TitansMMA and Boxing
TitansMMA and Boxing is a full service Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Mixed Martial Arts and Boxing gym. While also catering to the fitness focused hobbiest, Titans is at its core a fighters gym. Fancy fitness equipment and posh accoutrements are replaced by hard work and dedication. Trainers and students at team Titans hold a host of regional, national and international combat sports titles and awards.
Peter Martell: Mixed Martial Arts
Peter Martell grew up in a rough neighborhood, not unlike the rough neighbourhoods you find in any major city. With an army base, a naval base and a transient population of fishermen and seasonal workers and bikers, the city was filled with men who worked hard, played hard and, when the mood struck them, fought even harder. Growing up in this frontier-town environment Peter developed a fascination with fighting. As a teenager, that fascination quickly grew into an obsession with martial arts. Without any formal training he started learning Brazillian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) by studying books and watching pirated video tapes. With no other way to solve the problems that BJJ presents he would often lay awake in bed for hours, night after night, week after week playing the moves over and over in his mind until a solution presented itself. Frustrated by a lack of training partners, his training took a drastic change after he heard about the Gracie Challenge. The Gracie family, the founding fathers of BJJ, offered to pay $10,000 to anyone who could beat them. Issuing his own challenge, Peter challenged the students and eventually the instructors at all the local martial arts schools to a no-holds-barred fight. The only stipulation was that they could use any technique to beat him, but he could, under no circumstance, hurt them. Time and time again he submitted student after student and instructor after instructor. Out of these matches he found students, training partners and eventually friends. With a new-found stable of training partners, he was now able to hone his skills. Working in one of the city’s roughest bars Peter soon began putting the skills he developed in the gym to real-world use. After work was finished for the evening, he would pronounce that he could beat anyone in the bar in under 60 seconds. There would always be a line of willing challengers. They always lost. Wanting to take his training to the next level, Peter eventually flew to New York to study with the legendary Renzo Gracie. After several trips to New York, Renzo became not only his trainer, but his friend and mentor. Eventually receiving his black belt from Renzo, Peter opened his own Renzo Gracie BJJ school in 1994. With a solid base in BJJ, Peter began adding additional skills to his arsenal, acquiring a black belt in Tae Kwan Do while studying boxing, and Mauy Thai. After adding the bridging techniques of catch wrestling, dirty boxing and physical conditioning, he had developed the perfect recipe for the emerging sport of mixed martial arts. For the past 15 years Peter and his partners at TitansMMA have been training MMA fighters. Furthermore, after writing the rules, training the officials, and lobbying government to legalize the sport, Peter began promoting MMA events under the Extreme Cage Combat (ECC) banner in 2006. TitansMMA fighters have had a great deal of success in national and international BJJ competitions and also hold several belts in a number of MMA organizations. Fighters from the highest levels of the sport routinely travel to train at TitansMMA and Titans fighters regularly travel and train and broaden their knowledge. Now married with young children, Peter is anxious to begin training his children.
Kevin Taylor: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
Kevin Taylor has been training martial arts for more than 25 years. Starting as a Judo player when he was 12 years old, Kevin soon began studying Hapkido, obtaining his blue belt before switching to World Tae Kwan Do Federation style Tae Kwan Do. After obtaining his black belt, Kevin spent the next eleven years studying and teaching Tae Kwan Do. During that time he won 5 provincial championships in the black belt division. Wanting to broaden his combat sports experience, Kevin also began studying boxing and eventually kickboxing. Then, in 1996 he watched the first Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event and his definition of ‘fighting’ changed forever. He purchased magazines, instructional books, and video cassettes in order to learn the art of ground fighting. Inspired by what he learned from the Gracie instructional series, Kevin flew to New York to study Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) under celebrated trainer Renzo Gracie. Finding himself completely outclassed by the much smaller, but more knowledgeable Matt and Nick Serra (both blue belts at the time), Kevin was hooked. He switched to training BJJ full time. After only 2 years of training, he placed second in the Canadian BJJ Nationals in 1998. Now, with more than 15 years, and over 10,000 hours of BJJ study behind him, Kevin is revered (and his students would say feared) as the head BJJ coach for TitansMMA.
Tyson (Prince of Hali) Cave: Boxing
Tyson is one of Atlantic Canada’s most decorated amateur boxers. In his amateur career, Tyson won 160 of his 176 amateur fights. He is a 5 time Maritime and 5 time Canadian national champion and has been crowned the Nova Scotia champion 9 times. At age 16 he moved to the senior division and became the first Canadian to beat then champion Dominic Phelan, a 10 time Canadian champion. He has qualified for the Canadian Olympic boxing team on two separate occasions. In 2002 Tyson traveled to England to compete in the Multi-Nation Games and became the first Canadian to win boxing gold in fifteen years. After a broken hand forced him to give up his spot on the 2004 Canadian Olympic team, Tyson decided to turn pro. He currently holds a 16 – 2 professional record and is the current Canadian champion, North American Champion and reigning WBC Continental champion. Tyson recently opened his own boxing gym and is pursuing his dream of training and mentoring the next generation of Nova Scotia boxers.
