Austin Bashi has just about worn out his welcome on the regional mixed martial arts scene.
Having emerged as one of the top unsigned 135-pound talents in the sport, Bashi has already captured titles in the Lights Out Championship and Shamrock Fighting Championships promotions. He continues to flesh out his all-terrain game at Warrior Way Martial Arts in Walled Lake, Michigan—a gym owned and operated by Harvy Berman, a BJJ black belt who once trained under Helio Gracie.
“These past three years have been pretty crazy, you know, [with] 13 fights in three years—two amateur fights and then 11 pro fights,” Bashi told FightWave. “For me, activity is a very big thing. I like to be very active. I like to fight at least three, four times a year. I’ve been doing this since I was 8 years old, so for 14 years, all I have really been doing is training and getting better.”
Bashi finds self-assurance in his routine.
“All my confidence comes from my preparation in the gym,” he said. “I’m literally there all day long, eight, nine hours a day. I feel like I’m one of the most disciplined people there is out there.”
In his most recent assignment, Bashi retained his Lights Out Championship bantamweight crown in resounding fashion with a second-round rear-naked choke submission of two-time Legacy Fighting Alliance headliner Askar Askar at LOC 13 on Sept. 13. Askar, who had never before been submitted, conceded defeat 1:48 into Round 2.
“I expected a 25-minute war coming into this fight,” Bashi said afterward. “We knew this was going to be our hardest test yet, so getting the quick second-round finish was honestly a blessing. We trained for 25 hard minutes because that’s what we thought it was going to be.”
Bashi kept “AK-47” guessing in the first round, where he employed an active clinch replete with knees, shoulder strikes and short-range elbows. Askar answered with a few thudding right hance once they returned to open space, but he surrendered a takedown near the end of the period that provided some foreshadowing of what was to come.
“He had heavy hands. We knew that. I feel it right now. It’s definitely going to be hard eating for the next few days,” Bashi said. “My coaches were telling me to circle, move around, feint a lot. The first round I really couldn’t get my takedowns going, but I’ve said it before. I’m not just going to stop after two, three, four takedowns. I’ll go shoot 200 takedowns until I get it.”
Bashi indeed executed a lightning-quick double-leg takedown, progressed to the back and secured his position with a body triangle less than a minute into the middle stanza. He pestered Askar with ground-and-pound and eventually forced him to expose his neck with a steady flow of punches to the side of the head. From there, Bashi snaked his arms into position, went palm-to-palm with his grip and let his squeeze do the rest.
“I feel like pressure either breaks people or makes people,” Bashi said. “I love the pressure. I love when all the lights are on. It really shows me, as a person, who I am and how I handle myself, in and out of this cage.”