Eric is a pioneer of Thai- and kickboxing in the United States. He is first and foremost an avid fan of the sports of Thai- and kickboxing having learned from some of the best like top Thais, Ramon ‘the Diamond’ Dekkers, Rob Kaman and Cornelius Hemmers to name just a few. Today he successfully owns and runs the gym Real Fighters Gym in Louisville, Kentucky, USA and is a proud husband and father of two.
Eric Haycraft in his gym ‘Real Fighters Gym’
Larsenator: Hi Eric, how are you doing?
Eric: Things have been great for me. Busy but great!
Larsenator: That’s good. Now we haven’t seen each other for ages! I think the last time we met was at the Slamm! Holland vs. Thailand VI press conference. What have you been up to since then?
Eric: Man has it been that long – 2009? Well I’ve been up to a lot. In 2012 I took a position with GLORY Kickboxing as part of Talent Operations, with Cor Hemmers, as GLORY was launching into the USA. That position seemed to expand with responsibilities monthly. I oversaw all the USA events up to GLORY 44. I stepped away after reaching a point where I felt I did all I could do to make my suggestions stick. It was a remarkable experience. I travelled to more than twenty GLORY events in an official capacity, including overseeing a Road to Glory 8-man tournament in Brazil. I was working every day with Cor Hemmers, who was the first man to introduce me to real training back in the early 90s. Aside from that my own gym here in Louisville, Kentucky called Real Fighters Gym has continued to grow. We more than doubled our space since we last met. We continue to build new fighters every year and we have several who are competing internationally as well. My wife, who you may recall, retired from fighting to start our family. Lindsay fought a total of 40 fights. She won all the major tournaments in the USA as an amateur, won Gold at the WKA Worlds in Spain, won a
Bronze at IFMA in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She competed around the world in Germany, Spain, France, Slovenia, Russia, Holland (four times), Suriname (twice), China (twice) and was one of the four headliners of a Dutch Reality TV-show called Enfusion Reality filmed in Macedonia. For an American female this was quite a career – honestly even for an American male this is really good. Now in the next chapter of our lives we have two wonderful daughters two years old and two months old.
Ramon Dekkers who is sadly not with us anymore was a long-time friend of Eric Haycraft and one if not THE most famous western Muay Thai fighter. This is from a seminar at Real Fighters Gym – Dekkers punching and Eric holding the pads.
Larsenator: Wow – I didn’t know Lindsay had achieved that much and also didn’t know about your GLORY adventures. Also a massive congrats from the SuperLeague team on the new addition to your family. Great stuff indeed! I know you have been involved with Thai- and Kickboxing for many years. How did it all start?
Eric: It’s a long story, ha! As a teenager in high school I had no interest at all in martial arts. I was very interested in Zoology. Like many teenage boys, I wanted to have muscles, so a friend that lived near my house and I would get together and lift his father’s weights in the garage. One day the TV they had on top of an extra refrigerator was playing the Jean-Claude Van Damme (JCVD) movie, Bloodsport. Truthfully, we did not pay it much attention. We did note that he was jacked, and we really needed to learn what we were doing with the weights. During a bit of rest, we happened upon the scene where JCVD was doing the splits on two chairs. Jokingly I think I may have said I can do that. To which my buddy said he could too. We dragged a chair over to the weight bench and then must have looked ridiculous as we both tried to stretch ourselves from one side to the other. We certainly could not do it. But it launched our competitive nature and so we set out to see who could achieve this first. I stretched every night for six weeks and by
the seventh week I could do a full split and across two chairs. I won. I’ll never forget my buddy saying, “Eric you should so do karate!” Oddly enough, several weeks later my supervisor at my part time job mentioned he was going to take up martial arts and so I tagged along with him to a kung fu club in our local fire station. I went in without having any idea what we were going to do, and we watched and signed up. The following few years kung fu and martial arts would consume me. The obsession led me to read and collect everything I could pertaining to all things martial arts and along that path I discovered the sport of kickboxing, initially American Kickboxing. I found some video tapes of fighters like Dennis Alexio and Jean Yves Theriault of Canada. Eventually I came across some Muay Thai videos and even some European Muay Thai videos but it took some time to fully appreciate what it was I was looking at. Among those videos was Ramon Dekkers just fighting like a machine. I started to collect everything I could
about this guy and that exposed me to more and more European fight media. Another set of coincidence led me to the manager of Dennis Alexio, Bob Wall of Enter the Dragon movie fame. He then introduced me to the manager of Rob Kaman, who introduced me via fax to Cor Hemmers. Weeks later I was boarding a plane for The Netherlands for the first time in 1994. That initial trip led to many more over the years and to many other big Dutch fighters and coaches. In 1997 I opened my first official gym and have been doing this ever since.
Larsenator: Wow that is really exciting and fascinating and also a little funny ‘cause I actually went to Maeng-Ho in Breda in 1995 to train alongside Dekkers and was also influenced by the movie Bloodsport! Now fast forward to 2003 and the days of Thai- & Kickbox SuperLeague: you attended a lot of the events. How did that come about?
Eric: I did. It is a pretty cool story actually. I had been travelling and training in Holland for years then. I helped lots of Dutch fighters come to the USA and fight on events in California and Las Vegas. In those travels I befriended a man by the name of John McPhail. He was very involved in the scene on the west coast. He was also an avid photographer and so he had a big online presence back then, as did I. So we connected initially that way. When SuperLeague signed Malaipet, John would call me to discuss opponents and strategies. When the Italy fight was booked he invited me to come and corner with him. We got on our flights from our respective cities but upon arrival I found out Malaipet had an issue travelling and could not get on the plane. So, there were John and I in Italy with no fighter to corner. Then come to find out several of the fighters competing opted to travel without a corner for a bit more pay. One of those was Wayne Parr. On the bus to the hotel I ended up luckily snagging an empty seat next to Wayne. Like anyone can tell you Wayne is the most down to earth guy in the game. John already knew Wayne from when Wayne was living in the USA not long before that. A bit of conversation and John and I were back in the cornering business for Wayne Parr.
‘John’ Wayne Parr, Australia visiting Real Fighters Gym.
Larsenator: Right. Did you ever bring any fighters to SuperLeague?
Eric: I did not. At that stage I was just rebuilding my roster of fighters and had no one near that level. SuperLeague was featuring the worlds very best.
Larsenator: OK. So how would you rank SuperLeague among all the events that you have been at with your legendary fighters?
Eric: First, while I have some very accomplished athletes, only the future will tell if any become legendary! But as I mentioned earlier, I never brought any athletes of my own to SuperLeague but in the years before and the years since I have travelled every corner of the planet for the sport and I can say with certainty that SuperLeague was one of the best promotions I have seen. They were very sophisticated with their presentation online, something they were ahead of their time with.
Larsenator: Cool and I agree. What are you up to these days – who are your new up and coming fighters and future champions?
Eric: Every year we have new fighters entering the arena. I have a very experienced guy now that is nearly ready to make a jump to a bigger stage: Adam Edgerton. He has 60 fights and has fought on many big promotions now. And we have a lot of talent still baking in the oven!
Larsenator: Awesome. Will definitely keep an eye out for Adam! Now if some of our fans are interested in training at your gym what is the location and time schedule?
Eric: We are centrally located in Louisville, Kentucky. We have sessions every day except Sunday! Our full schedule can be found on our website and for those that can’t visit we have lots of videos on Facebook and Instagram so please give us a follow!
Larsenator: Cool mate: I think it is only appropriate to thank you for everything you’ve done for the sport and wish you and your family all the best in the future. Hopefully we will meet again real soon buddy.
Eric: Thank you! It’s great to have an opportunity to catch up! See you soon I hope!
A packed Real Fighters Gym – typical night of professional and focused action!
Please support Eric Haycraft and his projects by visiting the links below:
Real Fighters Gym official website link
Real Fighters Gym official Facebook page
Real Fighters Gym official Instagram page
Real Fighters Gym official YouTube page
Eric Haycraft ‘Keeping it Real’ podcast
