Damon Upton-Greer will step out of the caged octagon and into a ring almost two years to the day since the mixed martial arts fighter’s sabbatical to Muay Thai.
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The lure of a unique title opportunity was enough to convince the feisty 24-year-old into a second-only bout.
Upton-Greer plans to fight for Chris Drummond’s belt under the Legion promotion.
But Launceston’s arguably preeminent MMA drawcard needs Drummond to come out unscathed first from a December 16 mainland fight.
“If something would happened to him or he gets injured, the fight wouldn’t go ahead,” Upton-Greer admits.
Upton-Greer is still undeterred, saying the switch of combat sports is here to stay.
Before entering mixed martial arts, he listed jiu-jitsu his chosen discipline.
“I got myself a Muay Thai trainer over the past six months particularly since before my last (MMA) fight,” Upton-Greer said.
“He really encouraged me to get into it and have a crack at it, so I decided I would.”
He dabbled in Muay Thai albeit just briefly in an amatuer-almost-experimental contest back 22 months back.
But naively fought out of his weight class and admits to learning a valuable lesson.
Upton-Greer is remaining upbeat that he can turn his recent MMA success into a Muay Thai title reign.
“It’s complicated because there’s a stand up component in MMA, which is easily transferable,” he said.
“But there are a few aspects of it that I have to change about the way I fight.
“There’s no grappling, so I’ve got to adjust the way I fight a bit in that regard.”
But Upton-Greer quashed rumours he would step away from mixed martial arts.
He would look to other MMA promotions aside from Tasmanian-based Valor.
“MMA is what I love doing and I recently have enjoyed focusing on Muay Thai, so hopefully a bit of both,”