Interview with Thomas Lamont and Johnny Burrrows of Chum Sut total fighting by SFUKU Part 1

I had the pleasure of being invited to train with and Interview Thomas Lamont and his business partner Johnny Burrows this past Saturday, eight days before the first Irish MMA trials are to be held (details below)

I will get the rest of the interview up over the next few days, but these Nordie boys can talk LOL

SFUKU

SFUK Irish correspondent

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Amateur MMA Event in Belfast 24 September

Chum Sut Total Fighting in association with Lee Hasdell's TFF presents:

Ireland's 1st MMA Amateur Trials. Venue: Maysfield Leisure Centre, Belfast

£5 spectators, £10 Fighters

Weigh in & Registration at 10am, Weight Classes: U70, U80, U90 & Open weight

spectators entry at midday, for further info contact Johnny Burrows 0796 8060137

SFUK 21 August 2000

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SFUKU: You’re hosting your first event next Sunday the 24^th, the Irish MMA trials, what made you decide to switch from fighting and trainging to hosting events?

Thomas Lamont: Well just, we wanted to put something back in to the Total fighting scene. There’s too many people taking stuff out and not putting it back in, so we thought we’d reverse things and we’d put back, we’d hold a major tournament here.

Hope we’ll have this trials event on the 24^th, then we’ll hold a championship on the 26^th of November and then in early 2001 we’ll host a professional event and then we can fight some of these boys on our turf.

SFUKU: On the promotional material you send to us at SFUK, you said you were hosting the event in association with the Combined Budo Association, how did that partnership come about?

Thomas Lamont : when we started fighting Lee & TFF was the only organisation holding this type of event, so we more or less stayed with TFF. Then with insurance regulations when we moved across to a MMA type thing we moved across to CBA, for insurance reasons.

I think Lee has put a lot into MMA and hasn’t got the credit he deserves. I believe that if it wasn’t for him pioneering the thing, we wouldn’t be as far into it as we are, having said that, we think it’s great that there are other MA organisations prepared to come along and do them, but I do think we need to sit down and work together as a unit rather than do things on our own.

Hopefully with the meeting Rob Byrne is organising on the 29^th of October we’ll all actually be able to sit down and start working together, what would you like to see from a governing body for MMA?

Johnny Burrows: I’d like to see more events run, not only in London and Milton Keynes, I’d like to see more regional events. It doesn’t really matter if the rules vary from event to event, I think that it is a minor thing but I’d like to see things like…Insurance, Medical fees for fighters, possibly reasonable rates of pay, things like that there for the fighters. If you’re fighting professionally you should be paid, Properly.

I would like to see it promoted properly, it is a sport and it is the fastest growing sport. With Pankration being touted as an Olympic sport and I think that, this being the fastest growing sport in Japan and places like that I do believe that there Is a future for MMA in Britain and Ireland and I do onestly believe that if it is promoted in the right wayit can be, exciting, and it can be safe. There are very very very many good promoters out there.

There’s Lee Hasdell who I can’t praise highly enough, there’s Andy Jardine who I’ve never met but who I’ve heard a lot of people who speak very highly of and there’s other young promoters, Julian Woodhouse of TMA and I’m very glad to see them, it’s good to see, it means that people are finally doing something and I hope being here in Ireland we’re not too isolated. If we can sort of put our tuppence worth in and give our all, cause we have so much more to give and obviously it’s a 2 way system, we will get back as much as possible too.

SFUKU: Is that one of the reasons you decided to run your even, to try and get noticed more.

Thomas Lamont : On the aspect of running events, what I’d like to see is, not 8 man events cause you don’t really know what’s going to happen, I don’t think there’s any easy fights, but it doesn’t always show who the best fighter is. What I’d like to see is English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh organisations where we could have Irish English Scottish and Welsh tournaments and those 4 guys could get together and you can see who the Ultimate UK & Irish fighter is. I honestly believe that theres a lot of world class champions out there in the UK and Ireland and I do honestly believe that with the standard between them that on any given week the top guys could beat the other guy I mean 1 guy might beat you one week and you’d beat him the next week, every dog has his day.

We’re running the event because we are just trying to put our bit back into the mix, cause like I said earlier there’s too many people out there taking out and not putting back in.

What we need to do is, rather than getting under the banner of Korean, or Japanese or Brazillian or indonesian or whatever, we get under the banner of Martial Arts, and instead of just sticking to your own style we all work together, we all give our separate little bits, we need to be like a sports council. Nobody gives any recognition to MA, in ireland it’s about the 4^th or 5^th biggest sport after Gaelic and Football if we all work together, people are gonna have to stand up and take notice of us.

SFUKU: I’ve seen some good potential fighters here today, how do you think Irish fighters compare to the British?

Thomas Lamont : In my honest opinion, all we’re lacking is the fights, and that’s happening. If we were fighting as much as some of the British fighters, I do honestly believe that our basics are as strong and in certain cases stronger than the English fighters and I do believe that Ireland has a strong tradition of strikers, Boxing being one of the premier sports in Ireland I do believe that our striking is superior to a lot of the English fighters. That doesn’t mean that there are no good English strikers, there are plenty of very good ones. It’s just that because of our background we tend to have geared our MA towards that and we have been a bit slow to take to the grappling and things like this. However, that is changing, it’s beginning to pan out as all things do, and find a good level. I do not believe that the standard is that different, there’s people like John Kavanagh definitely beginning to make in roads. We have trained with and talked to John, we’re good friends with him.

SFUKU: TBC