Mixed martial arts gyms fight to survive COVID-19

By Ryan Sullivan
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer

Local mixed martial arts gyms and organizations have had a difficult time building back from last spring’s COVID-19 shutdowns because virtual classes do not work in a contact sport that requires members to physically interact with each other to improve their skills, according to interviews with several gym owners.

With traditional gyms slowly opening up across the nation, MMA gyms and organizations face unique obstacles on their quest to normalcy. For example, MMA students need to consistently engage in multiple rounds of grappling – or sparring – in which striking and submission skills are practiced. Unless students can physically engage, there is little reason to maintain membership at an MMA gym.

“I lost about half of my gym memberships,” said Jay Ferrari, owner of Capital MMA Team Takoma in Takoma Park. “I had about 300 members, but a lot of them couldn’t continue because they suffered economic impact themselves.”

Many of these gyms and organizations were closed for several months during the pandemic. In addition, one local fight promotion was shut down for the remainder of the year, echoing the struggles faced by other businesses across the globe.

“This pandemic crushed me for the entire year,” said John Rallo, who owns the MMA gym Ground Control in Rosedale and Shogun Fights, an MMA promotion company that holds martial arts events in large venues across the East Coast. “The entire year was canceled. No shows, nothing. I don’t even know what the status is for next year.”

While larger, national MMA promotions like the UFC have survived this pandemic, smaller promotions like Shogun Fights were forced to cancel events due to local restrictions and regulations.

“I lost the entire year of income for Shogun Fights,” Rallo said. Shogun Fights earns roughly $200,000 to $250,000 for each MMA show, according to Rallo. Rallo said he planned to have three Shogun Fights events this year, which conservatively could have generated $700,000 to $750,000 in revenue.

Shogun Fight’s last scheduled MMA fight event was initially set to occur on April 11 at the Royal Farms Arena. The event has yet to be rescheduled, but Rallo plans to have an event in April 2021.

“I have good confidence that we can do a show in April 2021,” Rallo said. “That’s the objective, but the Maryland Athletic Commission still has to establish their protocols.”

Shogun Fights holds several MMA fight cards each year, like the fight night scheduled for April 11. These smaller events are vital to the industry because they promote the sport and put regional gyms and fighters in the spotlight. Local MMA organizations like Shogun Fights give up-and-coming gyms and fighters the chance to get recognized by national fight promotions like the UFC.

Rallo also said that Shogun Fights holds a charity event every November for Jonathan Ogden and the Jonathan Ogden Foundation. Ogden was a former professional football player. He played 11 seasons with the Baltimore Ravens, and he won the NFL’s Super Bowl Championship with the team in 2001, according to the NFL.

Despite his fight promotion struggles, Rallo’s MMA gym opened up for business in June. Once the gym opened up, students immediately started coming back to the live adult classes.

“The adults were anxious to come back,” Rallo said. “People seemed to be stir-crazy after sitting at home for so long.”

Students and instructors were itching to get back on the mat, and the virtual learning option wasn’t beneficial for some gym owners.

“We did the Zoom thing,” said Julius Park, founder and owner of Crazy 88 Mixed Martial Arts in Elkridge. “But the Zoom thing sucks. Straight up—the Zoom thing sucks. On the first day of class, you’re going to have 20 students; then 10 students the next month; a month later, you’ll have one or two students.”

However, not all the gym instructors interviewed felt the virtual class was ineffective.

“We had a robust kids program, now everything is online,” said Ferrari. “The online kids class has been well received.”

Parents are still apprehensive about allowing their kids back into the gyms, so the online option allows their kids to get active and exercise, according to Ferrari.

Rallo’s gym offered students free virtual classes when his gym was shutdown. But most instructors agree that there is no substitution for in-person instruction.

“You do MMA because you want to have contact with another person,” Park said. “There’s only so much shadowboxing and pushups you can do in your living room.”

Despite the lack of in-person classes during the shutdown, Park, Rallo, and Ferrari said they had students insist on paying their membership dues even while their gyms were shut down.

“It speaks to the type of community these gyms create,” said Ferrari. “There is a sense of being on a team, and that led to a wave of generosity and support for my gym.”

“We have a strong, passionate student base,” Park said. “A lot of them told me they still wanted to pay during the shutdown.”

Although students were clamoring to come back, gym owners faced a new challenge when they were finally allowed to reopen: how to keep their instructors and students safe and healthy during their time at the gym. The pandemic requires an enhanced focus on maintaining a sanitary, safe environment.

“We have professional cleaners coming in, and we’ve updated their services to include a deep cleaning at night,” Park said. “We’ve turned our one-hour classes into 45-minute classes to allow us time to clean everything before and after each class.”

Despite all of the turmoil and additional safety precautions, gym owners are adapting and using new, socially distanced forms of training. Ferrari’s gym has even started using pool noodles to allow his fighters to simulate sparring while maintaining social distance.

“It inspired creativity,” Ferrari said. “We find a way. We can’t grapple, or truly spar, but people can still come in to learn technique.”

And while some students have been apprehensive about returning to the gym, the extra safety precautions these MMA gyms have enacted have allowed some students to return.

“I feel completely fine training now,” said Byung Lee, a Timonium resident and a student at Crazy 88 MMA. “We have our temperature taken each time we come in. And also, we sanitize the whole gym and training rooms very well every day.”

Now that some gyms are opening up, MMA students and traditional gym members can get back to a sense of normalcy.

“I didn’t like not being able to come back,” Lee said. “I was also forced to not work during COVID, so staying home for the whole day was definitely not good for me mentally.”

All photographs provided by Julius Park, founder and owner of Crazy 88 Mixed Martial Arts in Elkridge.