Finnish light heavyweight prospect Marcus “the Caveman” Vänttinen (21-3) makes his Bellator debut on the friday’s Bellator 66 event. The event has a stacked card with middleweight tournament semi-finals on it and of course the super fight between Eddie Alvarez versus Shinya Aoki as the main event of the night. In his Bellator debut the young Finn meets American John “Big” Hawk (6-4, 1-1 in Bellator). Now it’s the perfect time to get know the Caveman a bit better.
Following text is based on an article that was published in Finnish in the FightSport magazine in 2011. Original article by Tuomo Kiiskinen. Published in co-operation with FightSport.fi.
Strong background in sports
Marcus Vänttinen’s athletic career started with something completely different from fighting: competitive orienteering (that’s running in the woods with a map and a compass for those who don’t know the sport). In high school Vänttinen together with his friends tried different combat sports before sticking to Muay Thai at the age of 15 and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu a year later. In the first grappling training session Vänttinen showed his persistent nature:
“I wanted to learn how to grapple so I asked the guys if I could join and I did. They choked me unconscious over and over again when I refused to tap out. “ says the Finn with a laugh
Despite of the rough start Vänttinen continue to train at the Alliance Porvoo (previously known as BJJ Porvoo and NHB Fight Club Porvoo) and developed new skills at a really fast pace. One reason for the rapid development was the amount of work he put in it already as a teenager:
”After school I went to lift weights then it was time for Muay Thai and the evening ended with a grappling practice.”
Teenage kicks
In 2004 after just few amateur fights under Shooto rules, Vänttinen decided to go pro at the tender age of 17.
“I won by an armbar in one and half minutes. After that win I had the feeling that I can do this; that this is my thing. The feeling made me train even harder training. In my first fights I really didn’t have a lot of skills but I had the right attitude. Before losing for the first time I won eight consecutive bouts and all by finish. Now when I think back it would’ve been wiser to have a proper amateur career before turning pro but back then it just wasn’t possible in Finland.”
The first seven bouts were fought in the heavyweight division.
“I don’t even know why I fought at heavyweight when I didn’t even weight over 100 kilos (222 pounds). I guess it didn’t seem reasonable to diet down when I had the strength to deal with the bigger guys even if they weren’t exactly world class.”
At some point his little brother Johan Vänttinen, who now has a 7-2 pro record at welterweight, became important also as a training partner:
”In the beginning Johan’s training was more of an on-off type of thing. We lived with our parents and trained grappling techniques even at home. We watched tons of fight videos and tried to learn from those. PRIDE was bigger than UFC back then. My favourite fighters were Wanderlei Silva, Ricardo Arona and Igor Vovchancy.”
In 2006 the 19 year old Vänttinen won the Fight Festival’s four man open weight tournament. Before the final Vänttinen asked coaching from renowned striking coach Mika Pietilä, who himself won the Muay Thai amateur World Championships in 1999.
“Before the Open weight tournament I asked Mika if he could teach me how to hit and kick in a more refined way. Quickly after that he became my fulltime striking coach.”
National defence as a hobby
In Finland all young men still have to serve in the military and Vänttinen is no exception to the rule. On the contrary: since he was a kid he knew that he wanted spend the time in the army as a paratrooper ranger. Even though the hard training in the Special Forces meant a year away from MMA, according to the Finn it was well worth it.
“I had been interested in the paratrooper squat since I was a small kid. I had heard a lot of stories about the unit and I wanted to get the most out of the time in service. Mentally I grew a lot during that year and I think it was very beneficial to me. After that kind of training you don’t complaint about little things when you have been through a lot harder situations.”
Even in the army the eager young man had chances to compete:
“I wanted to participate to as many sports I could in the army championships. I won Greco roman wrestling and boxing and in indoor rowing I was third. In freestyle wrestling I was fourth because I didn’t even know the rules and tried to use BJJ techniques like pulling guys to my guard” sneers Vänttinen.
The young Finn still participates in the national defence events as a hobby
”I have been to marches and cross country ski trips. As a paratrooper ranger I have to go to the recapitulation training quite often and I have been there as a volunteer too. “
The rise of the Cavemen
After the military service Vänttinen focused completely on the MMA career. The money from the fights was poor and there were hardly any sponsorship available at the time so the young man had to earn a living by working as a bouncer and at the constructions. On top of work he was training twice a day. After going through a year with this schedule Vänttinen suffered the worst set back of his career: a serious knee injury. Vänttinen was on a training camp with Mikko Rupponen in Netherlands at Gegard Mousasi’s gym when both Finns blew their knees within five minutes. After the surgery done in Finland the doctor said that the complete rehabilitation of the knee would take at least a year. But Vänttinen did the rehab exercises rigorously and the results were amazing.
”Before the surgery on the knee I was doing a lot of thinking on if I would like continue with MMA. But then the rehab went extremely well and just three months after the surgery I asked the surgeon for permission to fight in boxing.”
The Caveman is widely known for his enthusiasm with food and diet. It was the unlucky trip to Netherlands where his interests in nutrition stems from.
“Mikko Rupponen had a pretty strange diet at the time and it was quite different from my more traditional athletes’ diet. I was curious of Rupponen’s diet and asked him a bunch of stuff about it. After the surgery I had time to read about nutrition and the paleolithic diet. It made sense to me so I changed my diet instantly. I believe this was one of the reasons why I recovered so fast from the injury. When I returned to training I noticed that my stamina had improved and I felt sharper in every way. I’ve continued to study this issue and tried almost all the things out there.”
Now days Vänttinen’s personal diet is a mixture of different dietary approaches. He gets his meat, goat milk and eggs straight from the farms and veggies from the producers at the market place. Little brother Johan has a superfood store that sponsors the Caveman with the supplements.
“Most important attributes of food are quality and origin. My current diet is compiled of parts from paleo diet, raw food, intermediate fasting and superfoodism. It also varies with the seasons. This works for me but not necessarily for everyone which is why I don’t give out exact guidelines for other people. Some get by with low carbs, some need a lot of carbs. The only advice I would give is to stay away from processed foods and focus more on organic stuff.”
A good student
Behind Vänttinen’s great record and success in MMA is a huge amount of dedication, determination and hard work. For the past couple of years the young Finn has focused completely on training and improving as a fighter. Even though Porvoo is a small town of just 50000 inhabitants, Vänttinen’s gym Fight Factory has been able to assemble a high quality team of trainers. At his home gym he gets to enjoy coaching from various experts: striking with Mika Pietilä (Muay Thai world champ) and Jaakko Dahlbacka (Muay thai national champ, Fight Festival vet) and grappling with Brazilian Rogerio Rocha and Delcio Pereira who are both BJJ black belts. In addition to training at Porvoo, Vänttinen also travels around Finland to get high quality sparring. Training camps in Europe and USA are also a part of his training regime. Vänttinen’s head coach Jarno Nurminen (6-2, M-1 & Bodog vet) is based in Tampere (250 km from Porvoo) but he is an important element of the team.
“Nurminen is on another level as a cornerman. He has a calming effect on me and he knows how to boost my confidence during the fight. He is a bit of a father figure who takes care of me and who I can also train anything with. He is a big dude himself so he knows what works for us big guys and what doesn’t.”
The fighter plans his own strength and conditioning training:
“I got a good base for stamina from orienteering so I don’t specifically train that too much. I do a lot of basic lower body movements like deadlift, squat and clean. Also I really like the gymnastic type body weight exercises (westside barbell gymnastics) that you do with for example pull-up bar and still rings. Circuit training is a part of my S&C program too.”
Coach Jarno Nurminen is pleased with his student:
“Marcus is a very good student in a way that he does what I tell him to do. It’s easy to coach a person when you don’t have to argue about how to do things. On top of that he is a very good athlete who is always in extremely good shape and is strong for his weight class. He takes care of his conditioning and doesn’t get crazy with alcohol and so on, so I don’t have to keep an eye on him. During the fight he pays attention to his corner’s advice. From the outside I can see what should be done to improve the position and Marcus follows the instructions. I believe he has a good chance of being successful in Bellator. If the improvement continues, we could see him in the UFC in the future.” says Nurminen.
Bright Future Ahead
The young Finn is living his dream now. MMA is the thing he wants to do as long as it feels good. Some people have criticized his career choice of being too dangerous one.
”Of course there are risks involved in this sport but that’s the case with any other sport. I have also decided that I won’t fight forever. If there will be many consecutive losses, I’ll quit. I’ve been thinking that maybe I quit when I’m thirty since I should’ve made it quite far by then if I have what it takes. I see myself going far in MMA. I’m going to keep training and fighting as long as it’s fun. If I ever have to really force myself to train, I know it’s time to hang up the gloves.”
Vänttinen can’t name one single reason why he is one of the first Finns breaking into the international level of MMA.
“I got good mental qualities; I don’t give up. I’m not super skilled in any area but with Forrest Griffinesque work rate I will be successful. We have built my career intelligently. Also I think there’s more demand for big guys than for lightweights.”
The Bellator’s light heavyweight tournament start on 22th of June at the Bellator 71 event where Vänttinen is matched up with Brazilian Phelipe Lins (5-0)
“I’m going there to win the tournament and get that belt. I believe that I got a pretty good chance.” says the confident Finn.
