After cross-country move for a job, WSOF 6's Jon Fitch still has title hopes

After more than a decade in the fight game, Jon Fitch has seen plenty.

In his early days, while still coaching wrestling at Purdue University in his home state of Indiana, Fitch once jumped in a car with Brian Ebersole and drove to Minnesota on the off chance they’d be able to get a fight on a regional show.

They did. FItch fought and won. Then got asked to fight again after his submission win for an extra $100 – on the same night. So he did, and knocked a dude out in seven seconds, breaking his thumb in the process.

These days, the up-and-comers have it quite a bit easier. For starters, state athletic commissions make sure things are on the up-and-up. And then there’s the matter of just plain training.

“The things that the fighters today starting out have available to them are so far beyond what we had when we were starting,” Fitch told MMAjunkie.com Radio. “We were just trying to piece things together and figure things out. The newer guys at our gym just step into a pattern that we’ve created already and it creates killers right away. It takes a lot of time and energy to figure out what to do, rather than stepping into the path of people who know how to do it already.”

Fitch helped build one of the most well-renowned gyms in the world at American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, Calif. The training he got there helped him to an 8-0 start after signing with the UFC and 18-2 overall to get a shot at welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre.

Fitch and AKA are practically synonymous. So it might take some by a little bit of surprise to hear Fitch packed up his family and headed cross-country recently to take a job at a mega-fitness center in Syracuse, N.Y.

He’ll still be at AKA for training camps, like the one he’s in the final stages of now for his upcoming World Series of Fighting bout against Marcelo Alfaya at WSOF 6, which takes place Oct. 26 at BankUnited Center in Coral Gables, Fla. The main card, including Fitch-Alfaya, airs live on NBC Sports Network following prelims that can be seen at MMAjunkie.com.

Fitch said money definitely played a part in his move from one side of the country to the other.

“There are financial things to take into consideration – it’s a salaried job with guaranteed income and health benefits for my family,” he said. “Those are huge, really. Honestly, California is falling apart. The whole country’s kind of falling apart. But the cost of living here in California is ridiculous, and the taxation in California is ridiculous. I’m not sure it’s any better in New York yet, but I’ve got to start doing something, thinking outside the box trying to keep yourself and your family above water and outside the sinking ship.”

It was money that was a key part of the conversation when Fitch was unexpectedly released by the UFC earlier this year following a loss to Demian Maia at UFC 156. He made a disclosed $66,000 in show money for that fight, and it would’ve doubled with a win. At 1-2-1 his previous four fights, UFC President Dana White said he was just too expensive to keep around for non-winning outputs.

And Fitch’s start with WSOF was no better. He was choked unconscious in 41 seconds by Josh Burkman, who earned a shot at the promotion’s first welterweight title at WSOF 6 with the win.

And while Fitch didn’t say that a change in scenery might do him some good after years in California, it might not have been far from his mind.

His new full-time job is for Pacific Health Club in Syracuse, which Fitch said is a 90,000 square-foot state-of-the-art gym. He’s running the MMA area there.

“Just in my MMA section, we’ve got 8,000 square feet of mat space and two full-sized cages,” he said. “It’s just a ridiculous facility, and that’s one of the reasons I made the move, just to take advantage of what they have going on up there. I’m running the MMA and grappling program, but I’m trying to start a fight team.”

Fitch said he agreed to give them a year to see how things go, but he thinks the opportunity will be there to “try to build something great in New York” over what he estimates will five to 10 more years of fighting. Fitch will turn 36 in February.

But he said his true home always will be at AKA.

“They’ve got so many killers at AKA,” he said. “You’ve got to train with the best to be the best. This is my family, and I’ve put a lot of effort into building AKA with all the other guys. This is where my home is and where I know I’m going to get the best training at.”

And despite the recent skid with just a “Fight of the Night” decision win over Erick Silva on the good side the past three years, Fitch believes he can still work his way back to the top, back to the level he was at when he got his shot at St-Pierre.

He hopes to get past Alfaya later this month, and will be pulling for Burkman, as well, because he’d like a chance to do that one again.

“I still feel like there’s a title out there waiting for me,” he said. “I’ve just got to put some wins together and stay healthy. I don’t want to think too far down the road, but hopefully (Burkman) and I can both smash on our opponents and re-do it.”

For more on WSOF 6, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.

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