Overlooked in the discussion of World Series of Fighting’s top acquisitions since the promotion’s inception is recently crowned featherweight champion Rick Glenn – a fighter who maintains a successful fighting career by working multiple day jobs, one of which includes scrubbing restaurant floors prior to going to the gym.
It is small price to pay, according to the Roufusport product, to maintain his livelihood and stay hungry in the competitive MMA environment.
“It keeps me humble,” Glenn told BloodyElbow.com. “I do some personal training, clean carpets and scrub some nasty restaurant floors – stuff like that – but it definitely keeps me humble and helps me make a little extra money.”
Apart from his daytime job, or several of them, Glenn is also a husband and father, which only adds to his daily responsibilities outside of MMA. However, this has not stopped him from completing one of his best training camps to date in preparation for his first title defence at WSOF 16.
It was a dietary change, in particular, that made all the difference for Glenn.
“Training camp has been great; gone a lot better than in the past. I’ve switched things up and have started working with a nutritionist; that has really helped.
“I walk around pretty big for a 145-pound fighter so I switched some things up. I’m a little lighter during this camp. I have a lot more energy and things are just a lot sharper now.”
Glenn, who won the World Series of Fighting featherweight title in last fight against Georgi Karakhanyan, is now scheduled to defend his crown for the first time against a touted opponent in Lance Palmer. The wrestling-based Palmer trains out of Team Alpha Male – one of the more notable camps for the lighter weight classes. Glenn’s preparation for the fight was exactly how one would expect it to be.
“I’ve been focusing on a lot of wrestling,” Glenn explained. “I’ve been preparing for him for quite some time now actually – just doing a lot of wrestling. I worked with Ben Askren and the Pettis brothers and got my time with the coaches.”
Palmer lost his WSOF debut to then-champion Georgi Karakhanyan – his first and only loss in a 9-fight career to date. He has since rebounded with a submission win over Nick LoBosco to put his record at 8-1. However, based purely on his talent and abilities, Glenn does not consider the Team Alpha Male product to be much different to his earlier opposition.
“We’ll have to see when we start fighting. As of right now, I don’t (consider him to be my toughest match-up). He’s got good wrestling, so I’ll have to watch for him taking me down. I expected to fight him somewhere down the road and here we are. I’m looking forward to it.
Glenn has not lost in 13 fights spanning over the past four years. His only partial blemish during that period was a draw against Ryan Roberts back in 2011. While that is an impressive streak worth building upon, if only to raise one’s stock, Glenn simply won’t allow himself to succumb to the pressure behind the record.
“Of course I want to win but I’m just going in there and thinking about kicking ass. I’m going to be whooping up (sic) on him.”
Although WSOF has recently been subjected to negative publicity due to conflict with some of their talent roster, they still managed to build several stars in the organization. Yet, while names such as Marlon Moraes and Justin Gaethje come to mind immediately, fellow champion Rick Glenn has proven to be a harder sell.
“I sense that,” Glenn responded when asked about his lacking fanbase. “Maybe I just don’t have enough fans or something. I just need to keep building my fanbase.”
With two fights remaining on his contract, one of which takes place on Friday night, Glenn plans on fulfilling the deal before pondering his future. While he admitted to being “happy” and “grateful” under his current employers, he hinted that his future may lie in a more challenging promotion.
“I want to fight the best in the world and the best fighters are in the UFC. It was a five-fight deal that I signed with WSOF and I just have to take it one step at a time.”
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