

Bonecrusher & The Don share a cuddle

With the conditioning thankfully over, a short rest was in order and the mopping up of sweat and changing of tops preceded the next stage of the evening, which was groundwork; The Don Himself and the Fighting Photographer took over for the next hour and covered a number of sweeps and submissions, before the obligatory roll and after two and a half hours hard graft, time was called. Another ball breaking session over, another Cartel member visited and another three kilos lost in body weight — one thing for certain, nobody trains as hard as the Cartel members, so if you find yourself facing any of these guys in the ring, make sure you’ve put the hours in at the gym, or taste the pain.

'Tank' Aaron choking himself

Upon leaving the academy at nightfall, one can be forgiven for thinking that you’re driving in downtown LA — across the road from the gym lies a splendid pub with it’s own Hollywood lettering in the beer garden and looking left down the main drag, in all it’s shining Technicolor glory, lies the infamous Frontier nightspot, made famous in Viz magazine’s Profanisauras (Pink Flamingo entry), where the chances of getting your fingers and tops with the local girls are vastly increased via a purchase of WKD — MMA training and back street post nightclub ‘grappling’ — you can’t beat it in Batley.

'The Javalin' catches a kneebar

Neil Hall’s infamous Hell Training nights are Monday and Thursday, 7-30 — collapse and Neil extends a warm welcome to one and all — contact Neil at fighting.chance@ntlworld.com.