It’s pretty common for successful adults to talk about how sports helped make them the person they are today — whether they are a CEO of a company, a school teacher or a professional athlete.
Saco residents Ryan Crosby and Jen Davis, who are engaged, are certainly in the camp that believes sports help turn young boys into successful men — it just so happens that one of the sports their sons compete in isn’t very common.
Stepbrothers Dyllan “Demolition” Davis and Karter “Chaos” Crosby are competing in the mixed martial art of pankration, which is similar to what people see in the UFC, but only allows kicking and striking from the collar bone down.
Davis, who moved to Saco in July, has been thrilled with the impact pankration has had on her son.
“Part of the reason I love this sport is he has a plethora of positive male role models in his life,” said Davis, who raised Dyllan by herself for most of his life. “He’s super disciplined. (He was an) honor roll student, National Honor Society down in Massachusetts. Everything has been held to a high standard and all his coaches have held him in check. I’m super thankful for that being a single mom raising a boy.”
Davis knows some people, who haven’t done any research on the sport, will call her and Ryan crazy for letting their kids fight.
“It was the best decision I made putting him in (pankration),” said Davis. “Hands down one of the best things I’ve ever done for him. I defend myself in my decision constantly because the sport has such a bad view and rap from everyone else.”
Davis and Crosby, both students at Saco Middle School, are set to compete tonight in Temecula, California in a United States Fight League event called “Hendo’s Fight Night.”
Part of the reason they are fighting in California is the sport is currently not sanctioned in most states — even though all the elements of pankration are allowed in places like Maine separately.
“They can box. They can do muay thai. They can do jiu jitsu. They just can’t do it all together,” said Ryan Crosby.
Some would hear youth MMA and believe injuries must be pretty common, but that’s not the case according to Ryan Crosby.
“Believe it or not the USFL has been around for 15 years and out of the thousands of fights that they’ve had there has been 123 injuries — and I think the biggest injury they’ve had is a broken wrist,” said Ryan. “It’s really safer than almost any school sport, but it’s just the stigma of fighting.”
Dyllan picked up pankration five years ago — and once he got over the initial nerves, he was hooked on the sport.
“I almost didn’t even walk in,” said Dyllan on his first pankration fight. “All you see is the lights. I looked over at mom and then all the sudden I went from like tears to feeling like a warrior or something.”
Karter’s first fight came in 2016 and he would quickly learn he could handle it.
“In the locker room I was just sitting down and looking outside and I’m like ‘I’m about to fight.’ I was really nervous and then they had me warm up in the backstage,” Karter recalled. “They had me hitting mitts because (coach) Shaun (Durfee) went out with me my first fight. He just told me to go out there and do the best you can. I went out there and exchanged a couple kicks with the kid and took him down with an arm bar in the first round.”
One thing that has helped the Saco brothers improve in pankration is the sport of wrestling, which they both picked up in recent years.
“It’s helping me a lot in (pankration) and it helped me in jiu jitsu a little bit too just being faster and having more stamina and a faster pace,” said Karter. “Kids who don’t wrestle, you can see a difference. If your grappling for three minutes on the ground and stand back up, the kids who don’t wrestle just let you (have your way).”
“It’s something that you need to be tough in the sport and it’s something you can base off of which is nice,” added Dyllan. “I feel like it helps me the most with takedowns and it helps me with pressure.”
Crosby and Davis both wrestle for Saco’s Trojan Youth Wrestling and Doughboys Wrestling, which is an elite club out of Massachusetts.
“(Dyllan) progressed very quickly (in wrestling) and they both like to learn. They are both very coachable. They like the learning process and they understand ‘oh if I learn this, it’s going to translate here,’ because they’ve done it in their other sports,” said Davis.
The young fighters have been training in a fight camp since August to get ready for tonight’s event — and they are thrilled to be able to experience that together for the first time.
“It’s been great so far. All the practices have gone well,” said Dyllan, who will have coach Jake Pilla in his corner tonight. “It’s cool to do it with somebody. It’s a lot more like if I’m falling behind, he’ll push me to get going. (If) he’s falling behind and I can push him to keep going.”
“It’s definitely fun. Having a relationship with your training partner is definitely a cool thing,” added Karter.
The brothers split their time during fight camp at different facilities — Sityodtong Boston for striking, Doughboys for wrestling, strength and conditioning at T1 and jiu jitsu with Nate Libby — in order to get the best training possible.
“Their fight camp was no joke. It’s five to six days a week at the hardest places we can go … we’re putting them in those situations because when they get in that cage, that kid’s in there to win. It’s not just like a training session,” said Ryan.
While the boys are training together, the family has made a promise that they would never compete against each other.
“We made a deal that they would never have to fight each other. If it comes down to wrestling, jiu jitsu, fighting, if it comes down to a final match they do rock, paper, scissors and they leave it at that. That’s it. At the end of the day they still have to go home,” Ryan Crosby explained.
Both “Chaos” Crosby and “Demolition” Davis are hoping pankration will lead them to the top level of MMA someday.
“My whole path right now is Combat Zone for my amateur and CES MMA for my pro and hopefully I’ll get picked up by UFC,” said Dyllan.
“I’m just going to try to make it to the UFC. That’s my goal,” added Karter, who will count on coach Allen Berube tonight in Temecula. Berube is also the Saco youth wrestling coach for both brothers.
And people in the UFC are certainly hoping kids like Dyllan and Karter can eventually make it, according to Davis.
“The (UFC) understands that this is the next generation of the sport,” said Jen.
Whether or not they make it to the big time in MMA, Jen and Ryan are confident their sons’ time in pankration will teach them how to be successful in life.
“My job as a parent outside of sports is to prepare him for life and this sport has 100 percent helped me do that,” said Jen. “Team sports are a great thing, don’t get me wrong. (Dyllan) enjoys being able to play soccer. He enjoys the team aspect of wrestling, but unfortunately in today’s world, when you grow up and you’re an adult, you’re in it yourself. You don’t find that team thing, so I think that’s another aspect I like out of it is they’re going in there and they know if they win, it’s on them. If they lose it’s on them. There’s no excuses. I like that because that bleeds over into life when they’re older — if you screw up it’s on you, if you’re successful, great, that’s on you. Just for the self confidence the kids build and the discipline, it’s worth it.”
NOTE: You can follow Crosby and Davis on their Facebook page “Brothers That Brawl.”
— Sports Editor Pat McDonald can be reached at pmcdonald@journaltribune.com or at 780-9017. Follow the Journal Tribune Sports Department on Twitter @JournalTsports.