Jesse Lund blog week 1

Jesse Lund

My name is Jesse Lund, MCC Light Heavyweight contender, who will be fighting Derrick Mehman for the Interim Light Heavyweight Championship, on Wednesday, November 25th at Vets Auditorium. Each Wednesday, I’ll have a weekly blog posted on the MCC website, leading up to fight my fight. I would love to jump right in from the first fight to the one coming up, but for those who don’t know me, here it is.

I was born in North Carolina way back in 1977. I currently live in Greenfield, IA., where I grew up. I have always been competitive in any sport that I participated in, and wanted to be the best at what I was competing in. It started somewhere around 4th grade when I jumped into wrestling. I started varsity my freshman year winning only 3 matches (2 against the same kid). I had second thoughts after that wonderful year, but stuck it out and made it to state my senior year, following in the footsteps of my older brother. I also participated in football where I played middle linebacker and halfback.

After high school I bailed on college and decided to get a job and start my family. I married Teresa in 2001 and we added the first addition to our family, Baylie.  I then picked up stock car racing to fuel my need to compete. I raced hobby stocks for several years in Boone, Jefferson, Stuart, and Corning. I racked up a few wins over the years along with a lot of fun. The birth of our second child Blake, and soon the expensive sport became too much, so in 2005 I gave it up.

During my year off of sports I picked up beer drinking and pizza eating and went from 200lbs to 265ish. After looking at my wedding pictures, I decided that, well, I was FAT! One of the guys that I worked with was just starting to train in MMA, and I figured, why not? I have a few pounds to lose. We trained in the basement of this guy’s house in DeSoto.  Lance Hood, who started training with John Halverson, Danny Anderson, and Ronnie Britt, was now whooping my butt twice a week. At first it was fun. We started off pretty slow with a handful of guys, Jake Brown, Nathan Woosley, Jim & Joe Beason, Jason Hass, Josh “Bull” Christenson, and few of in and out guys. I remember my first sparring session very well. With my wresting background and watching some UFC fights, I thought this wouldn’t be too bad. Ha! Boy was I wrong! I went home with a black eye, broken nose and no desire to ever go back. Once my pride healed, and the nose, I was hooked.

I trained for a year and was slowly getting back into shape. After attending a few fights I really wanted to step in the cage. Teresa didn’t like that idea at all. I took her to a fight in Winterset, which was mainly an amateur card with the main event as a pro fight. I wanted to show her that this was not just a bar brawl and that it was a safe sport. The fights were ok and no one was bleeding all over or gimping around with broken bones, so I was in.

Somehow I ended up with Ryan Hass’s number and called him about getting a fight. I was still around 230, so the first fight would be at heavyweight. About 2 weeks from the fight, Jake “Dirty Bird” Brown and I were training and I kicked him in the shin, breaking my big toe. So my first fight had to be put off until I was healed.

Next week I will continue on with the first fights, and hope that I am not boring the living heck out of everyone!
Jesse Lund

“Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.” – Muhammad Ali