Josh Fremd had always been an athletic kid. From a young age he dreamed of being a baseball player in the MLB. He pursued that along with football all through his youth. However, right around twelve years old, he flipped on the TV and saw something that put the wheels of change in motion for where he is today.
“I found MMA on Spike TV, it was Matt Hughes,” Fremd recalled “I just fell in love with it because it was an individual sport and you didn’t have to depend on anyone.”
After realizing that MMA was an option for an athletic youngster like himself, he wound up getting into a few dust-ups at school. The lesson from those skirmishes was not the one that kids usually take away at that age.
“After a couple run ins during junior high and high school – getting into fist fights – I realized I’m pretty good at this,” he said with a laugh. “So I joined up in wrestling and eventually boxing.”
But even through his martial arts training, he had held alive some of his other dreams in the sports world. But a chance encounter with another MMA professional put the final nail in the coffin on those and brought him fully into the world of fisticuffs.
“I was going to go play football at college, but some things happened and I decided to take the train to MMA,” Fremd said. “That’s when I ran into Steve Mowry up in Pittsburgh. We became best friends and I started training with him. That was the beginning of my lifelong journey of wanting to make it to the UFC.”
Now having realized that dream and getting his first chance to make good on it with a full fight camp, Fremd is excited to show what he can do. He’ll get that chance against Tresean Gore this Saturday at UFC Vegas 63. That fight will take place on the main card on ESPN+.
You can hear the entire audio of this interview below at 2:25.
