UFC's Tony Martin recalls aunt's career-changing health advice ahead of Johnny Case fight

Whether it was his coaches, his wife, or even a distant aunt with an unexpected health tip, having the right people in his life at the right time was key to Tony Martin’s career.

Martin (11-3 MMA, 3-3 UFC) heads into this Sunday’s UFC Fight Night 112 lightweight bout with Johnny Case (22-5 MMA, 4-1 UFC) feeling the best he’s ever felt as a fighter. Martin is on a two-fight streak. He has the matchup he’s long been clamoring for. His technique is increasingly in tune with his lifelong athleticism.

“I feel like I have everything in the right category right now with my skill set, my athletic ability, my mental game,” Martin told MMAjunkie. “I feel like everything is perfect right now.”

But it took some imperfect times to get here. Bringing in an undefeated eight-fight record into his octagon debut back in 2014, Martin would go on to follow his first career loss to Rashid Magomedov with yet another setback, this time to Beneil Dariush. After a rebound win over Fabricio Camoes, a submission loss to Leonardo Santos would make for a rocky 1-3 octagon start.

There’s something to be said for the level of who he lost to: Magomedov and Dariush would both proceed to tear through the 155-pound division before recent losses, while “The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil” winner Santos has yet to lose in the octagon. There’s the fact that Martin, who doesn’t come from any specific martial art, was only three years into his MMA training by the time he debuted in the UFC at 24.

“I’m definitely underappreciated, I think, because I went 1-3 in my first fights,” Martin said. “But that was just maturity. My experience both in the octagon and general was very low. I came in with eight fights that I rattled off in two years. I was still very new to the sport.”

More sneakily, however, Martin was also yet to discover a health issue that he had some unlikely help in addressing.

“Leading into my first three fights in the UFC, something just didn’t feel right,” Martin said. “And it really came to a head in the Beneil Dariush fight. In the back, I just didn’t feel right. I had chest pain, I didn’t know what was going on. I felt like it as just severe heartburn. I was eating tums, I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I couldn’t breathe. I was telling my coach, ‘Something just doesn’t feel right.’ And then obviously, fight time comes, and 3 minutes in I can’t breathe. Obviously, I panicked a little bit and lost that fight.

“After that, my aunt messaged me. I hadn’t talked to her in years. She reached out, ‘I noticed you got really tired fast. Acid reflux runs in our family, so you should look into taking this pill. ‘ And she told me about Ranitidine. I’ve been taking that ever since, and I feel great off of it. It has been a life-saver for me. So I’m forever grateful for that.”

Martin, who used to fight at 170 pounds, thinks the cutdown to 155 flared up the issue. And he now keeps his acid reflux at bay with medicine and a proper diet. But while he wishes that was something he’d discovered earlier, he doesn’t pin his losses on this – or on any isolated factors, for that matter.

Much like everything else, it was a lesson.

“After every one of those fights, I went back to the drawing board,” Martin said. “At no time I felt outclassed. Every one of those fights, I won the first round. It just came to a lack of experience. They weren’t stronger than me; they weren’t faster than me. They were just more experienced. Even in the category of the technique, I felt like I was there. I’d just get in a bad position, and I had never been in those positions in a fight.

“Training is a lot different – you start in bad positions, you get put in bad positions. But it’s different when the lights come on. It’s just one of those things: If you’re never put into the fight like that, you don’t know exactly how to react. Now I’ve corrected those mistakes. I’m six years in, and I feel my skill set has finally caught up to my athletic ability. And that’s why I think I’m one of the better fighters in here.”

‘I think he’s had one of the easiest runs in the UFC’

Martin sees a February 2016 submission win at UFC on FOX 18 over Felipe Olivieri as the mark of his “true beginning as a UFC fighter.” After a year-long layoff due to injury, he followed it up with another convincing victory, this time a UFC Fight Night 103 decision over Alex White.

Martin looks to keep this momentum going Sunday when he meets “Hollywood” Case at Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City. As if the motivation to add another win to his record and keep climbing the ladder wasn’t enough, Martin’s got some added fuel: For the first time in his career, he carries beef into a fight.

“I just feel Johnny Case has been a disrespectful person,” Martin said. “He’s too much of a showman. It seems he’s always acting. He seems very fake to me as a person. I just don’t like him. There’s nothing that I like about him. I’ve been trying to fight him for the last four years, and every single time there’s an excuse. He’s known that I’ve wanted to fight him.

Johnny Case

“Even when we’re in the UFC, I called him out, he blocks me on Twitter. Kansas City, Chicago twice. I’ve tried to fight him multiple times. I know he doesn’t like the matchup or we would have fought.”

Martin, a Minnesota native, says he’s had his sights set on fellow “Midwest boy” Case since his second professional bout in April 2012. Iowa’s Case, Martin says, already had a name by then. First, it was Martin’s inexperience that was pointed as the hold-up for the matchup by Case’s team. But it was only when both were in the UFC that Martin “really started disliking” his foe.

“He calls out Joe Ellenberger for a midwest fight, and I go there. I’m like, ‘Hey, I’ll fight you, I’m from the Midwest. It will be a great fight for the fans,'” Martin said. “And he’s just being disrespectful, saying that he could beat me and Joe on the same night, kind of dismisses me as a nobody.

“My last fight, in Arizona, Case was running the UFC snapchat. After I got home from the fight, my buddies were like, ‘Hey, your boy Johnny Case was talking crap about you on Snapchat.’ He pretty much was saying, ‘Well, now that that’s over, let’s get to the real fight.’ Just dismissing my fighting ability and my style.

“He’s disrespectful, arrogant, and I think he’s had one of the easiest runs in the UFC, as well. And I think it’s going to be a great fight for me to display my skill set.”

Martin is, unsurprisingly, looking “extremely forward” to meeting his No. 1 target on Sunday. But it’s not just because of the personal element. For Martin, a win over Case – who was on a four-fight streak before a submission loss to Jake Matthews in March – is certainly a solid way to put more ambitious plans in motion.

“I would fully expect, after the Johnny Case fight, for my competition to really jump up,” Martin said. “And by next year, to be in the top-10. I think that’s a reasonable goal with the competition that I fought, leading into my seventh UFC fight now. I’m only 27; I’ve only been training six years.

“I think I’m still a couple of years from my prime in the sport. I think around 30 is going to be my prime, where my athletic ability, my mental game and skill set really come to its full potential.”

‘Right away, I just felt like this is what I was meant to do’

It’s hard to overlook Martin’s strides as a mixed martial artist, especially considering that he didn’t even follow the sport that closely when he first got involved a few years ago. While turning into a pro fighter certainly took a lot of hard work, it also took the luck of being introduced to the right coach, UFC and WEC vet Brock Larson, at the right time.

“I’d just turned 21,” Martin recalls. “I started training, and I never left. They couldn’t kick me out of the gym; they couldn’t get rid of me. I just kept training and pushing myself, training two, thee times a day. Pretty much right away I just felt like this is what I was meant to do. It was a sport that really changed my life for the better.”

Unlike many of his peers, Martin didn’t have a base in wrestling or any form of striking. But he did have the drive, athleticism – he even played college football at North Dakota State – and the work ethic strictly reinforced by Larson.

Now, with the support of his wife, Kate, Martin is a full-time MMA fighter. He just received a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and has just returned from a trip to Holland to hone his striking skills. He’s now ready for a serious push in his octagon career. But he didn’t do it alone.

“I’m lucky to have had the people I’ve had in my life,” Martin said. “And the surrounding I have in Boston. And my wife. When you do things the right way and good people are around you, it feels like everything works out in the end.”

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