Jan Quaeyhaegens: “I Believe In My Ability To Finish Everybody I Step In There With”
After a main event bout at Cage Warriors 171, Jan Quaeyhaegens, will be back in action at Cage Warriors 175. Quaeyhaegens is a human highlight reel in the cage with all 12 of his professional victories coming by way of finish. Eight of those by KO/TKO and four by submission. Facing an undefeated opponent in Harel Cohen, Quaeyhaegens will look to put himself back in the thick of the Cage Warriors lightweight title picture after the July 25th card.
Jan Quaeyhaegens
Finding MMA
Like many fighters born in the early 1990s, Quaeyhaegens first discovered MMA via the internet. “I discovered MMA by coming across highlights of it on YouTube as a teenager and was lucky one of the few gyms in the country (Perfect Team MMA) was quite close by. I started training and had my first fight when I was 19 years old,” Quaeyhaegens told MYMMANEWS. Perfect Team MMA is located in Antwerpen, Belgium, and is headed by Ben Dandois. The team was founded in 2005 and has been home to talents that have fought all over Europe. Ben “Mr. Perfect” Dandois himself even competed in professional MMA, earning a victory at Cage Warriors 89.
At 21 years of age, Jan Quaeyhaegens would make his official professional debut at Staredown Fighting Championship in March 2013. Leading up to his Cage Warriors debut at Cage Warriors 89, Quaeyhaegens suffered a few bumps in the road amassing a record of 4-3 to that point. It was all in learning his craft and becoming a dominating finisher that we would see later on in his career.
Learning The Sport
“There have been many people along the way, much more than I can mention here who have helped my career. Ben Dandois and Chris Van Boom were my original trainers and have taught me all the way from the beginning developing most of my grappling and wrestling. Karl Bruylants has been my striking coach for the last seven to eight years and has really upped my stand up. He has built many champions in kickboxing and thaiboxing and I aim to be another one of his World Champions,” stated Quaeyhaegens.
“Three years ago, I switched to a gym in Holland to train under Harun Ozkan. For now, he is unknown on the world stage, but I truly believe he will end up being known as one of the great minds and true MMA coaches in the world.” Combat Brothers, located in Breda, The Netherlands is already home to stellar MMA talent. Aside from Quaeyhaegens it is also the home to Erko Jun, Bellator veteran Pieter Buist, and ONE Fighting’s Reinier de Ridder, among many others. This is absolutely a team to keep an eye on around the world of MMA.
Impressive Run After Cage Warriors Debut
Since his first-round knockout at Cage Warriors 89, Jan Quaeyhaegens has gone an impressive 7-2 with all nine bouts ending without a decision needed. Some fighters want a decision on their record to prove naysayers wrong, but that is of little concern to the deadly finisher. “Haha, no. I never want to go the distance! I like taking risks and think I have a really good killer instinct to know when and where to go for the finish and believe the goal of every fighter should be to constantly look for a finish, so I aim to retire without ever needing the judges!” said Quaeyhaegens.
Just to show how truly devastating his killer instinct is, six of his 12 wins have come by a first-round finish. “I believe in my ability to finish everybody I step in there with. I have a lot of high-level experience, which I think is something the undefeated young prospects often lack. I’ve never lost to an undefeated fighter before, and don’t plan on doing so anytime soon!”
