Photos by Mike Calimbas and Paul Erickson (Texas MMA Photographers)
Top-Ranked Middleweight Ready To Show He’s Vasty Better Than His Record Indicates; Takes on Larry Crowe At Legacy FC 21
As part of this card Texas MMA fans will get to see the return of Bubba Bush (5-2) a regional prospect who has the fighting skill and subsequent potential to make it to the championship level that is a lot brighter than his 5-2 record implies.
Fighting out of Brazos Valley Mixed Martial Arts (BVMMA) in College Station, Bubba has taken somewhat of an untraditional path to get to this point of his career. Unlike many others in his position, he didn’t methodically plan his ascent up the MMA charts right from the get go.
With a successful background wrestling in Virginia’s AAA division as a high school kid (he was once ranked third in the area’s 189 lbs. division and eventually made it to first while competing for Woodbridge) before moving to Texas, Bubba would try his hand in MMA way back in the early days of Legacy, back when it was known as Lonestar Beatdown in early 2007. He dominated that matchup but would not compete again for the next three years.
Sooner or later, the itch to compete came back for Bubba Bush and he wasted no time seeking the toughest tests he could be matched up with. In only his second fight as a pro he fought and beat seven-fight veteran Chris Spicer. That led to his epic showdown with Team Tooke’s Andrew Craig, who coincidentally went on to experience an amazing run of success culminating with his signing to the UFC where he fights Chris Leben this Saturday at UFC 162.
Looking back at that fight though and it was easy to see that both men, not just Craig, could fare well given the right breaks towards their UFC aspirations. Despite Craig’s 4-0 record going in, Bush would take the fight to his more experienced opponent, using his wrestling to ground him and pound him and make it a really close fight that could have gone either way had he not gassed and forced the ref to call a stoppage to the bout late in the fifth and final round. Call it a bad break, call it a learning experience, or call it a clean-up loss to a UFC-caliber opponent but the point is that, with that fight, Bubba Bush showed immense potential as to what he could do down the road.
Nowadays Bubba is well on his way to his planned destiny, a far cry to ‘trying his hand’ at the sport back when he began in April 2007. He’s seeking out and regularly training with top-caliber training partners that can give him a taste of what it’s like in the big league, including former oppoent Andrew Craig along with other Texas-based UFC fighters like Tim Kennedy and Colton Smith. He’s also worked with other high-level individuals when it comes to coaching as well – seeking out guys like noted-trainer Saul Soliz and Jarrod Clontz in order to expand on his skill set beyond his grappling in preparation for a run at the top of the middleweight division.
As for Legacy FC 21 on July 19th, Bubba Bush will have Larry Crowe to deal with, and the Legacy middleweight title will be on the line. At 6-2 and with a history of fighting at both heavyweight and light heavyweight before making the drop to middleweight, Crowe is as strong a physical specimen as they come regionally at middleweight. He’s nobody’s walk in the park and scored a spectacular TKO win over Matt Rogers in his last outing so with that that being said, he should provide as good a test as any to show where Bubba Bush is at right now with his MMA skill set and where he’s going in the near future.
Make sure you tune in to watch Legacy FC 21 on the 19th because he may not be a fighter you want to miss.
TXMMA Images – Documenting Bubba Bush’s Career
