Interview – Seth Daniels of Fight to Win & the Upcoming 2011 Texas State Championships

April 13, 2011 – In the past, I’ve often stated that it’s important to learn about the people you are forming relationships with. That holds true for people like friends, lovers, and family… but it also holds true for those you give you hard-earned money to, particularly when watching or competing in combat sports.

With that in mind, I like to interview MMA and BJJ promoters every once in a while so fans and competitors of these sports can get a look behind the curtain, so to speak, and gleam some insight into the backgrounds of those pushing these sports forward, or back, as any case may be.

This time around, we interview with Seth Daniels of Fight to Win.

A long-time resident of Katy, TX prior to moving to Colorado, Seth has a lifelong history in martial arts himself prior to foraying into event promotion with both mixed martial arts and grappling. He now runs double-duty, often competing on the mats while simultaneously managing the business off them.

As the man behind Fight to Win, Daniels has promoted events in multiple states. In particular, he has made a name for himself here in Texas, along with Brett Boyce, in promoting their joint F2W/WGC events in recent years, including the upcoming 2011 Texas State Championships, set for Saturday, April 23^rd, in Spring, TX.

I recently had the opportunity to explore Seth’s background within martial arts with an eye towards our readers to get to know him and his business a little better prior to the upcoming tournament, where you’ll likely see him rolling along with the rest of the advanced competitors at the Legends Sports Complex.

As always, enjoy the inside look and we’ll see you guys on the April 23^rd!

Seth, before we get into your MMA/BJJ events, can you tell our readers a little bit about your background in martial arts as a whole? When did you begin training?

I started Judo when I was 5 years old. At the age of 12, I moved to Katy, TX and began training judo with Paul Thomas. After winning multiple Judo national titles I turned my attention to wrestling. I won the 2000 high school Texas state wrestling championships, followed two weeks later with the high school Judo championships. After high school I moved to the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, CO to do Judo. After a few months suffered a few big injuries requiring surgery so took some time off which ended up being 6 years. After a stern talking to by Paul Thomas and Brandon Mullins at a bar on Christmas 2005 I decided to get into BJJ  and MMA at Colorado Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, where I train at least 4 times a week. I fought some MMA didn’t really like it so I used my business background to start Fight To Win.

What’s been your proudest personal achievement in martial arts?

Even though it’s not really martial arts, winning high school wrestling state championships hands down. Other than that, I would say taking silver at Pan-Am’s and bronze at Worlds for no-gi in 2007 and 2009 respectively.

You’re originally from Houston, right? What ties do you have to the area?

I grew up in Katy, went to high school there and trained judo.

What brought you to Denver?

I came to Colorado for the Olympic training center moved to Denver due to the job I had at the time.

How did ‘Fight to Win’ come about? Can you give us a little history on your company?

Fight to Win came about to fix what I saw wrong in Tournaments and MMA in Colorado. The people running these types of events had no experience in the sport and where only doing it to make money. They were over charging and under delivering. I decided to shake things up offer affordable events for the fighters. We never knew what the company could do or the direction, we started with $2000 and no equipment, we are still broke but we have some cool toys. In regards to MMA there were a lot of crooked things going on in Colorado so we decided to have a basic principle to put fighters first, be honest and everything just fell into place. We got the best fighters, from the best teams and the support of the community and the rest was history.

Why are you passionate about promoting MMA / BJJ events? How do you compare the two?

For MMA it is more of a show to me. The stress is much greater mainly due to the financial risk, but we are constantly trying to push the envelope with the themes we do, performance aspects, production elements and great fighters. Tournaments are much more enjoyable for me because I am a BJJ guy. I like watching it, teaching it, and competing in it. Being around the tournaments often is like being a spectator at a huge seminar learning from some of the best talent in the world for free.

Most people around Texas know you for your F2W / WGC tournament series you put on along with Brett Boyce, who filled us in on how that came about. What are your own goals for your tournaments?

We want to continue to provide a great experience for our competitors and coaches while keeping our events at an affordable price so everyone can attend. We would like to continue to do roughly 6 to 7 events a year and hopefully grow to 1000 competitor events from the 600 or so we average now.

That last one, the 2011 Austin Open had something like 630+ competitors. Although it ran smoothly with 8 mats going the whole day, the event ran past 6 o’clock. Are you expecting that many for the TX State Championship on the 23rd and what steps have you guys taken to make sure the competitor experience is a good one?

Yea we never expected that kind of turnout for Austin. I’m not complaining about having that many competitors but it definitely was not our best ran event. For Houston we are expecting nearly 1000 competitors. We are in Legends sports complex which is huge, we will be running 12 mats with 16 or so referees. We anticipate the day to run extremely smooth and for everyone to be out no later than 4pm.

Overall, why should BJJ’ers and grapplers want to do your tournaments?

Because they will be treated fairly, we will do our best to ensure everyone has the best experience possible, while keeping money in their pocket.

Thanks for time. Any last words for anyone in TX and CO and anything else you’d want to add for the MMA / BJJ community out there?

We really appreciate all the love and support we have received from all of the schools and look forward to growing together.