Red Dragon chases MMA dreams overseas

06/25/2024 

The dream of becoming a professional mixed martial arts fighter is taking the 20-year-old president of SUNY Cortland’s revitalized Jiu Jitsu Club around the world.

Last summer, SUNY Cortland junior exercise science major Michael Pichardo of Bronx, N.Y., went on a two-week excursion to Japan. That trip spawned a desire to return to Asia just months later to train in muay thai, a Thai martial art, as the youngest fighter in the class.

This summer, he will be traveling to Columbia for a mixed martial arts retreat led by Corey Sandhagen, the second highest-ranking bantamweight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and then on to Greece for another martial arts training. In November, he hopes to return to Thailand.

“Look at what I clearly just got from Thailand,” he said, explaining his traveling training schedule. “Apart from the skills I got from it, the relationships. What can I get from Colombia? You know? Building the connections I could possibly have with Cory Sandhagen or his team or other fighters I meet there and just seeing how much further I can go.”

Pichardo’s passion for martial arts is reflected in his numerous activities on campus. In addition to running the Jiu Jitsu Club, he also works with SUNY Cortland Recreational Sports,  and holds boxing, kickboxing and striking classes in the Student Life Center.

Pichardo had the opportunity to travel to Thailand as part of a muay thai retreat led by Jeff Chan, a professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter for the One Championship, the biggest MMA promotion outside the United States.

A YouTuber with quite a large following, Chan also trains at his home gym in Brooklyn, N.Y., Glory Martial Arts. Pichardo, away at Cortland, found Chan through his YouTube and became a fan of his techniques and fights.

Chan promoted his trip to Thailand on his YouTube channel and Pichardo was set on going the second he heard about the opportunity.

“This is Thailand. This is the motherland. I’ve always wanted to go to Thailand, especially to train Muay Thai,” Pichardo said. “I know it’s something that would elevate my game being able to train with Jeff, specifically, someone I’ve been a fan of.”

Pichardo communicated with all his professors and got the necessary approvals. The psychology minor saved, budgeted, and took extra shifts working at the Student Life Center (SLC) to pay for the cost of the trip, his flight and miscellaneous expenses. It was a bit tight during the semester, but it didn’t matter; Pichardo was going to Thailand.

He joined Chan and about 40 other martial artists for 10 days in Bangkok, at the Khongsittha Muay Thai gym for detailed training, striking and sparring.

“It was definitely a life-changing experience,” Pichardo said. I felt truly happy because when I was there, I wasn’t worried about anything. I was 13 hours ahead. I kind of was completely out of the loop of school, and all I really focused on was training.”

He immersed himself in martial arts while in Bangkok. He participated in training sessions led every morning and evening, mixing in sessions with the local muay thai trainers in between. And once a day he sparred with the other fighters on the retreat.

Pichardo sees the trip as a glimpse of the ‘pro fighter lifestyle’: training, exploring the city, grabbing food, and training again. To many, it’s exhausting, but to Pichardo, it was a dream.

Then 19, Pichardo was the youngest and most inexperienced of the fighters. The ages ranged from early 20s to mid-30s, with fighters hailing from many different disciplines of MMA, including many pro fighters.

Instead of being intimidated, that environment lit a fire under Pichardo to soak up as much information as possible.

“These are the guys to look up to, to pick their brain, train with them, pick up stuff from them,” he said.

“Seeing how they all carried themselves, how they trained, how I fared up against some of them — or just how day-to-day, how I felt like I was growing, learning the techniques that Jeff was showing us. It made me super optimistic and made me more confident in my dreams and skills.”

Reaching his goal of being a professional MMA fighter will require years of combat experience. Luckily for Pichardo, once he returned from Thailand, he competed in a jiu jitsu competition with SUNY Cortland’s Jiu Jitsu Club – that he runs.

Shifting from an intensive week-and-a-half with a complete focus on muay thai back to jiu jitsu would be a difficult task for anyone. Pichardo was no exception. Still, in only his second jiu-jitsu tournament ever, he finished with a decent record of 3-2 on the day.

Five of his club members medaled at the event, including two gold medal finishes.

 “It was super satisfying to say, ‘Wow, like our club did that,’” said Pichardo, who helped rebuild the club since joining two years ago as a freshman.

Currently a blue belt, Pichardo runs most of the training for the members.

He initially joined the club to continue training when away from home. Unfortunately, fresh off the COVID-19 pandemic the club suffered low numbers, and the members weren’t very experienced. Now, members are trained well enough to help him with sparring.

“Clearly something is working if some of these people have only experienced ju jitsu through us, and now they’re thriving in those types of environments. So that was one of the cool moments where I thought, ‘I gave them this opportunity to do this, and all of them just ran with it.’” 

Pichardo, a white belt at the time, quickly took the role of teaching techniques to the rest of the club during his second semester at Cortland. Since then, he’s moved up the ladder, becoming vice president and now president.

Over the past two years, he’s grown the club’s membership and his brand on campus in the process. Pichardo worked hard to improve the club’s social media, recording and editing videos, making graphics, and documenting major events on social media. Every opportunity he gets, including class projects, he finds a way to bring up MMA.

He described himself as SUNY Cortland’s ‘Combat Guy,’ a reputation he’s earned through years because of that promotion, teaching, and outgoing personality.

“The classes allow to me reinforce the training because I’m someone’s source of information,” he said. “So, it’s just going to constantly keep me having to keep improving my skills and then providing these skills to other people.”

During breaks from Cortland, Pichardo trains at Chan’s gym. One day, when Chan was resting and had the opportunity to observe Pichardo in training, Chan told him how much better he had gotten since Thailand, saying, “you’re moving, really smooth, really sharp” and “Surprised that you’re not at a gym training.”

Chan ultimately invited Pichardo to come on another training trip to Greece this August, and potentially a return to Thailand in November.

This summer, he’s also going on a weeklong retreat to Columbia led by UFC fighter Cory Sandhagen, the #2 ranked fighter in the Bantamweight division.

Sandhagen has a long, lanky body type, someone Pichardo frequently studies. Going on this trip would be another dream of Pichardo’s to come true. But, getting a spot on this trip would be way more difficult than Chan’s, given the larger status of the fighter.

After spamming applications and emails to no avail, a Thailand connection saved the day. An MMA fighter friend Pichardo met in Bangkok who vouched for Pichardo’s work ethic and promise led to his acceptance.

“It was just crazy to think, ‘If I never went to Thailand, I (would) have never had this experience or this opportunity.’”

Pichardo is training hard to be in prime form for both of his upcoming trips. Making a good impression could be monumental for a young fighter down the line.

He views his senior year as an opportunity to leave an indelible legacy.

“I want to leave something here that people can keep building upon,” Pichardo said. “I did so well so they could run with it. So, in fact, those are really my next steps. Just making sure I lay the foundation for my underclassmen to keep growing.”

Prepared by Communications Office writing intern Jean-Andre Sassine ’23, who is pursuing a Master of Science in Sport Management at SUNY Cortland