MICKEL Young has made the transition from basketball to MMA, and is currently training for his first fight.
His first bout will be hosted in Southampton in December, and he is currently two weeks into an eight-week training programme.
Alongside his training, Young is studying to become a nurse, and he also has aspirations to be a surgeon’s assistant.
He is in full-time college education at Barton Peveril and does night shifts at Southampton General Hospital.
“Well, I try and balance my work life and studying with training. It can be hard sometimes but, ideally, most weeks I do train four days a week,” Young said.
The fight will be for charity, and Young has chosen to raise funds for Great Ormond Street Hospital.
“I chose the Great Ormond Street Hospital because, when I was scrolling through the list of charities on my JustGiving [page], I didn’t really have any particular one I wanted to chose.”
Young continued, “Kids deserve to have a second chance so, yeah, I decided to fight for them.”
He used to play basketball for the prolific Solent Kestrels, but decided to switch sports after his friend found a passion for UFC.
“My friend was spouting a bunch of nonsense to me,” Young chuckled, “I was, like, okay you want to go to the UFC or whatever.”
“If you’re training then I will help you spar and that. So, I signed up for a membership and went with him, and I guess I just kind of liked it.”
