UFC No.10 ranked flyweight Steve Erceg doubles as a trainer in an MMA gym. As such, it’s no wonder he’s always in peak form during fights.
Erceg will face Alexandre Pantoja for the UFC flyweight championship at the main event of UFC 301 on 4 May 2024, at the Farmassi Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The 28-year-old Perth native was a former Eternal MMA flyweight champion in Australia before joining the UFC. He’s fought three times inside the Octagon, winning all of his first three assignments.
Erceg was a young kid when he watched WWE star Brock Lesnar make his UFC debut against Frank Mir at UFC 81. After watching the fight Erceg fell in love with mixed martial arts and knew right there and then that it was something he wanted to do.
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When he turned 18, he asked his father if he could train in mixed martial arts and his dad took him to an MMA gym. That’s when he met his current coach David Wilkes who Steve said was surprised when he told him that he didn’t just want to train, he wanted to train to fight.
“When I said I wanted to fight, I think it sort of took him by surprise too. And he goes ‘Look, if you’re going to fight, you need somebody to hold pads and coach you. Do you want me to do that for you? And I said, ‘I’d love it if you held pads for me’.”
“So, twice a week, every week he’d hold pads and all that sort of stuff in the lead-up to the sparring day. I had my sparring day; it went well and then we kept doing the same thing [going forward].” Erceg said.
Aside from training Erceg, Wilkes also gave his pupil a job at the gym as a trainer. That’s why when it comes to working out, Erceg is a fighter who is always in tip-top condition. However, unlike other fighters who publicly display their workout routine, Erceg prefers to train in private and doesn’t post online videos where he details his day at the gym.
Looking at his Instagram account, however, there are several videos where Erceg can be seen working out in the gym doing battle rope, stationary bike workouts, and other strength and conditioning stuff. There’s no question he’s a gym rat and in one of the videos, he revealed that two days after going home from his last fight, he was back at doing the grind. Hopefully, all the hard work pays off at UFC 301.