Porterville's Shane Christie looking to finish 2023 with a win and stay active in 2024

It is fight week in the Central Valley! A double dose of MMA mixed into the Holiday eggnog to get the Christmas festivities started. 559 Fights and Urijah Faber's A1 Combat team up to bring you back to back MMA events at the Visalia Convention Center in Visalia, Ca. Starting on Friday December 22nd 2023 with 559 Fights 102. The following night, Saturday December 23rd 2023. A1 Combat comes to the Visalia Convention Center for the first time for A1 Combat 16. Tom Anderson and the crew have a nice card wrapped up with a bow for the Central Valley MMA fans to finish off the year.

The A1 Combat Lightweight title will be on the line in the main event when (14-3) Alex Sanchez  takes on Gilroy's undefeated (4-0) Anthony Figueroa. Many local fighters will be competing on the A1 Combat 16 card Saturday night in Visalia. One man that will be keeping a close eye on the result of that lightweight title fight and the division, is Porterville's (1-0) Shane Christie. Tule River Tribe's Shane Christie is a former 559 Fights champion returning to the A1 Combat cage looking to end the year with a win. I was able to catch up with Shane prior to his second pro fight coming up.

"I’ve been doing good. I’ve just been staying in the gym running my same routine every week, getting ready for the fight." said Christie to start off when asked how he has been.

Aside from his gym routine and work, Shane also enjoys riding horses when he has spare time. He mentioned he grew up riding bulls and horses before doing any MMA, so it explains his strength and calmness when it comes to entering the cage. I asked Christie how his training has been over at his home gym Crisp Kickboxing Muay Thai & MMA in Visalia? He responded with,

"Training has been really good. During my time off from my last fight my coaches have been working a lot more on my offensive striking. I’ve also been working a lot more on my athletic performance outside of martial arts. Such as moving faster, getting stronger and being more agile."

As Shane mentioned, there was some time off this year from competing, too much time In his opinion.  Christie fought four times in 2022, then moved onto the pros where he picked up an impressive win at A1 Combat 10 in his pro debut in April of this year. Christie and his team have been waiting and ready for action since. Saying,

"If I had it how I wanted it, I would have had one or two more fights this year. I didn’t want to take so much time off, but just due to issues getting matched up, and people pulling out of fights. I haven’t been able to be as active as I would have liked. It did give me a lot of time to improve my all around MMA skill though, so it wasn’t a completely bad thing. A1 is a pretty good professional promotion, but I wish I could have been on a couple more of their cards this year."

It is expected in the fight game, things go wrong even up until fight night. Besides that, it's always going to be hard to convince someone to come fight a Central Valley kid like Shane Christie. The opponent he was originally set to face had to back out and Shane didn't hold back when it was brought up saying,

"I was supposed to be fighting Michael O’Leary, but he pulled out the week before the fight with stomach problems. We prepared all camp for him and that was going to be an easy 1st round finish, but now I’m fighting a guy named Gary Evans. For this one I’m going to be fighting at 165 instead of 155. I think this is going to be a pretty simple fight for me. I just got to go out, do what I train for, and I’ll walk out with a round 1 TKO."

Christie now takes on (0-2) Gary Evans at a catch weight at A1 Combat 16. I asked Shane about his future in the sport, of course he wants to be more active. He finished up by saying,

"I plan on staying ready to fight all year. I hope to get 4 fights next year, and end the year at 6-0.To my new opponent I got a lot of respect for you for signing up to fight me on a week's notice, but at the end of the day you're just here to take the loss. Thank you to all my sponsors, coaches and family. On fight night you can expect me to get in and out of there within the first three minutes of the fight. I don’t plan on being in there any longer than needed."

A1 Combat 16 goes down Saturday December 23rd 2023 from the Visalia Convention Center in Visalia, Ca. Tickets available now at www.eventbrite.com/e/urijah-fabers-a1-combat-16-visalia-tickets-720540083787?aff=oddtdtcreator

A1 Combat 16 card:

A1 Combat Lightweight Championship (14-3) Alex Sanchez  vs (4-0) Anthony Figueroa

(14-8) Jacob Rosales  vs (9-6) Kevin Boehm

(7-3) Jose Avalos  vs (4-2) Abdikabyl Kaldar

(2-1) Brock Dias  vs (4-2) Isaiah Batin-Gonzalez

(0-0) Enoch McCottrell  vs.  (1-0) Brandon Spencer

(Pro Debut) Lazarus Maldonado vs (0-1) Alex Mosier  

(Pro Debut) Martine Sandoval  vs (Pro Debut) Amor Valentine

(Pro Debut) Adrian Silva  vs (1-3) Joseph Ramirez

(1-0) Shane Christie  vs (0-2) Gary Evans

(1-3) James Porter  vs (1-2) John Wadkins

Check out A1 Combat at www.a1combat.com on Facebook@ www.facebook.com/CaliMMApromoter on IG@ www.instagram.com/a1_combat

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By: Daniel "Trip" Quintana www.noweakshitever.com