Australia’s Cody Haddon has pretty much always known that MMA was the career he wanted to wind up in. From the first day he stepped foot into a martial arts gym, he was all in on the sport.
“That’s all I wanted to do since I went to the martial arts gym when I was six,” Haddon explained. “My dad was always a fight fan and I used to watch boxing, kickboxing, MMA – And I always thought MMA was the ultimate fight sport.”
Like any young child with a passion, Haddon felt the need to share that passion with others. Given a research project during his elementary school year with an open topic, the choice for him was clear.
“The UFC has been the goal since I was a kid. I remember in grade 3 doing a project – you could do a project on anything – and I did it on the UFC,” he shared. “I introduced all the rules and stuff. I talked about back when they didn’t have many rules and didn’t have gloves… I did a big write up on that.”
The reception was maybe not what Haddon was looking for. The reviews were a mixed back of confused and shocked.
“People had no idea about what MMA even was, then you got some third grader giving a whole spiel about this thing they’ve never heard of that’s so barberic in their eyes,” he said laughing in the process. “Half the people didn’t even understand what I was talking about.”
Now roughly a decade later, Haddon has a chance to make that passion into a reality. He gets his chance to impress Dana White on Contender Series Tuesday as he takes on Billy Brand. Much like some of his peers thought all those years ago, he expects a gruesome image for that fight.
“If you watch his fights and my fights, you know there’s going to be some blood and some f*cking damage done,” he said. “And I think I will come out on top.”
You can catch that fight with Cody Haddon on Week 2 of Dana White’s Contender Series this Tuesday. The fight card begins at 7pm EST on ESPN+.
