Former SH wrestler works toward future in MMA cage

Scott Swanson

Sweet Home alum Scottie Stockman has spent, by his own calculation, 10 years as a high school and college wrestler.

Now he’s planning to move on. But not right away.

Stockman, 23, is planning to pursue a career as a mixed martial arts fighter after he graduates from Southern Oregon University, where he’ll be a sixth-year senior this coming season.

The key word there is “plan.” Stockman has a strategic route to the cage mapped out.

“I’ve been competing since I was 5 years old,” he said, noting he’s participated, at various times, in football, basketball, baseball, track and wrestling in Sweet Home over that span.

“If I was done with wrestling next year, the only consistent thing in my life would be gone. I’ve been on a team since I was 4 or 5 years old. It would be weird for me. I would acclimate to it, but it would take a while.”

Stockman took the first steps in his plan on July 15 at the Win-River Resort and Casino in Redding Calif., making his debut Toughman Fight with a 35-second TKO in the first round, and then following that with a “controversial” loss in a three-round decision against a hometown fighter.

Boxing is a sport he’s very familiar with. His dad, Scott Stockman Sr., also of Sweet Home, a former professional boxer, ran two different training gyms as Scottie was growing up – the Wolfpack on the upper floor of what is now Steelhead Strength and Fitness, and the Pacific Northwest Boxing Club in a former church building in east Sweet Home.

“I grew up in those places,” Scottie Stockman said. “I always wanted to do it, but my dad preferred me to do football, wrestling, basketball, track, what-not. He wanted me to focus on that through my secondary education.

Stockman, who graduated in 2012, placed in the top five three years in a row at the state championships, helping Sweet Home to a third-place finish in 2012.

He then moved on to SOU, where he redshirted one year and grayshirted another, which is why he can wrestle one more season, he said.

He hasn’t been a consistent starter for the Raiders, but he has been a regular on the roster.

He also has been training at the Rogue Combat Academy in Medford, owned by former MMA professional Chris Holiday, for the last three months, and his boxing background has helped him there, he said.

He noted that Tommy Massey, the Rogue gym’s kickboxing coach, trained Sweet Home fighter Shorty Weikel in the Bully Gang club in 2009.

“At the gym, guys I spar with are kickboxers and Muay Thai guys and I can get shots on them at will.

“I’m not one of the best SOU guys, but I’m one of the best in the gym.”

He plans to finish his college wrestling career, then work on his martial arts and boxing skills. He has another Toughman tournament scheduled in September at the Pit River Casino in Burney, Calif.

“I’m thinking I’ll probably do boxing for a year and a half until I get in the cage,” Stockman said. “I want to get my hands straight before jumping in there. But in the cage I’ll be able to utilize the wrestling I’ve been working on for last 10 years.”

He’s been working hard – “I don’t think I’ve missed a day in the gym in a year” – and he’s had good coaches, which gives him an edge, he believes.

“I’m getting real studious at fighting and training,” Stockman said. “I’ll probably continue to train at combinations at the academy while wrestling and going to school.”

He’s pursuing a major in English and linguistics with a double minor in creative writing and education. He plans to student teach at South Medford High School in the fall, and he plans to substitute teach while training to go pro.

“I’m doing straight boxing right now. I want to be really smart about it. I’d like to turn pro in 2½ or three years. There’s so much to go over – jujitsu, kickboxing, muay thai, submission wrestling.

Stockman said he’s following in the footsteps of some fellow SOU wrestlers in aiming for MMA.

The most well-known is Rick Story, who was runner-up in the 2006 NAIA National Championships, and began learning submission grappling from a friend during his sophomore year. After graduating with a degree in health education, Story embarked on a career in mixed martial arts in 2007 that took him to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, where his last fight, a loss to Donald Cerrone last year, left him with a 19-9 record and ninth place on the UFC list for most landed strikes.

More recent SOU wrestlers moving on to MMA are Austin Vanderford and Taylor Johnson.

Vanderford, a 184-pounder for the Raiders who graduated in 2012, started his MMA career out of the Rogue gym and is undefeated in five fights, the last his first as a professional in March of this year.

“He’s closest right now,” Stockman said. “He’s on the fast track. He beat a kickboxer who was 21-2.”

Johnson finished fifth at the NAIA nationals for SOU in 2015 and is now fighting professionally out of San Diego.

“He’s training with the guys who are on TV,” Stockman said.

Though he considers kickboxing the toughest of the elements that play into a typical MMA fight, he considers his own background in wrestling the most valuable.

“I had 300 matches in high school and 150 in college,” he said. “Amateur boxers will have 30 matches at the most before they turn pro.

“Guys who have wrestled since they were 5 years old, they’ve probably had 1,000 to 1,500 matches. I think that’s a huge leg up.

“I showed up at weigh-ins (for the Toughman fight) and all the other people were on edge. I felt like I’d been there a hundred times. I felt like this is another day.”

MMA, he said, is also about body control and “that’s what you do in wrestling: It’s body awareness and you control people.”

Plus, Stockman said, he’s had good coaching from Sweet Home coach Steve Thorpe and at SOU.

“Thorpe makes average competitors able to beat great athletes from time to time and he makes great athletes better than they are,” he said. “If it weren’t for him, I would never have been put in the position I am, or even competed at the collegiate level in athletics.

“In the last five years, I’ve been working really hard. It’s the Sweet Home mindset to work hard at young age. I work a lot on my hands – two hours on the heavy bag before I go to wrestling practice or lift.”

Although he plans to work on the other disciplines before getting into the cage, Stockman said he expects to “utilize the wrestling I’ve been working on for the last 10 years.”

“In a match I would not shoot on someone right away. But if I get in a panic situation, I’ll have wrestling to ease the situation, take control.”

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