If you’re looking at a bio page for Nathan Ghareeb, it might be a little hard to locate where home is exactly. You’ll see that he’s born in Hot Springs, Arkansas; he attended West Virginia University; trained in Coconut Creek, Florida; and has fought all over the United States.
Despite all of those places playing a big part of his life, it’s small-town Western Massachusetts that “Nasty Nate” considers his home. After being away for a while training, he’s back and is better than ever.
“I moved back from Florida – I had moved back in December and I went out there for like a camp. Then I came back here and decided to like stick up this way,” Ghareeb explained. “Before I went down to Florida, I was training with my striking coach [Dan McIntyre] who ended up going to Florida as well, but Northern Florida and I went to South Florida and he moved back… I feel sharp again working with my striking coach. To this day, I still believe he’s one of the best striking coach that nobody knows.”
And it’s that relationship with his striking coach that really influenced his decision to stay in the area. While the name American Top Team holds plenty of weight, the instruction he gets at Springfield Submission Society, he believes, is unmatched.
“He’s pretty low key, but he’s like one of the smartest guys. He just like understands fighting on a level that I’ve just not come across in anywhere. And I’ve been all over the place,” he said. “I’ve traveled and trained all over the country, all over the world and I’ve trained with some of the best. I just think that he’s one of those guys that he understands me. We have that training and he just knows where I need to continue to progress.”
However, it’s not just the high-end training that he gets up North that has kept Ghareeb in the area. Having family close by and a community of people to support him has put him in a much better place to achieve his dreams.
“I think like having a tribe is so important and like having a community of people around you does make a huge difference. So being up here is good,” Ghareeb said. “People that heard about this one, they hear about LFA, they’re like, oh, like we gotta go to this fight. It’s at Foxwoods and I think a lot of people, after my last fight, were really excited.”
Ghareeb will get to show off that improved striking as he takes on Josh Harvey as part of the LFA 222 main card this Friday. That fight card takes place at 9pm EST and is available on UFC Fight Pass.
