Kickboxing star Simon Marcus, who once beat Israel Adesanya, enters MMA predicting UFC fast track
“The One” has arrived in the world of mixed martial arts.
Simon Marcus has conquered every combat sport he’s pursued, so will MMA follow? The former GLORY Kickboxing champion certainly thinks so.
After six months of training and COVID-19-induced delays, the decorated muay thai fighter and kickboxer Marcus (0-0) will make his professional MMA debut Friday at Unified MMA 42 in Enoch, Alberta, Canada on UFC Fight Pass.
Marcus hasn’t competed since late 2018, but not of his own volition. When things hit a stalling point with GLORY, Marcus briefly delved into preparation for professional boxing. Ultimately, he landed in an MMA training camp, however.
“I felt like things weren’t really getting bigger with GLORY,” Marcus recently told MMA Junkie. “It was kind of the same thing over and over again. I wanted to make a change and I thought MMA would be better for my brand. That took some time, you know, shopping around and seeing what’s out there and what’s going on.
“I made the decision. I wanted to do something bigger than just kickboxing. At the time, there wasn’t enough in the market for me, and I felt like I could do a lot bigger than what was out there. … Just with the pandemic hitting, I wasn’t able to get anything lined up and some doors closed. I had fights lined up. But then, the whole fight restrictions and stuff kind of closed some doors. And then, I talked to a good friend of mine, Dewey Cooper, from out in Vegas, and he advised me to just keep training MMA and get ready for that because there’s good, good, good, good possibility. I could, you know, have a fast come up and do some big things. He knows I could use big things, so I took his advice and that’s where I am now.”
By his estimation, no successful combat sports athlete who has made the jump into the MMA world has accomplished as much as he has – not Israel Adesanya and not Alex Pereira, two former opponents. Because of that, Marcus thinks his rise to the UFC will come quickly.
“I think in terms of my following, in terms of my accolades, even guys like Israel, there’s no one that’s been what I’ve done in the striking world, won the amount of championships and dominated for the years I have dominated,” Marcus said. “I’ve never lost a muay thai fight and I’m a five-time muay thai world champion. I went into GLORY. I lost my first couple of fights making the transition, but then I immediately got straight back up and captured the title and stayed on top of it as the title holder or the number one contender for my entire stay there.
“… I think just given the transition I made from muay thai to kickboxing, I know it’s very different coming into the MMA world, but I’m a martial artist first and I’m able to adapt and I’m able to apply myself to other sports and other skills the same way that I did with my first one, which is muay thai. So I could see myself dominating and doing just as well in MMA and the UFC as anywhere else.”
Looking over his combat sports resume, it’s impressive. After a 42-0-1 muay thai career, Marcus bumped his record to 55-5-1 in the world of kickboxing. MMA fans are familiar with many of the names he’s competed against including Adesanya, Alex Perreira, Dustin Jacoby, Sadibou Sy, Chidi Njokuani, Jason Wilnis, and Joe Schilling.
Despite his connections to so many kickboxers-turned-MMA fighters, Marcus explained that the success of others did not motivate him to commit to MMA. However, they did prove to him that he could likely make the transition, too.
“It didn’t really factor into the decision, but it more just helped as a measuring stick to see that, ‘OK, I see what these top-level strikers, how dominant they really are in the sport.’ Not only top-level strikers, but top-level strikers I’ve competed against and also beat, I see how dominant they can be in MMA and UFC,” Marcus said. “It definitely helped me to measure and navigate to what I’ll be looking at. But it did not really factor in the decision because I would say regardless, whether they were not there or not, I was looking to make do something big with my career – bigger than what kickboxing was really offering me at this point in time.”
The match against Adesanya took place in February 2014 and Marcus won by unanimous decision. While they have history, Adesanya isn’t a target for Marcus – besides the fact he bears UFC gold.
“Whether it was him or someone else who has it, or whether he loses, whoever has it, I’m going to be gunning for them,” Marcus said. “Me and Israel fought a long time ago. I’ve gotten a lot better. I beat him. I’ve gotten a lot better. I can see he’s gotten better. I don’t know how much better. But at the same time, it’s not really just about gunning for Israel, even though I feel like I beat him. I feel that the way that he’s dominating right now is not as much as he’s gotten so much better, but he’s just not fighting the best in the world anymore. It’s a mixed martial arts, so it’s a mixed game where he’s coming out the ranks, fighting the best, where before he was fighting the very, very best strikers. I’m looking forward to crossing paths with him again regardless.”
The MMA debut of Simon Marcus (@SimonMarcusNo1) is official as both he and Anton Tokarchuk make weight for their #Unified42 bout tomorrow night. @unifiedmma https://t.co/zlVcBjWkM1 pic.twitter.com/SFKIV0ORaN
— MMA Empire (@mmaempirecanada) December 17, 2021
As he embarks on his MMA journey, Marcus isn’t looking too far into the distance. He might compete at middleweight – or maybe even welterweight. At 35, he knows he’ll need to fly out of the gates – something he’s confident he can do. But in order to win the race, he’ll need to take his first step.
“I’m just taking it one fight at a time,” Marcus said. “The plan is to get as much experience as I can and get into UFC. There’s no secret about it. I want to go to the highest level and dominate at the highest level in anything I do. Right now I have this fight in front of me. That’s what I’m focusing on. Whatever it takes to reach my goal, which is to get to the UFC and become world champion. That’s what I’ll be doing.”
Kickboxing star Simon Marcus, who once beat Israel Adesanya, enters MMA predicting UFC fast track