This week’s Meet a Member is Bailey Sugden from Nottingham, who is visiting LA for the first time to fight in Glory 52, an international kickboxing event taking place at the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center on Saturday, March 31st.
To the uninitiated, the Glory World Series is a series of tournaments in six different weight classes that pits the world’s best kickboxers against each other. Four-man tournaments are the standard, with eight-man tournaments also staged on occasion.
The tournaments take one of two forms: either they are World Championship Tournaments, with the division‘s world title on the line, or they are ‘Contender’ tournaments, with the winner earning a spot in the next upcoming World Championship Tournaments.
The fighters are true martial arts athletes, highly skilled in a wide array of combat disciplines, including Muay Thai, Kickboxing, Boxing, Karate, Kung-Fu, Tae Kwon Do and Capoeira, but the fight under one set of rules to determine who reigns supreme in the ring.
Bailey will be fighting Zoukaria Zouggary, nicknamed ‘Double Z’.
Live events take place globally and in some of the world’s most prominent cities including London, New York, Istanbul, Tokyo and Rome. For more details and tickets, visit glorykickboxing.com
Tell us tell us how you got into kickboxing and about your first visit to LA:
My dad had a gym when I was younger, and I always wanted to try punching people in the face and get paid for it. This is my first time in LA and I can’t wait. A lot of my movie star friends live here so hope to catch up with them after I kick ass on Glory52. I had already made my mark on US soil with an impressive win at Madison Square Garden when I made my GLORY debut; where other Brits failed I conquered, and in LA I intend to do the same.
What are you most looking forward to doing while you are here?
First and foremost take care of Double Z then visit the Hollywood stars and decide where my star is going to go.
I see you are from Nottingham, what were your younger years like growing up there?
When I was younger, I did some acting and dancing but I could have taken the wrong route in life. I was really living up to my nickname BadBoy, but now it is my ring name, and I am focused on fighting for GLORY.
When did you start competing and what was the reasoning behind taking the sport up?
I started competing when I was six or seven years old but was always matched up against bigger and older kids as the reputation of my brothers Chad, and Regis was so good it was sometimes difficult for me to follow in their footsteps. I didn’t take it seriously until a couple of years ago but now I am Number 1 in the UK in the Glory Top 10. I took up this sport because I am good at it and I love to fight. Plus with my brothers now in Pro Boxing and MMA, I wanted to take it one step further and pick up a GLORY crown and to create a legacy in Kickboxing.
Are you afraid of anything?
Myself, I am the only person that can cause me any harm.
What is a typical training day like?
Hard. I normally train two to three times a day. With a technical session then a conditioning session at altitude followed by one of our classes at Suggys Gym (in Newark, Nottinghamshire). I also teach kids’ classes and do some personal clients in between training.
When you enter the ring, what is going through your mind?
The job in hand, dealing with my opponent in the way I have been trained to do it.
What do your family and friends back home think of you fighting?
They think it’s good and support me 100% in and out of the ring. I have family & friends traveling to LA from UK and Australia.
How can we buy tickets to support you?
Tickets are available on Ticketmaster. There’s nothing like having some Brits in my corner – cheering me on – so please come along and bring some flags – It will help motivate me to win!
