For featherweight prospect John Douma, his pro MMA debut at CES 45 in August went about as well as he could have hoped.
Shortly be for the end of the first round, Douma was able to get a submission win over Jason Rine, and continue the path he had set for himself in the amateur ranks.
“Every fight I feel like I do a little better,” Douma told MMAWeekly.com. “There’s no perfect fight, I think, for anybody. I got a first round finish, which we were looking for, so I thought I did okay.”
Douma feels like the transition from the amateur ranks to the pros has been pretty seamless as he had faced his share of adversity in fights over the past couple years.
“I obviously knew I was going to go pro, but I was so young that there was never a deadline for me, so it’s when I felt ready,” said Douma. “I had a five-round fight and had a bunch of wars, so after my last amateur fight my coach and I decided I was ready to go pro.
“I’ve been in real tough fights as an amateur. Everything was pretty much the same. It didn’t seem any different to me.”
Douma (1-0) will look to remain undefeated when he takes on Mark Trader (2-0) in a main card 145-pound bout at CES 47 on Friday in Lincoln, R.I.
“I’ve seen a lot of stuff this guy does that I know I can capitalize on real well,” Douma said of Trader. “I’m good at countering. It’ll be like any other fight and will be good for me.”
After making his pro debut earlier this year, Douma will have his chance to be on national television as his bout with Trader opens the AXS TV broadcast portion of CES 47.
“I try not to think about it too much right now because I’ll drive myself crazy,” Douma said. “I’m just trying to work on preparing for the fight, working on the game plan and treating it like any other fight. Afterwards I can look back and kind of enjoy it.”
From here, Douma wants to keep working his way up towards his goal of eventually making it to the UFC.
“I go fight by fight,” said Douma. “My goal is to be in the UFC, but the way for me to get there is fight-by-fight and win every fight I take – that’s it.”
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