At fifteen years old, Simon Marcus was all but written off already. A wild and rebellious youngster, he had no interest in education and no respect for authority. After yet another incident, he found himself expelled from high school, but he wasn’t concerned. At that point he was mentally inclined towards life on the wrong side of the law.
His mother had different ideas however; school would remain a presence in his life until the law decreed otherwise. And so a high school was found which would take the young tearaway in. Marcus was ambivalent towards this resuscitation of his educational opportunities, but fate had something else in store. Around the corner from his new school was a Muay Thai gym, and it was the decision to show his face in there one day after school which would turn out to shape his future.
“That nickname speaks to my past. Growing up as a kid I didn’t like authority; I was always fighting, always against the grain. As a teenager I didn’t see myself being a professional fighter or having any kind of career, so I was in trouble with the law a lot. I got myself in a lot of trouble with the law actually. So that’s why they called me Bad Bwoy,” he says.
“‘Bwoy’ is how they pronounce boy in Jamaica so that’s where that comes from, my heritage. It means a lot to me. I grew up in a West Indian home, being strong, being tough. I am proud of who I am and what I represent. I am proud to represent Canada as well. We aren’t a country known for fighting but the real fighters here are able to grow and find their way to the top regardless.”
In all honesty, Marcus’ exposure to Muay Thai was not an immediate revelation. He started training enthusiastically but his mindset was still not correct. He did make it through high school, but then not long afterwards he found himself spending three months in a young offender’s institution after a violent incident.
Upon his release, he saw things differently – resolving to calm down and to channel his aggressive tendencies into a more appropriate channel. He filled his life with Muay Thai, training relentlessly at Toronto’s Siam No.1 Gym under a trainer who convinced him that he had what it took to become the best in the world. Marcus, hungry for direction, took him at his word.
Sure enough, his amateur career quickly met with success, placing at three international tournaments in quick succession and also capturing a North American championship. At the age of 22 he turned professional and went on a run of wins which would bring him, in 2012, into the fledgling Lion Fight promotion and into a clash with Joe Schilling in Las Vegas.
The fight was billed as determining North America’s best fighter at their weight; Marcus and Schilling agreed to a ‘winner takes all’ purse in which the winner would take the loser’s purse and the loser would walk away with nothing. The stakes were high and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the fight was heated. Marcus won by stoppage but Schilling’s team appealed, unsuccessfully, for the Nevada State Athletic Commission to overturn the result due to what they claimed was an illegal throw preceding the finishing blow.
To address the controversy, a rematch was ordered three months later. It was a lot closer but Marcus still emerged as the winner by majority decision, cementing himself as North America’s best. He then set his sights on being declared best in the world, and achieved that with a win over Artem ‘The Lion’ Levin early in 2013.
By that point GLORY had commenced operations, replacing K-1 as the world’s premier kickboxing league. Schilling and Levin both signed with GLORY and the organization courted Marcus. At first he wasn’t convinced, but gradually he decided that he would become the best in the world under kickboxing rules as well as Muay Thai.
His very first fight under kickboxing rules was against none other than Schilling, by that point his bitterest rival. It took place in the quarter-finals of the GLORY 17 Last Man Standing tournament, the winner of which would be crowned middleweight champion of the world. The fight was an absolute war and an immediate Fight of the Year contender. It went to an extra round before Marcus was felled in the midst of an attempt to fell Schilling, who would go on to lose a decision to Levin in the final.
He would bounce back the following year at GLORY 20 Dubai, traveling to the Middle East to win two fights back-to-back (against Wayne Barrett and Jason Wilnis) to secure himself a title shot. His performance in the tournament indicated that he had already overcome some of the hurdles which face the Muay Thai fighter transitioning to kickboxing, where the clinch is limited and the pace is faster.
The shot came at GLORY 21 San Diego, a month after Dubai, and the champion Levin was roundly criticized for spoiling tactics throughout. He was docked one point in the middle of the fight for excessive clinching and could easily have been docked a second later on. The referee let it slide though, and the result was a majority draw on the judges’ cards, leaving the belt with Levin.
Marcus was apoplectic; he stormed from the ring in a haze of profanities and refused to address the post-fight press conference. He also chose to sit out and wait for a rematch with Levin, sidelining him until February of this year. The rematch took place at GLORY 27 Chicago, and was also controversial; Levin picked up right where he left off in terms of clinching tactics and the referee quickly docked him two points.
That, plus a dubious knockdown call, was enough for Levin to call it quits. He stopped fighting and, in the strangest scenes yet seen in a GLORY fight, climbed out of the ring and walked off. He was of course immediately disqualified, passing the title to Marcus by default. Marcus was not at all upset by the manner of his title victory, instead relishing the occasion of “seeing him break” mentally.
“He said the first fight didn’t count because it was all clinching. The second fight comes around, the judges save his ass. The third fight comes around and it’s all clinching, clinching – from him. I’m not the champion because you gave up? Because you quit? I have never seen a champion quit like that. That is not a champion’s mentality, that is not a champion,” he snapped.
On Friday, Marcus will make his first defense of the belt when he faces Dustin Jacoby at GLORY 30 Los Angeles. Jacoby is riding a five-fight win streak into the match with all five wins by way of stoppage. For Marcus, it is more than just another fight. The world title represents everything he has worked towards, and the very thing which saved him from a life on the other side of the tracks.
“It is a blessing. It was a long journey to get here. Coming into GLORY I had my eyes set on one thing and that was the GLORY World Championship. There is nothing else I fight for except to be the best – being champion is everything, so to be here defending the belt is right where I planned to be and I am very grateful for that,” he says.
“Dustin is a good fighter – you can’t take anything away from a guy who is on a winning streak like that, but I think it he will find himself in a different ballpark when he steps in against me. Dustin is going to get dusted.”
GLORY 30 Los Angeles takes place this Friday at the Citizen Bank Arena in Los Angeles, California with Marcus and Jacoby in the headline slot. Their fight airs live on ESPN 3 and on tape-delay on ESPN 2, while the preliminary GLORY 30 Superfight Series card airs live on UFC Fight Pass. That features Joe Schilling’s rematch with Jason Wilnis, plus the debut of women’s standout Tiffany Van Soest.