Fight Path: WSOF 4's Brandon Hempleman discusses his unusual sporting past

Brandon Hempleman grew up building himself into a world-class junior gymnast. It was a time-consuming and costly sport, and trying to do it from the relatively small Twin Falls, Idaho, eventually became too tough of a task.

But there are elements that have stuck with him, and some he even had to shake when he started his MMA career.

“I would point my toes when I punched,” Hempleman told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “I guess that was just all the training in movement and performing. I had to get away from that.”

Hempleman has made plenty of changes and adjustments. In the process, he has produced a promising start to his MMA career, as he takes a 9-1 record into his upcoming bantamweight fight against Marlon Moraes (10-4-1) in the co-main event at World Series of Fighting 4 on Aug. 10.

He has made MMA more of his life than just fighting. Earlier this year, he opened a gym with a friend in Twin Falls and is in the process of starting its first boxing team. The pair hopes an MMA team will soon follow.

That’s not exactly the experience that Hempleman had, training MMA in his basement with instruction mostly from his father. That is, when he wasn’t training for his gymnastics competitions, which would often happen twice a day as he rose to an elite level.

Once he realized his limitations in gymnastics because of where he lived and the lack of high-level gymnasts nearby, he stopped training and lost focus on interests. Then when he rediscovered martial arts and MMA, he found his new commitment.

“I’ve always tried to find people to train with who are better than me,” he said. “You end up getting your ass kicked a little bit, but it’s important because then it becomes less about athleticism and more about technique. I want to be able to do it at a high level.”

Gifted athlete

Somewhere, there’s a video that exists that Hempleman hopes will be a hit if his MMA career takes off.

“I’m about 3 years old with a little rat tail doing bag work in the basement,” he said. “I’m just going through this workout because that’s what we did.”

Hempleman began his martial arts training with his father when he was very young. His father had started that interest when he was growing up in a not-great section of Sacramento and needed ways to defend himself.

While training his kids at home, Hempleman’s father was working a tough job as a herdsman at a large dairy, tending to the cows and making sure they were they were healthy. It was hard work, and the kids worked hard at home.

Hempleman’s mother had an interest in gymnastics, so she encouraged her son to get involved from an early age in that as well. That meant he was constantly working out, either in the home pseudo-gym or in the gymnastics gym.

His gymnastics career grew to the point that he represented the U.S. in his 12-year-old age group at the 1998 World Gymnastics Championships in Sydney, Australia, competing in trampoline and tumbling. It was a financial strain on his family, so the community helped to raise funds to send him to the competition.

After that experience, he was invited to move to Texas to work more extensively with one of the coaches. He declined, and the whole experience helped to show him how difficult it was to train and compete at an elite level out of Twin Falls.

He left gymnastics a few years later, and it was a disappointing end for him.

“I’m not happy with how my (gymnastics) career ended,” he said. “It helps me get through that self-doubt when you’re the little guy going against a guy from a bigger gym.”

Finding a path

After he left gymnastics, Hempleman struggled to find structure. His path included a felony conviction when he was 18 years old that caused him to spend seven months in a facility. That paused his workouts.

“I just had way too many Little Debbies,” he said.

When he returned home, he was fighting with his brother as they had always done, and this time his brother was keeping up. It reminded Hempleman of his interest in martial arts and his need to get back into it.

“I thought, ‘If my brother can almost beat me, then it’s time to change something,’” he said.

Hempleman quickly found a nearby gym and started his training, which quickly turned into a career. Within six months, he was fighting, and he made a move to the larger Boise to gain more experience.

Then he turned pro, and he started winning. It began in June 2009, and he won his first three fights, though in the beginning he was at a larger weight class that didn’t require him to cut any weight.

His only loss came in May 2010 at CageSport 10, where he suffered a second-round submission loss. Since, he has won six straight to improve to 9-1 and set himself up for another step next week when he meets Moraes.

“This is a great matchup, and I don’t think people are giving me the credit I deserve,” he said. “This is a big one for me.”

For more on WSOF 4, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.

Catching up

Back in May, Mark Cherico told us how his plans to study the culinary arts changed one day when a neighbor introduced him to MMA. Coming from a small, tight-knit community, he rebounded from his father’s premature death to become an up-and-coming fighter.

Cherico improved to 5-0 this past weekend by beating UFC veteran Donny Walker at Pinnacle Fighting Championships’ “Pittsburgh Challenge Series 3.”

Award-winning newspaper reporter Kyle Nagel pens “Fight Path” each week. The column focuses on the circumstances that led fighters to a profession in MMA. Know a fighter with an interesting story? Email us at news [at] mmajunkie.com.