Lemmy Krusic: "Fighting is my life."
Lemmy "The Dog" Krusic (12-1-0) is making his comeback to WFC at Challengers 4. WFC fans may not know him so well since he fought just once inside the WFC ring, but Lemmy is quite an experienced MMA fighter despite his youth with 12 wins from 13 career fights.
He started training MMA six years ago in Ljubljana and till today MMA has become part of his life. He got inspired after watching Cro Cop vs Minotauro and after that he decided that this sport is something if not the only thing he wants to do in his life.
"I train in a variety of clubs, because I think of this sport as a puzzle and the only way to assemble a puzzle is training different martial arts at the same time," stated 23-year-old. "I'm doing my physical preparation in M-gym with Matjaz Petan, I wrestle in Klub rokoborba Ljubljana with coach Kuhar, as far as MMA training fall under the domain of Tomy Cestnik and Tomi Sude. But that is not all, I spar at club Rupa, I also practice jiu-jitsu under the watchful eye of Djordje Kesic and Jernej Janezic at Klub Gepard. I work on my stand-up at Klub Simba."
Quite diverse training regime but it looks like that it's the right one if we take in account his fight record. It's not only his work ethic that is interesting, Lemmy has quite an interesting nickname – The Dog. "I got the nickname when we went to Umag to watch a Bor Bratovz fight. Jernej Janezic gave me the nickname because I sat the whole time through the event in the shadow of the coach and I looked as faithful as a dog. Later on the nickname strengthened in Brezice because we cooked mouthguard in water which had been previously used for cooking hot dogs. That is how i got the nickname."
Lemmy has only one fight in WFC under his belt and that is also his only career loss. He lost to Antun Racic at WFC 11 in 2010 and now, nearly three years after that, he’s making his comeback. After his loss to Racic, Krusic has won 9 straight fights and looks to shine in the WFC ring.
His score of 12-1-0 makes him on of the best ranked Slovenian MMA fighters but that is not something that he craves for. "I train because I want to be better with every day as it passes by. I’m doing it for myself and the fans that support me and give me strength to carry on."
Krusic fights in featherweight division which is not so strongly represented in WFC as lightweight division for example. He has almost no one to fight with in Slovenia but that is not the case outside the borders of his home country.
At Challengers 4 which will be held in Litija on 16 March, he’ll be fighting aginst Riccardo Cumani from Italy. Cumani is an experienced Thai boxer with over 50 bouts in his career and also 6 MMA fights. "He’s a good striker and solid grappler but he's not as great at wrestling and that is something that I'll try to use in my advantage. I've watched his fights and there are some holes in his game that can lead me to a victory."
We can prepare ourselves for a interesting match-up as Krusic will be looking to make a name for himself in the WFC. "I believe in me. At the end my hands will be the ones in the air and not Cumani's!"
Challengers is just a few weeks away and it promises to be a night to remember. Every single fighter will enter the ring with his own agenda. But there will be an opponent standing on the other side with a goal to spoil his dreams.
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