Kit Cope

From OTMWiki

Kristopher "Kit" Cope
Statistics
Nickname	Havoc
Height	6 ft (183 cm)
Weight	170lbs lb (77.1 kg)
Born	March 17, 1977
Fighting out of	Las Vegas, Nevada
Town of birth
Fighting style	Muay Thai,Boxing,Greco-Roman and Freestyle Wrestling
Mixed martial arts record
Wins	2
By knockout	2
By submission
Losses	3
Draws	0
No contests

Kristopher "Havoc" Cope (born March 17, 1977 at Williams Air Force Base, Arizona), is an American world champion kickboxer. The reigning Master Toddy Gym Muay Thai World Champion (23-1-9) is also fights in mixed martial arts with an MMA record of 2-3-0 (W-L-D). His career accomplishments include Muay Thai World Bare Knuckle Champion 2004, four time Muay Thai World Champion at Jr. Welterweight, Welterweight, Jr. Middleweight & Light Heavyweight weight divisions. Kit was also recently featured along with Ben Garcia in MTV's True Life: I'm a Muay Thai Figher.

1 Early years
2 Fighting Career
3 Championships and Accomplishments
4 See also
5 External links

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Early years

In the sixth grade Kit joined his junior high school wrestling team weighing in at a whopping 65 pounds. In seventh grade he set out to continue his wrestling career until a kid in his first year of wrestling not knowing the difference between wrestling and the WWF proceeded to pile drive him and displace several vertebrae in Kit's neck, ending the year for Kit. After that season he got into freestyle and greco-roman wrestling. Kit continued wrestling through his junior year in high school earning two Nevada state wrestling championships & California state runner-up along the way.

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Fighting Career

While driving down the street one day, after his junior year of freestyle season, he saw a small martial arts gym with interesting drawings on the windows. He stopped in to see what it was all about. That small gym was Master Toddy's first Muay Thai Gym in America. He saw Melchor Menor hitting the pads while Ben Garcia was banging on the heavy bag. (Both of them, later became World Champions) Prompting him to sign up for a trial lesson with Mel. He got hooked. Kit started spending all of his time at the gym and Master Toddy took to him like a son. He would come to the gym at 10a.m., train, eat lunch, take a nap, watch fight tapes, take a nap, and train again until 8p.m.

Kit's first fight was purely by chance accident. He was attending a promotion at The Silver Nugget, and learned that one of Master Toddy's fighters didn't pass the physical. The commission could not let him fight, so Master Toddy asked Kit if he wanted to replace the fighter and fight in two days. Kit accepted the fight on short notice and was going to fight a guy named Billy "The Kid" Rubello. At weigh ins, Kit surprisingly learned that Billy was 27 years old, a good ten years Kit's elder at the time. With very little skill displayed in that fight, Kit came out on top and won his first fight. Kit went on to compete all over the world since then. He has fought in Thailand, Japan, China and many other places. Along the way Kit has established himself as a tough Muay Thai competitor. In 1999 he suffered his first professional KO, in K-1 by Akeomi Nitta. With an astounding victory over ISKA World Champion and Fairtex CEO Alex Gong, Kit has proved that he does belong in the Muay Thai world that has long been dominated by only Thai fighters.

After fighting in two professional boxing bouts, going 1-1, and continuing proving himself in Muay Thai, Kit began his venture into the world of mixed martial arts. Looking to make the same impact on MMA as he did with Muay Thai, Kit is currently training with Team Punishment with the likes of UFC champions such as Tito Ortiz. Kit made his UFC debut on November 5th, 2005 on the TUF 2 Finale. He lost by submission to Kenny Florian in the second round due to a rear naked choke hold. He continued to fight even after injuring his shoulder in final seconds of round one. Kit suffered a shoulder injury that required surgery. As of early 2006, Kit is recovering from surgery and training to fight in the WFA, dropping back down to 155 lbs. Kit plans to return to the UFC octagon by late 2006 and is looking into a return to kickboxing with K-1. Cope is currently an instructor for LA Boxing.

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