Marco Island Boxing Club and Inferno MMA were linked together by a mutual friend. “Jeff (Marco Island boxing coach Jeff Noll) knew some guys that I've known for a long time,” says Inferno MMA owner Crafton “Blaze” Wallace. “They used to get together and spar, and that's how we met. We kept in contact, and when I heard they were looking for a place, I was like, 'Sure, let's go.'”
“He was really gracious,” said Richie Stoltenberg, founder of the Marco Island Boxing Club, “When the building was sold, Jeff looked around at a bunch of different places, and Blaze said anything that could fit here, come on over, and so we came here.”
Inferno MMA is a Muay Thai kickboxing and mixed martial arts facility. Wallace is a former UFC fighter. “Since 2002, I was renting spaces here and there to prepare for fights. Then I started teaching and it got bigger and bigger, I got better spaces, I got more students. I was really teaching to get to where I wanted to be, which was UFC.” It took Wallace about four years to get there. He made his debut in 2006 against Martin Kampmann and faced Strikeforce welterweight champion Nate Marquardt at Ortiz vs. Shamrock: The Final Chapter that same year.
“We've worked with boxing teams before, but Jeff's team is a little more organized and we thought it would be a good fit,” Wallace said. “They're all really focused on what they're doing. There are no egos getting in the way.”
“We always want to give back to him because he means so much to us,” said player Declan Felix, who recently won a silver medal at the Junior Olympic national championships.
Wallace and Declan talk about the synergy between the two sports. “They've got great physiques,” Wallace says. “They've got a really good skill set, but it's totally different from our style of boxing. Boxing isn't the same. We use kicks a lot, and punches are like an afterthought. We use punches to reach other weapons. But training with someone who only boxes helps you develop that particular skill set. And visually. We might not train together, but we watch.”
“It's about ideas, bringing different ideas to the table,” says Dikran. “When you do something like Muay Thai or wrestling, you can bring out the techniques and incorporate them into your sport. For example, if a boxer does a bit of wrestling, they can learn more about how to become more comfortable with manipulation and control of their body.”
Richie Stoltenberg, coach Jeff Noll, Declan Felix and Blaise Wallace.
Another discipline at Inferno MMA is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, with multiple-time world champion Marcelo Pereira. Pereira has been doing jiu-jitsu for over 35 years and met Wallace in 2002 while they were both teaching at the same karate dojo. Pereira retired from competition in 2016 but now trains his 13-year-old daughter, Kayla, at Inferno. “I had a gym in Fort Myers, but I wanted my daughter to train, and it was a pain to get her to Fort Myers and back, so I opened a gym here and created another team,” Pereira said. Kayla will be one of 3,000 kids competing at the Pankids International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation Championship in Orlando at the end of July.
“You've got top-level pro fighters, top-level MMA fighters, pro jiu-jitsu fighters, champions here… the camaraderie of good people together, that's what draws the younger guys in,” Noll said. “Pedigree begets pedigree. That's one of the things that's going on here. People are motivated. Each group is doing their own thing here. They're training their own guys. There's boxing, there's jiu-jitsu, there's MMA. Everyone's trying to get better.”
