Martin Stapleton crowned BAMMA Lightweight World Cage Fighting Champion

Photo: Doliz Miah

Martin Stapleton crowned BAMMA Lightweight World Cage Fighting Champion

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Rochdale professional cage fighter Martin Stapleton has been crowned the BAMMA Lightweight Word Champion after defeating Gavin Sterritt in just over a minute.

Stapleton defeated Sterritt with a submission rear naked choke during the fight in Birmingham on Saturday (14 November).

Last time your reporter spoke to Stapleton, he had his eyes set on the title.

http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/4/sport-news/95044/martin-stapleton-victorious-against-jeremy-petley

Having achieved his goal, speaking to Rochdale Online, Stapleton said: “I always believed that this would happen, so it is a great feeling. It comes from a lot of hard work and dedication and I knew it would happen.”

Speaking about Saturday’s fight, he said: “He was a tough opponent and I knew I would always take him down but I didn’t think it would be as quickly as it was. It was over just after a minute. I knew I would do it, I was just surprised at how quickly I did it in.”

Following his victory, Stapleton has had huge amounts of support from Rochdale.

“The support has been amazing. There has been so many people sending me messages and sharing my stuff, it’s ridiculous, but it is great to have all of that support. It is crazy,” Stapleton said.

Out of 5,000 tickets sold for the fight, around 300 of those were sold to people from Rochdale.

Stapleton added: “It is always nice to have that home support with you at a fight.”

Now that he has achieved his goal of becoming world champion, Stapleton isn’t quite too sure what he will do next. He said: “I think I’m going to enjoy this. I have a couple of the lads from Full Contact Performance Centre fighting at the weekend so I need to be there for them and some of my training partners form Manchester are also in action so it’s not about me now, it’s about them.

“Then I think I’ll have Christmas with the family and then maybe next year decide what to do next. It won’t be quiet but it’s not about me at the minute. It’s about the other lads and enjoying this achievement.”