Asian MMA

Jake Butler – From Ivy League to ONE FC, via Wall Street

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Press Release: ONE Fighting Championship

Training to be a Mixed Martial Artist in Singapore is a better job than working on Wall Street? Jake Butler certainly thinks so.

Jake Butler studied at the prestigious Princeton University and graduated from the Ivy League school with an economics degree. While at Princeton, he also wrestled collegiately at the NCAA division I level, the highest level of competition for wrestling, earning second team all-Ivy league honours and reaching the national championships in 2005.

Jake Butler – From Ivy League to ONE FC, via Wall Street

After graduating in 2006, he received a job in the financial sector on Wall Street, but eventually grew disillusioned with the monotonous routine and started craving the training and competition he experienced while wrestling.

He also joined the financial sector at an inopportune time. The financial sector faced arguably the largest recession since the Great Depression, and there was a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the industry. Butler decided that it would be in his best interest to move on while he still has career options.

He responded to an ad for a wrestling coach by the Evolve gym in Singapore and realised his career trajectory had a striking resemblance to that of Evolve owner Chatri Sityodtong, a Harvard graduate who made millions in finance before deciding to follow his passion by opening the Evolve gyms.

He was impressed with the top-notch facilities and coaches in Evolve, where there are already many outstanding Brazilian jiu-jitsu experts and striking coaches. He decided to relocate to Singapore to train in MMA. After many months of intensive training to improve his striking and submission skills to incorporate with his already exceptional wrestling capabilities, he would be making his professional MMA debut at ONE FC: “Return of Warrior”s on February 2nd in Kuala Lumpur against Indonesian mixed martial artist Antonio Romulo.

He would become the first NCAA division 1 wrestler to enter the ONE FC cage, and 16,000 Malaysian fans at Stadium Putra will be on hand to witness his debut.

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Jeremy Brand started up this lovechild called MMASucka.com back in 2009. It began as a hobby project and has turned into much more. In his spare time, you can find Jeremy on the mats, as he is a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

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