UFC Fight Night 35’s Ramsey Nijem gets better by punching brother in face

Most of the time, Ramsey Nijem obeys the rules of the room on sparring day. His coach calls for a certain level of intensity, and he follows.

But when the 25-year-old UFC lightweight spars with his younger brother Adam, a burgeoning MMA fighter in his own right, the rules seem to go out the window.

“When he hits me, it goes up to 70 percent, and then he goes up to 80 percent, and the next thing you know, we’re both at 100,” Ramsey Nijem told MMAjunkie Radio. “But that’s the sport.”

And that’s the way things go between the brothers, who might follow a sparring session by making dinner and watching fight footage. It’s a good thing.

“Definitely, sometimes when he pisses me off, I’m like, ‘I can’t wait until we spar. I’m going to hit you so hard,’” Ramsey Nijem said. “But we have a really strong relationship. We grew up fighting a lot, but we’re friends at the end of the day.”

They’re not the only brothers competing together in MMA, of course. Currently, the most famous pair is Nick and Nate Diaz, who still are inseparable despite Nick’s recent retirement. When Nate fights, you can bet you’ll see Nick standing in front of him between rounds, giving hard advice.

In his own way, Ramsey Nijem (7-4 MMA, 3-3 UFC) is trying to dole out his own lessons when he laces up his gloves against Adam.

“I’ve got to be the dominant brother,” he said. “So I can’t ever have an off-day with him and let him think he’s better than me … right?”

With an amateur record of 3-1, the 20-year-old Adam is on his way up in the world of MMA. He makes his pro debut Jan. 24, which dovetails nicely with Ramsey’s upcoming fight, a FOX Sports 1-televised preliminary-card bout against Justin Edwards (8-3 MMA, 2-3 UFC) at UFC Fight Night 35, which takes place Jan. 15 at Arena at Gwinnett Center in Duluth, Ga.

“He’s the next generation of MMA athletes because he grew up wrestling and boxing, and right when he was 18, he started training full-time,” Ramsey said of Adam. “He’s more athletic than me.”

In his last two fights, Ramsey admits he needed a boost himself. He quickly was submitted by James Vick at UFC Fight Night 26, and before that was knocked out by Myles Jury at UFC on FOX 7.

Recently, Ramsey moved back to his native Concord, Calif., where he sought out training partners such as Gilbert Melendez and Jake Shields, as well as the recently victorious Tarec Saffiedine.

“That last fight, I wasn’t in the right state of mind,” Ramsey Nijem said. “After getting knocked out by Myles Jury, I never shook that off. I was still afraid to fight, and I wasn’t enjoying it or even wanting to be out there.”

Nijem said he’s now enjoying himself more than ever and is ready to turn his career around against Edwards, who is 1-2 in his past three outings. The loser of next Wednesday’s fight could be in jeopardy of losing his UFC contract.

Nijem, though, said that won’t be him. With the support of his brother and a greater variety of sparring partners, he’s tuned himself up in the gym.

Going 30 percent or 100, he’s ready to compete.

“There’s two things you can do,” Ramsey said. “You can either give up and break, or go out and put on the best performance, and I know I’m going to put on the best performance I’ve ever had.”

For more on UFC Fight Night 35, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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