Sam King: "I See Myself One Day Making a Career out of This"

At age 20, most young men don’t know what they want to one day do for a living.

If all goes according to his plan, Sam King will someday make his living in the world of mixed martial arts.

“I started wrestling when I was 14,” said King, who wrestled for three years at Archbishop M.C. O’Neill in his native Regina, Saskatchewan before coming to Complete Martial Arts and Fitness two years ago. “(After high school), I didn’t do anything for a year and I started training at Complete.”

“I just liked fighting, so I started training,” King explained with a laugh. “When I played hockey, I was always the fighter. I was an aggressive kid, I guess.”

According to King, who trains under AJ Scales six days a week in Regina, it didn’t take long to come to the conclusion that this is what he wanted to do for a living.

“I’ve loved it from the beginning,” King said. “I intended on fighting from the very beginning, too. I see myself one day making a career out of this—I want this to be my life.”

According to Scales, a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and undefeated mixed martial artist, it wouldn’t be a stretch to see King one day collecting cheques in the highly-competitive world of mixed martial arts.

“(Sam) has a great attitude,” Scales noted. “He’s very disciplined and he’s willing to learn anything ...I think he can go very far. We’re grooming him to do all the right things and take all the right steps. If he wants to be a professional in this sport, I think he can.”

King, who recently spent time at the famed Tiger Muay Thai academy in Thailand, is now preparing for his first mixed martial arts match—a two round amateur contest against Chris Berry under the Saturday Night Fights banner on Saturday in Regina.

“I feel good and I just really want it to happen,” King said. “I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time...I’m going to go in there, touch gloves and see what happens.”

“I feel really good about (Sam’s upcoming match),” Scales added. “He’s been in the gym six days a week, he’s done all of the work that he had to do to come into this match on Saturday and I feel very, very confident.”

Although King intends on picking up a big victory on Saturday evening and wants to go as far as he can in the sport, he is nevertheless taking his career one fight at a time.  

“The next step is just to get back to the gym, get better and start looking to the next one.”