Luke Pezzutti Interview

By Miss Fighter

Friday fight night comes to Hurstville Civic Centre on the 23rd of March and sees some of the best and up and coming fighters battle it out for the Warriors title. This is the 8th Warriors Realm event but it's the first time for NSW.

Last week Infinitemma travelled out to the ‘Lion’s Den Academy’ in Kingsgrove, to meet with head trainer, owner of Lion’s Den and first time Warriors Realm promoter, Luke Pezzutti to talk about his debut promotion and to have a chat with some of his fighters featuring on the fight card. Jim Kendrovski and Les Elias are also promoting this event. “We are all very excited about the event and I’m already planning for my second” Luke said. But whether Luke will let us in on what and when it will be is a secret. - Damn!



Currently Lion’s Den has 10 fighters at the gym and 7 appear on this fight card, an impressive number, which is a pressure in itself, of course all are hoping to come away with wins. The public is already tipping the night to be a success, I asked Luke about the main event which is David Lock vs Brad Morris.

M: How do you think the fight will go?
L: Don’t think it will go 3 rounds, these guys are very good strong stand up strikers and both have skills on the ground, both quite equal in strength, it will go via KO or submission in the first round. I’m very excited about this one.”

The Infinitemma members agree, they are definitely looking forward to this one.

M: It doesn’t seem that any one fight is less entertaining then the other, you really have put a great card together.
L: We’ve really tried hard to create a great card, and I think we have.

It’s not an easy task to produce an event like this, with such a reputation behind it, always providing a great card, awesome fighting entertainment and packed venues. Luke knew one day he would promote an event, but it was never the right timing nor the right event. Having fought on the WR3 card, and again Lion’s Den fighters appearing on the card for WR7, Luke discussed with Shane Balmer, the CEO of Warriors Realm about promoting his event in NSW.

He says part of his motivation came from the fact he had a fair few fighters who were ready for a fight and wasn’t able to find a suitable event, he continues to say “..a lot of the smaller events just don’t give the ability for these fighters to have the right exposure, they don’t necessarily provide the right platform to develop and grow within the sport. The public aren’t getting to see the best of what’s out there, the right match ups - most of these shows are kickboxing promoters putting on a Mixed Martial Arts show and that concept doesn’t give a true taste of what MMA is and what’s required, so I wanted to do something about it.”

Luke told us Warriors Realm provides the right combination, “The show, the people involved, the whole production, I liked the product, the cage, its not your standard octagon shape but a hexagon, the view is less restricting because there are less posts. I also liked the way Shane conducted his business, his fairness and his passion for the sport. These factors helped me to decide to promote this event in NSW“

I then asked Luke about his role at Lions Den, MMA’s evolution, his thoughts on his and other fighters, and his recent fight experience at the ADCC trials.

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