Lake Zurich is home to 27 sports, ranging from swimming to wrestling. And while the school offers a variety of athletic opportunities for student athletes to jump into, there are those sports that stray outside the commonality of high school athletics. One of those sports is fighting.
The term “fighting” can often be misinterpreted as the way over-aggressive teens handle issues. However, it is the general name given to the sport that feeds into many different forms. Lake Zurich is home to many fighters who train in many forms, ranging from kickboxing to Muay Thai to boxing to MMA (mixed martial arts) and everywhere in between.
Austin Lewis is what you might call a jack of all trades. The six foot, 200 pound senior is nothing less than what his sport suggests: a fighter. Lewis has won a multitude of awards and titles across the globe since he started with kickboxing at age eight.
“I started fighting competitively and kickboxing,” Lewis said. “During that time I started boxing too but my main focus was kickboxing and Muay Thai.”
While his fighting roots were planted at a young age, Lewis did not take up his current focus, MMA (mixed martial arts), until recent years.
“Over the last two years, I started training MMA and I have one fight under my belt,” Lewis said. “That makes me 1-0 in MMA, 20-6-1 in kick boxing and 2-0 in boxing.”
The two years to one fight ratio may sound surprising, but the minimum age to compete in MMA in Illinois is 18, so 17-year-old Lewis had to find his first fight out of the state. On top of that, the sport is all about training and preparation. And Lewis has been doing nothing but it for his next fight, which is a league above his debut MMA fight, considered to be the headlining amateur league in the Midwest.
“My next fight is in the XFO (extreme fighting organization),” Lewis said, “and it’s going to be at the Sears Center.”
A big fight on Lewis’s schedule keeps him determined to continue his work, but his future in MMA is as unclear as any fighter’s.
“Asking an amateur MMA fighter if he wants to go UFC (Ultimate Fight Club) is like asking a D1 player if he wants to go to the NFL,” Lewis said. “Obviously I would like to [compete in UFC] and I am going to work as hard as I can but as of right now I am just an amateur, I’m not even 18 yet.”
Experience is the name of the game and going pro in MMA is no easy task. In Illinois, a fighter has to have at least five matches with a winning record under your belt just to be admitted to the approximately 350 man roster.
Lewis walked away from his focus on kickboxing, where he won three world-titles and plans on focusing on MMA from here on out. However, the style of MMA incorporates all the types of fighting Lewis has done before and more.
“It all really comes together in MMA, you need to know how to box if you’re going to kickbox, you need to know how to kickbox if you’re going to do Muay Thai, and so on,” Lewis said. “Over the past couple years I’ve been working a lot of Tsu Jitzu and wrestling.”
Sure, it is impressive how the sport draws many different fighting styles into one match, but the commitment to the sport is perhaps the element that stands out above the others. Lewis can be found in the gym twice a day, six days a week, any given month of the year. During the school year, Lewis trains during his opens at his gym.
“It’s tough,” Lewis said. “Training for MMA is the toughest thing you’re ever going to do. But that’s just why I like it. I love pushing myself and I love that challenge and at this point it has just become part of my life. I don’t know what I would do if I wasn’t fighting.”