Fight Path: Andrew Todhunter channels military energy to MMA career

Because Andrew Todhunter had been part of multiple combat sports through his life, including boxing and “combatives” (military training and competition), it was obvious to ask Todhunter when his formal MMA training began.

“It wasn’t very formal,” he told MMAjunkie with a laugh.

The Oklahoma native had by then been honorably discharged from his military sniper career, and he was back with his old wrestling buddies. It’s fair to say they trained for MMA. How formal it was is up for debate.

“We basically went to a gym that had mats with gloves, mouthpieces and cups,” he said. “They called themselves Team Extreme, but we just really beat the hell out of each other. It was brutal.”

But it was just what Todhunter needed. Carrying a little aggression and a healing hand after multiple surgeries, he began a path that carried the one-time Army advertising campaign figure to an MMA career.

Now undefeated at 6-0, he takes his next step later this month when he fights at Battlegrounds MMA on June 27 in Tulsa, Okla. He hopes to continue the impressive winning streak that began with his pro debut in December 20111 and has included three first-round submissions.

His early success may not be surprising for someone who grew up with fighting as one of his passions, given his family’s background in boxing. But it underlines both his ability to stay focused despite adversity and not let his emotions take over.

“I felt like I needed this in my life,” Todhunter said off entering his fighting career. “It was something I needed to be part of.”

Serving his country

Todhunter was born and raised in Oklahoma in a town small enough that most of the free time was spent outdoors fishing or hunting. He was a skilled athlete early in his life, which eventually led him to try most available sports.

That included boxing, in which his family had a history. His grandfather was a competitive boxer while in the Army, and an uncle was a pro, himself. He was also interested in the military.

“I said I wanted to be a G.I. Joe and a fighter,” Todhunter said.

Despite those intentions, his sporting interests didn’t float all to combat, as he preferred football to the wrestling that his father was urging him participate in. He laughs now that grappling might be his favorite part of training and competing, but wrestling was most definitely not his first love.

At 17, he enlisted in the Army and was sent to Georgia. He went on to specialize at sniper school, and he also excelled at the combatives training, which includes multiple disciplines. He was so good that the Army asked him to be a teacher.

While deployed to Iraq, Todhunter experienced glass cutting through the trigger finger of his left hand, doing damage to both tendons and nerves. Over the next year and a half, he would undergo three surgeries and the frustrations of bringing back sensations. He was meanwhile featured in Army recruiting advertising campaigns as an example of a soldier.

He was angry at times, as well. He tried to attend the state’s highway patrol academy, but budget cuts led to a class cancelation. He instead went to college and started to work, but something was missing.

“I liked the family aspect of competing, of being part of a team or part of a group,” he said. “I needed that.”

Finding his place

Looking back, those rough sessions with his wrestling friends as his earliest training might not have been the best idea.

It was all live training. They would spend a session on some aspect of fighting, then another session on something else, continually pounding each other. If one of the members in the group had a fight coming up, he had to take on everyone in the group.

But it was 2009, and Todhunter needed to get involved. It’s just not something he would suggest to someone else.

“It’s amazing no one really got hurt,” he said. “Now that I’m older, I can see that it was definitely a little too intense.

“But I’ll say this: I don’t know if I ever felt as confident going into the cage as I did when we were doing that.”

That training went on for about a year, and then in the process of looking for some variety, he found some structure. Todhunter would regularly go into nearby gyms, challenge some of the toughest in the room and then walk out if it was too easy. One day, he went into a gym, and a smaller guy who looked to be about 40 asked if he wanted to do some work.

That was his first meeting with Christian Derr, who would help formalize Todhunter’s training. He was going to school and working, but he was also building up to his pro career, which started in 2011. His hand healed, and he won his debut against an opponent who had been making plenty of noise and throwing around obscene gestures in the cage.

Todhunter’s response was to top him in the first round, and it wasn’t the first time he experienced an opponent talking tough.

“I can control my anger, but when I let it go, I let it go,” he said. “If they’re amping it up, they don’t know what they’re gonna get out of me, because I can have a lot of anger.”

He channeled those emotions into wins in his first six MMA pro fights. Now heading into the tournament, Todhunter is traveling to Florida to train with American Top Team, his first real camp heading into a bout.

He hopes it’s another step in his career, which started rough and has continued with intensity.

“I’m learning what it takes,” he said. “I’ve never done that (had a training camp), so I’m excited to see what will happen.”

Catching Up

Last week, Radeem Rahman told us about the frustrations of going nearly three years between fights and building his career from Muay Thai to MMA with the help of a stable of strong teammates. Rahman improved to 2-0 in his first fight since September 2011 last weekend with a victory against Raymond Tan at ONE FC 16.

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.