THE LONDON BRIDGE

By Aaron Crecy

With Acclaimed Trainer Shawn Tompkins’ Move to California, The Gap Between North and South Has Gotten That Much Smaller.

The Canadian city of London sits along the Thames River in southwestern Ontario, between Detroit and Toronto. The economy is buoyed by robust locomotive and military vehicle production, tourism generated by its many summer festivals and the University of Western Ontario. London is also the unlikely home of the premier mixed martial arts gym in Canada - Team Tompkins Muay Thai and Submission.

Murrieta, Calif., lays 2400 miles to the southwest, adjacent to Temecula and just north of San Diego. A bedroom community, it had little in common with London until January 2007, when acclaimed Muay Thai trainer Shawn Tompkins joined the Team Quest MMA Fitness Center at the behest of PRIDE welterweight champion Dan Henderson.

“I’m very proud that Dan made the offer, and I don’t think it’s one that I could have walked away from,” said Tompkins. “We have a very good relationship as friends, almost like brothers. We think a lot alike and we enjoy spending time together, and that made me want to train him. We have a balance, which is very important.”

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