Ultimate Fitness Mixed Martial Arts

The Ultimate Fitness Mixed Martial Arts or MMA classes take place on the purpose-built matting area located in the Boxing Gym. MMA classes are taken by Matthew “12 gauge” Thorpe, who is a highly experienced instructor having been a seasoned campaigner in the UK Mixed Martial Arts scene having spent eight years working his way up the professional ranks in shows across the UK.

Matt “12 gauge” Thorpe is a veteran of King Of The Cage UK, Ultimate Warrior Challenge, Cage Warriors, Bodog Fight, Ultimate Combat and many more. He is a 6ft 4in/193cm tall athlete and has cut an imposing figure inside the Cage, yaking part in impressive contests on many occasions. Ultimate Fitness are proud to have Matt as their premier MMA instructor.

Rated for many years as one of the UK’s top Welterweight fighters, Thorpe holds wins over the likes of the former Cage Rage British Champion Che Mills; the German Shidokan star Peter Angerer; the Shooto Holland veteran, Raymon Jarman and the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu player; Claudio Henrique.Matt later chose to move up to the Middleweight division, when he was chosen to represent England as part of the English M1 Challenge Team.

This led him to compete on the world stage including America, Holland, Japan, Russia and Sweden. During this period he worked his way into the UK’s top ten and challenged for a British Title. Matt is most famously known for his epic battle for the CWFC World Welterweight Title against Dan “The Outlaw” Hardy back in 2005. That bout was one of the greatest contests in the history of the CWFC and UK MMA, due to the cat-and-mouse like action of the bout, which saw Thorpe lock on numerous submission attempts and take the action to his opponent, before falling just short to a controversial split decision.

Matt has been involved in some form of Martial Arts since he was 10 when he started Tae-Kwon-Doe. He then moved onto Kickboxing (which he has a Black Belt in) and when he was 18 discovered the world of Mixed Martial Arts. His classes are currently on a Wednesday evening in our boxing gym.