22
SPORTS
THE MESSAGE. BRINGING INTO FOCUS FILIPINO PRESENCE IN AUSTRALIA
www.kalatas.com.au | Volume 7 Number 1 | OCTOBER 2016
Reece ‘Lightning’ McLaren
Fil-Aussie MMA fighter gets
ready for bigger fights ahead
By Titus Filio
The next time he
visits the Philippines,
he hopes he won’t be
in a fight. Instead, he
dreams to be strolling
around Manila,
or surfing in the
great waters in the
southern islands, or
simply getting more
acquainted to his
second country.
Filipino-Australian Reece ‘Lightning’
Mclaren is a bantamweight Mixed Martial Arts
fighter from Toowomba, Queensland. And with
a 9 win-3 loss record, he is a rising star in the
international MMA circuit.
Last April, he scored a big victory that really
caught the attention of MMA enthusiasts. He
beat by a unanimous decision the more favoured
Muin ‘Tajik’ Gafurov in the One Championship
‘Global Rivals’ held at the Mall of Asia Arena.
Gafurov was unbeaten at that time and few ever
thought that McLaren would win that match.
That was the last time Reece was in the
Philippines.
“I’ve been to the Philippines before but it was
always for a fight. Next time, I hope I could have
more time to really see the country,” Reece told
Ang Kalatas in a recent interview.
“I love surfing and I heard there are a lot of
great beaches in the Philippines,” said Reece who
now lives in the Gold Coast which he describes as
a ‘beautiful part of the world.’
Earlier, in December 2015, Reece was also
in the Philippines but also for a fight. He faced
another half-Pinoy – the Filipino-American Mark
Striegl who was the crowd favourite. Very few
among the Pinoy audience that time at the One
Spirit of Champions event even knew that Reece
was half-Filipino too.
Reece the Lightning won that match by
submission half-way through the third round.
He trains under the watchful guidance of
Vincent Perry of the Potential Unlimited Mixed
Martial Arts. Training means working out
around five hours a day, at least two hours in the
morning, three in the afternoon.
“It is tough but I really like this sport,” he
says despite the risks of direct physical harm to
the body during an MMA fight. “Well, there’s
a lot of dangerous sports out there; for me this is
excitement, I really get excited whenever I go up
the ring.”
He started fighting in his late teens as an
amateur in the Australia Regional circuit. His
specialty is jujitsu. In 2010, he won his first
professional fight winning against Bryce
Monkovitch in the Fightworld Cup event. He
won his last three professional fights.
“I got into this sport a few years ago when
a friend showed me a video of a game. I got
attracted to it, I practiced, worked out, and then
one thing led to another,” he said.
A fight sport may come naturally for Reece
who describes himself as generally “a gym person”;
for some time he also played junior level AFL.
“I spend a lot of time in the gym, that’s fun
for me apart from surfing.”
He just turned 25 last month. Even on a
milestone birthday, he was still working out.
“Didn’t do much, just a bit of sparring in the
morning then family time.”
With his convincing victories over Striegl
and Gafurov early this year, many expect Reece
to be lined up soon for a bigger fight. MMA
websites describe him as one who’s “strong on
the ground” and with “outstanding grappling
skills”. He could be very fast too and is a fighter
who pulls out surprises in a match.
He’s the real martial arts
artist who goes up the ring to
do battle. He is flexible and
can change strategies in the
middle of a match.
In one interview with YahooSports just
before he faced Gafurov, he bared his fighting
philosophy:
“I think it’s more about getting in there,
implementing what I think may work and then
adjusting to anything that he may be bringing, so
we’ll see what happens.”
I th
think
nk it’s more about getting
in there,
ther implementing what
I think
thin may work and then
adjusting
to anything that he
dj t
e’ll see
may be bringing, so we’ll
what happens.