Vision Mixed Martial Arts

Vision MMA began with just a small group of great friends that loved training together. Anthony Smith and I were the first two “unofficial” members. We trained at Loveland High School five days a week. We always used the wrestling room. When Anthony moved to Atlanta for his job, I was devastated. Right before Anthony moved, Dustin Winterhalt had moved to Cincinnati from New York. Then Dustin and I trained constantly. From that point on, our “unofficial” member numbers began to grow. Roger Bowling, Justin McElfresh, Jordan Sullivan, Mickey Berwanger and Marcus Worrell started training with us on a regular basis. Sometimes we would have ten to fourteen guys in the wrestling room. Everyone trained really hard and we had a blast. We would go to competitions and would win five for five or six for six. We didn’t lose often. I felt that we could beat or compete with anyone. When wrestling season was getting ready to begin, I knew that it would put an end to our regular training routine.  It was then that Dustin and Roger told me that if I opened my own school, they would follow me. It was such a compliment that out of all the great schools in the area, two of the best fighters around were going to choose me. It was an awesome feeling. They believed in me and I believed in them.

Immediately I started looking at possible locations and spaces for our gym. I decided that it needed to be a central location. I was in Loveland, Roger in Amelia, and Dustin was in Kentucky. I eventually found a place in Oakley. It was an old warehouse that was used as a lawn mower repair shop. It was filthy, grimy, and run down…but we loved it. I walked in one day before we finished cleaning it up and Dustin was sitting on a chair just starring. I asked what he was doing. He said he was picturing what this place was going to look like when we got finished.  He was smiling and so was I. We all worked on the building together. We scrubbed the floors, painted the walls, tiled the bathroom and built a subfloor under the mats. The best part was fencing in the entire warehouse so the whole room was caged in. I knew from the beginning though, that we had more than just a gym. This was our extended family and no one was going to beat us or shut us down.