Gym of the Month: The Batcave MMA Gym
This month’s Elite MMA Shirt Club featured gym is The BatCave MMA, hailing all the way from Bracknell England.
This month’s Elite MMA Shirt Club featured gym hails all the way from Bracknell England. Along with the phenomenal reviews of the gym and the high caliber instructors I was intrigued by the name of it. When thinking of training to fight as a kid Batman was the epitome of toughness. I remember reading comics at night wishing that someday I could build my own batcave and learn to be a bad ass like Bruce Wayne. When it came time to feature this month’s gym I was intrigued by the notion of featuring none other than BATCAVE MMA. The club was established on 1/1/2014 under the guidance and direction of Brenden Flanagan. As any good instructor knows you can’t do it all alone. Luckily for Brenden he had the assistance of Matt Walton, Rocci Williams, Dani Vlad and Brad Pickett to help with his success. According to Brenden he stated over the last two years of business coaches have stepped in and out the gym helping it become the relaxed and informative training environment it is today. The BATCAVE has helped oversee the training of such Pro MMA fighters like Jimmy Wallhead, Matt Hallam, Che Mills, Aaron Blackwell and Brad Pickett, as well as many Semi pro up and coming stars. When asked how he came up with such a cool name Brenden stated “due to the gyms confined space and way theceiling looks like a rocky cave, friends would call it the B-Cave (Brend-cave). During the course of a few months it was quickly being called The BATCAVE instead so after an easy chat with a marketing advisor The BATCAVE MMA gym was born.”
According to Brenden he loves the art of MMA because “it allows you to express yourself through the skills you have learnt and mastered. Either using a single fighting system or just using a handful of go to moves you’ve made up MMA is not something you learn to fight people. MMA is something you use to test yourself and the effectiveness of what you learn without getting into a street fight.”
As an MMA practitioner of 15+ years, Brenden always has been competing or assisting team mates in MMA or various other martial art events. Opening his own space to instruct and spread his knowledge was always a goal from the beginning. As the Head coach of the Batcave, and the MMA coach for Carlson Gracie London, Brenden was lucky enough to have a number of fighters between the two gyms fighting under the Batcave banner. When asked to talk about some of his active fighters he provided a list for us to share. One fighter that he mentioned was Lucas Cox. Lucas is the Batcaves youngest MMA fighter with a 3-0 amma record and appearances on TMT and Fury. “He’ll be making a lot of noise in 2016” stated Brenden. Another fighter he acknowledged was Issam Kurdi. Issam is a 4-0 amateur who has been showcased regularly on TMT and LFC. next was Grace Anderson, a known UK Female K1 fighter making a career in MMA now. Last but not least Rob Delargy who is Brenden’s newest recruit from GYM 101 looking to start a fruitful career in 2016.
Brenden reported he has been fortunate enough to make friends with big promotions over the years since starting his own MMA career. From Ian dean at CW, Andy Jardine at Extreme brawl, Brian Adams at Shock n Awe, Leo Alderman at LFC and James Lutman from TMT to name a few. Personally nothing has come close to the organization and the care he received from the promotion FX3 at the time run by Paul and Simon James. Brenden stated “But that was from a time when you had a sense of pride calling yourself an MMA fighter, rather than today when itseems everyone is doing it and calling themselves a cage fighter. Something I strongly and quickly explain the difference to when new faces or younger members come to my gym wanting tolearn MMA, or sadly wanting to learn UFC (which I hear too often.)”
One of the problems he encounters as a gym owner and coach is helping determine the goal of his students. Without a goal it’s hard to progress and so without a goal people often give up. This is where he promotes sparring in as many classes as possible. “A student will begin to value their training and see the progressions they are making through these means and it’ll alsohighlight their weaknesses to improve on, thus driving their want to train.” Brenden stated.
One of the tough questions I asked was who was your favorite at the Batcave. Typically this elicits a response like “all of them.” Just like so many gym owners that I have met they are kind, humble and genuine. Brenden is all that and more. Here was his response to the above question. “It’s hard to determine a favorite in my gym as they all compete in both Boxing, grappling and MMA events. I’ve Grappling students, both in and out the Gi, medaling every event they enter with only 1-2 years of training. I’ve students putting on a pair of boxing gloves for the first time convincingly winning each round in white collar events. My MMA fighters only compete when ready and always do me and the team proud. I simply see it as if one student does well, the teams does well. We all train together so it’s a victory for us all. This is why I couldn’t choose one student.´’
Brenden started training in 1998 as a young teen at a local “MMA self-defense club” governed by the BCA (British Combat Association). His instructor Mike Karim was a highly decoratedmartial-artist in his own right, who then promoted the Jeff Thompson and Peter Constantine’s way of fighting and self-defense. This gave him his basis of knowledge in striking, takedowns and BJJ. As he neared his 20s a number of his training partners were already competing in MMA on the local circuits. Over the course of a few years he was regularly competing with his team mates Rocci Williams, Aaron Blackwell and David Swann to name a few. According to Brenden some are still fighting today or are now regarded as high level refs in the business. Within that timeframe he was training regularly under the likes of Paul Daley, Andy Jardine and Alex Reid, as they all coached regularly and locally. In between this he would always keep up with his team training at Woking Thai where Team Relentless was based.
Brenden reported “When the promotion FX3 stopped, I lost my way with competing, taking the odd fight here and there, but never really knowing where I was going with it. I made sure I alwaysmade time to assist any of my team mates with their own training for fights as to keep myself involved one way or another. During this break I went back to what I loved most which was the grappling and BJJ. Now 5yrs later and a purple belt under Andre Pimenta and Carlson Gracie UK, I’ve been able to keep myself busy competing regularly on the grappling circuit with the intentions on making a full return to the cage in 2016.” Since returning to BJJ and the opening of his gym he has been most fortunate to train with Carlson Grace Jr, Caio Terre, Clark Gracie and even opened his home to Amuary Bitetti whilst he was touring the UK recently and coaching at the BATCAVE.
Brenden stated he is not happy with staying the same. He set goals going into his third year with the BATCAVE, a bigger gym still located in the area and back to back class’s are his next goals. When asked about the chemistry in the gym Brenden stated “it is just right as we cater more commercially to the masses. I found out very quickly a hardcore MMA gym didn’t make money but students still wanted to learn and be able to go to work the next day injury free. The BATCAVE is the only honest MMA gym in the surrounding area. There’s many traditional martial art clubs around which I’m already seeing a few of their members cross training with myself to break away from the traditional structure and learning affective techniques that don’t require youropponent attacking you in particular way for it to work. We’re not doing anything ground breaking or different here, your just being coached by active or retired competitors and fighters. So the advice and instruction you receive is from experience and not repeated from a book or YouTube.”
Elite MMA Shirt Club wanted to thank Brenden for allowing us into the world inside the Batcave. For more information regarding the Batcave MMA check out the links below:
grab the BATCAVE APP on Android and iTunes.
Instagram: batcave_mma
FB Page: The BATCAVE MMA gym
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