X-treme Combat in the Northeast Kingdom

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Created on Monday, 14 March 2016 15:52

Written by Morgan Vaudrien

LYNDONVILLE- The Armory in Lyndonville was filled with fans on Saturday night for the X-treme Combat competition.

Mixed Martial Arts Fighting, or MMA, is a style of fighting combining different forms of martial arts, mixing both striking and grappling techniques that occur standing up and on the ground.

Kathy Fitzgerald, a Vermonter, has made it possible for locals and amateurs to have an opportunity to participate in this sport and be within traveling distance from their families and fans to come watch, with her promotion company, X-treme Combat.

"We're here a couple times a year, and we highlight local fighters," Fitgerald said. "Being amateur fighters, they don't get paid for fighting, so a lot of times, family and friends can't travel to go see them fight. So, when we bring the forum here, all of their family and friends can get here, they live here."

Fitzgerald created X-treme Combat five years ago, after working for a separate promotion company doing their matchmaking a year prior. X-treme Combat is the only promotion company in Vermont, and it is unique in the sense that the company travels from venue to venue, all across the state -- from Rutland, to St. Albans, to Barre, and even right here in the Northeast Kingdom.

"We're pretty much all over the place," Fitzgerald said. "We've tried to reduce the number of shows because we also have full-time jobs, and this is just kind of our thing we do on the weekends, but we keep getting presented with other places to go. It seems like we just keep getting busier".

Seeing that Fitzgerald's sister has a past in martial arts, and her brother-in-law recently retired from the UFC and now owns fighting gyms around the country, Kathy is no stranger to the world of fighting.

"I didn't know a lot about the sport per say," she said. "I was mostly networking and those kind of things, but the more I got involved, I could just see more opportunities."

Fitzgerald says she believes that this organization sows many benefits, especially giving young fighters people to look up to in both the cage, and within the lifestyle.

"There's a lot of good role models here, it takes a lot of working out, eating right, exercising," Fitzgerald said, referring to Mike Ruetz, a fighter who she says has been a good role model. "A lot of these kids look up to the guys who get in here, it's kind of like the UFC, you see it on TV or whatever, but when it's in your own backyard it's different."

X-treme Combat is a for-profit organization, but they do hold 50/50 raffles at the shows. The half of the proceeds that is not awarded to the winner of the raffle is donated to Relay for Life, an organization Fitzgerald says has been close to her heart after her mother died from cancer.

X-treme Combat will return to the Armory in Lyndon for  another night of mixed martial arts this summer on August 27.