From the February 21, 2007 issue of The Cape Cod Chronicle

Williams Takes Cerebral Approached To Mixed Martial Arts Fighting

by Debra Lawless

Imagine 2,000 cheering fans packed into Plymouth Memorial Hall as mixed martial arts fighter Anthony Williams of Harwich bounds into the ring.

"It's the most exhilarating feeling of my life," Williams says. "It's a total adrenaline rush. You can't see anything except for the ring. The lights are shining down. People are screaming and cheering. And then it's just total focus. What do I have to do. That's when you have to remember all the training you've had."

Williams, 25, is not a professional fighter. He's not Bruce Lee, Rocky Balboa or Cinderella Man. By his own description he's a "voracious reader" and his day job is teaching seventh grade language arts at the Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School in Orleans. This is Williams's first full year teaching there and during the normal hubbub of a school morning, he is able to talk about his life and mixed martial arts while a poet-in-residence leads his class.

"I'm not an aggressive person," he says. "It's not about fighting, it's about doing something I never thought I'd be able to do. For me, to actually do this thing I've watched, it's incredible. It inspires me in every aspect of my life to work harder."

Williams grew up in the Watertown area of upstate New York in a family entirely devoted, one way or another, to education. His mother works with students with severe social difficulties; his father is superintendent of buildings and grounds at a school. His older sister Andrea Turner is a speech therapist.

Williams himself, after studying adolescent education and English at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, began his career teaching eighth grade English in New York state. But then he decided he needed a change of scene. He moved to Cape Cod in August 2006 with his girlfriend, Courtney Beauchamp, who works with autistic children at the May Institute in Chatham. The pair has a Boston terrier, Louis.

About a year ago, Williams began training in the relatively new sport of mixed martial arts. Mixed martial arts combines the moves of boxing, wrestling, kick boxing, Jiu-Jitsu and karate. "It's a mix of every fighting style there is," Williams says. Unfortunately, Williams says, "the sport has a really negative stigma. A lot of people look at mixed martial arts as a blood sport or a sport based on brutality. It couldn't be more opposite for me. I see it as a physical chess match. You have to think two or three or four moves ahead of your opponent. If you're not smart, you're going to lose."

In a fight, contestants wear four-ounce gloves (as opposed to the 16-ounce style used in boxing) and a pair of shorts. Williams also wears a red, white and blue mouth guard, a gift from his mother. "She says I'm too young for dentures and too old for braces," he jokes.

Rounds are three-to-five minutes long. The fight continues until the referee stops it, an opponent "submits," or the timed end of the round is reached. A panel of judges declares the winner. So far Williams has fought in two public fights in Plymouth. He has won one and lost one.

"I never regret losing but I would regret not trying," Williams says. "Victory without sacrifice - it has no meaning. If there's something you want, you need to sacrifice to take it."

Williams trains for between one-and-a-half to three hours five to seven days a week. He does cardio training, sparring, submission grappling, and bag work. He works with kettle bells - balls of concrete with handles. "I've never been in better shape in my life," he says. At 165 pounds, Williams is a super middleweight. "When you fight you also agree upon a weight," he says. Weight classes range from 135 pounds to 265 pounds.

Williams has played sports his entire life. When he was younger he also raced mountain bikes, snow boarded and kayaked on the white waters. "Your general thrill seeker," he says.

At the Dungeon Mixed Martial Arts Academy in Hyannis - what its website calls "a real fight gym" and which offers classes with names like "Ground and Pound" - Williams trains with John Burke. Training alongside him are firemen and businessmen, construction workers and landscapers. Williams may be the only language arts teacher in the group.

The gym work is only one part of how Williams prepares himself.

"Such a lifestyle - the training and dieting - doesn't allow for poor decisions," he notes. He eats a lot of salad. He doesn't drink alcohol. "Overall I think it makes me a better person, teacher, boyfriend, son - all those things," he says.

Williams is currently preparing for his next fight, probably to be held in September. He has already promised $100 of his earnings to help an alumnus of the Lighthouse Charter School who is fighting cancer.

"To me, I have to have some sort of purpose if I'm going to fight," he says. "I can't fight with anger or aggression. I have to fight for health, or for life."