Lucas Mast looks to even his record at Caged Thunder 24 after returning from a dark place
A few years ago, there weren’t many hotter amateur prospects in the Midwest than Lucas Mast. He had just capped off a 7-1 amateur career with a vicious 30-second knockout, and he had the luxury of making his highly anticipated pro debut in his hometown of Millersburg, Ohio.
He lost a decision to a tough opponent in that debut, and then had a layoff of more than a year during the pandemic. He then suffered an injured jaw in his second bout – another loss – that required surgery and an extended recovery period.
Sitting at 0-2, things started to unravel for Lucas.
“It went kind of downhill for me,” Mast said during his appearance on the Ohio MMA Podcast. “A lot of fighters will say this – when we don’t have anything to work toward, stuff doesn’t always go the way it needs to be going as a professional athlete.”
“With my amateur career building up and the hype that I had behind me, it was such a high that I was on. And then turning pro, and taking a couple Ls, mentally, what it did to me, it put me in a dark spot as far as I wasn’t sure what I wanted, what I needed to be doing, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to fight any more.”
“I pretty much told my coaches I’m done. I pretty much turned to alcohol – I was an alcoholic for a year and a half. I did nothing but drink, I ate whatever I wanted, I didn’t train. I went to work, I went home, and I went to the bar. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s something I went through. I felt like I let so many people down.”
But the tide turned when his wife told him she was pregnant, and he decided that he needed to turn things around and get back in the gym. After almost two years off, he returned and finally picked up his first pro win at Caged Thunder 20 earlier this year.
That’s the Catch-22 of coming from a small town where you own a gym and are a well-known barber. His Champions MMA gym will send multiple fighters to the cage at Caged Thunder 24, but Mast is by far the most well-known.
“The people that buy tickets and watch me fight, I don’t view them as fans, they’re friends and family,” Mast said. “So I have a lot of friends and family, I guess.”
With a renewed energy and focus, Mast is also dropping to the lightweight division for the first time in his career. He talks about how his motivation has led to the discipline needed to compete at an even lower weight.
Check out the full podcast interview with Lucas Mast above.
Caged Thunder 24 streams via PPV at CombatSportsNow.com.
