Calen Born: Photo courtesy of Tapology
Calen Born plans to ‘crack Craig Fairley, turn him into a wrestler’ at Shamrock FC 328
After suffering the first loss of his professional career, Calen Born is excited to get back on track and do so just 10 minutes away from his gym.
Born will face Craig Fairley in the co-main event of Shamrock FC 328. The event takes place this Saturday night at the Ameristar Casino in Kansas City, Miss. and will air on FITE.
Headlining Shamrock FC 328 will be a bantamweight bout between Mark Slyter and Paris Padilla.
The 31-year-old Born joined MyMMANews.com to discuss his first fight in over a year, recovering from an injury, what he learned from his unanimous decision loss to Austin Jones at LFA 57 in January 2019, not being all that familiar with Fairley prior to the booking, his home state of Kansas adding the option of open scoring, his mom being a constant presence in the gym, being a photographer and much more.
In addition, Born plans to create some fireworks on Saturday night while improving his professional record to 7-1.
“I just want to show everyone the same stuff that I keep talking about in terms of great improvement,” Born told MyMMANews.com. “I come from a wrestling background, my pedigree has always been in grappling and a lot of times they’ll talk about my pedigree in grappling, but then you look at my performances and almost every one will have boxing, punches and kicks and they fall down. They say, ‘yeah, he’s great at grappling’ and that’s the only thing that they talk about and then when you watch my fights, they realize ‘he wants to stand and bang. He wants to put on a show.’
“This guy doesn’t like getting taken down and he doesn’t like getting hit. I promise you, just like everyone else, he’s going to get cracked a few times and — like the old Nate Diaz — they’re so good at boxing and kickboxing until they get hit and dramatically turn into wrestlers. I guarantee that’s what it’s gonna be. He might try to head kick me or something, but there’s no way he’s going out there and hanging with me boxing. His muay thai isn’t going to hang with me either. He has three submission wins but he has a tall order: he was to submit a 13 year black belt that has an amazing wrestling pedigree. Hopefully he’s sharpened up his striking a little bit but we’ll see.”
Check out the full interview with Calen Born ahead of his co-main event bout with Craig Fairley at Saturday night’s Shamrock FC 328 event in the video above.
