DEL.ICIO.USKyle Maynard fulfills dream, fights in an amateur match
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Auburn, Ala. — To his résumé of defiance against an accident of birth, Kyle Maynard has added an amateur mixed martial arts record.
Yes, it is 0-1.
Jason Getz/Staff
Kyle Maynard, a congenital amputee and a Collins Hill grad, rests as he focuses before his first Amateur Mixed Martial Arts fight in a dressing room at the Auburn Covered Arena.
Jason Getz/Staff
Maynard has a considerable size disadvantage as he goes against Bryan Fry on Saturday night
Jason Getz/Staff
Maynard, a congenital amputee and a Collins Hill grad, gets a hug from his grandfather Norm Whisler, of Atlanta, as friends and family celebrate Maynard’s achievement of fighting in his first amateur fight.
True, it was forged late Saturday night at an old open-air barn of a place in front of beered-up frat boys in one of the few states that would look away long enough for him to get in three rounds.
But it is a record. Tangible proof that despite being born without full arms or legs, Maynard still could go into a chain-link cage and challenge himself as well as the guy in the opposite corner.
The 23-year-old from Suwanee was born with a condition known as congenital amputation, in which his arms end above the elbows and his legs taper off well above the knees.
Despite that, he has spent most of his life in physical competition, playing youth football, wrestling at Collins Hill and at a club level at Georgia, building himself up on a rigorous regimen of weightlifting, and just this year opening a gym in his hometown. And, now, a first foray into the violent world of MMA.
Maynard lost a unanimous decision to Wisconsin’s Bryan Fry on Saturday night. Employing a strategy of avoidance, Fry kept Maynard at a distance with open-hand punches and downward stiff-arms, never allowing him a chance to utilize his wrestling abilities.
Afterward, Maynard had not lost his humor. “I had never really gotten hit before [in training]. I wanted to see if I could take it. At least I accomplished that goal.”
Fry’s tactic didn’t put Maynard at much serious risk. He never tried kicking Maynard to the body, and his punches got Maynard’s attention but caused no outward damage. “I think my ears are still buzzing from his first shot,” Maynard said later. “It opened my eyes to the fact that this was the most serious thing I had ever gotten into. I loved it, to tell the truth.”
But the tactic also erased Maynard’s only hope of knocking over Fry and taking the fight to him.
By the second round, Maynard was visibly frustrated, and growing tired, while each time he put his head down and charged on all fours, he was turned away or sidestepped. He was physically unable to grab, and had no other answer for chopping down Fry. Maynard was the bowling ball, but the pin was always moving.
“I was damned amazed. I didn’t know he was that quick,” said Fry. Still, he was able to stick to his strategy, even as the crowd, estimated at just less than 1,000, began chanting at him, “Wrestle, wrestle, wrestle.”
“It was a tough game plan to prepare for. He didn’t want to engage, and I certainly wasn’t going to out-box him. It was smart,” Maynard said.
Maynard’s only fight the past two years has been with the Georgia Athletic Commission, in his unsuccessful attempts to get licensed to fight in his home state. No matter how he pleaded his case, the commission could not overlook his condition. So, he finally took a fight in a state without a commission.
Critics in the MMA world decried the event as a sideshow and worried about the damage it could do to the sport. The setting suggested something unsanctioned. The cover in Auburn Covered Arena is a metal roof atop bare steel beams, protecting rough wooden bleachers and a dirt-and-straw floor still smelling slightly of the last livestock event. It was as dimly lit as an old root cellar.
Even the identity of Maynard’s opponent was kept secret until fight night, for fear that the negative reaction might chase him away as it had at least two other potential foes.
While Saturday’s result was unlikely to sway any of the critics, Maynard made it clear he wanted to fight again. Pointing out that he had lost his first 34 high school wrestling matches before finally winning, he said he was determined to continue working on his conditioning and his tactics.
With no victory to hold up as evidence, Maynard took his argument to a more personal place.
“It’s one of the best moments of my life going a full three rounds and surviving,” he said. “A lot of people — if you read what they were saying about me [on MMA sites] — didn’t think I’d last 30 seconds.
“It was a huge rush getting into that cage. Do you know how tough it would have been to love something and never have gotten the chance to taste it?”
Services »
