Toronto, Ont.'s Tom Theocharis (4-4) steps back into the MMA cage on Friday evening for the first time since February 2021, facing Jesse Hull (2-1) in a battle for the Alaska Combat Entertainment middleweight championship.
At 28, Theocharis says this bout transcends a simple title opportunity. It's a personal reckoning. In August last year, his girlfriend died suddenly, and a victory on Friday would speak to who Theocharis is as a person just as much as it would reflect his abilities inside the octagon.
"If I didn't have MMA as an outlet I don't know where I would be as far as the healing process. I'm very fortunate that I do have MMA to fall back on, to dedicate 24 hours of my life, seven days a week to MMA and getting better. MMA has taught me how to handle adversity and handle these tough situations," said Theocharis in an interview with MMA Empire.
"There is one route I could've gone down and used (her passing) as an excuse to fall off the beaten path and just be a train wreck. But I didn't use that as an excuse, I used her passing as motivation and I was thinking prior to this fight 'is this fight for her?' But no it's for me. It's to prove to myself that whatever I put my mind to I can do and I can battle through adversity. It goes to show you the character that I have by winning this fight."
This bout against Hull marks Theocharis' first shot at a professional title.
Though he admits he doesn't know Hull well, Theocharis insists his commitment and hours put into training have him ready for whatever comes.
"Honestly, I don't know much about him. I think he's more a jiu-jitsu guy. It looks like he is a powerful dude, but I think some things that I did wrong in the past is I kind of obsessed a bit too much on my opponents leading into the fight and it kind of psyched me out, more so to the point where I'd watch so much footage on them and then I'd get in the cage and my opponents wouldn't be doing that exact same thing that I thought they'd be doing," said Theocharis.
"I looked at his record; I've known him for quite some time as I have scouted out that Alaska region and I think this is such a great matchup. I'm assuming he's going to look to take me down just because that's what everyone does. He seems like he's a grappler. I train like I'm fighting GSP, I don't care how good he is or how good he's not. I trained as hard as I possibly could, as smart as I could and I'm ready for anything."
