The South Bay Bull, a Brief History of the MMA and the Founding of Triton Mixed Martial Arts Training Center By Tony Ballejos

  To say that home grown Redondo based family man and professional combatant John Marsh looks like a fighter is a vast understatement. If a brilliant DNA geneticist, or better yet, film director James Cameron was to CG I create the perfect human fighting warrior specimen; muscular, Brahma bull-like strength and physique, a lightning fast and forward offensive—yet bobbing defensive style, punches that move in blurs, big (6’ 0” 230 lbs.), yet like Iron Mike Tyson in his prime, compact and hard to hit. All this, of course would have to be seriously honed and melded with bone crushing grappling and jiu-jitsu skills, the sum total of Cameron’s digital creation would probably favor this world class Mixed Martial Arts competitor and Redondo Beach Gym (Triton) co-owner. It would be one of Cameron’s great heroic creations because adding to the mix, and in contrast to a significant number of ruffians who compete in the MMA, Marsh is articulate, kind of shy, razor sharp and charismatic. Like the late-great Alexis Arguello, a rare gentleman in a sport filled with literally the toughest and baddest dudes on the planet.

  A life long South Bay and Beach Towns native, John’s Father Terry owned Marsh Welding on Rosecrans in Hawthorne with his brother and John’s Uncle Larry . He is half German and half Mexican and attended Hawthorne High where he was a straight arrow Varsity wrestler and then went on to compete in the sport at El Camino College where he studied Business. After College, Marsh worked security for Grammy Award winning Rapper Producer Dr Dre along with local security pro and noted instructor Mike Sherod. He also worked a management stint at a Wireless Company where he was fortunate enough to meet his future wife, Emily. By the early nineties the world of Martial Arts was about to change radically, thanks, in large part to an expansive family of Battling Brazilians. Very soon, the veritable ‘call to action’ harkened, and the call proved far too overwhelming for the stifled corporate employee and overworked body guard.

  The UFC (The Ultimate Fighting Champion) was the first event and the impetus for the booming sport of Mixed Martial Arts. A spectacularly exciting and violent, “no holds barred” sport that pitted different styles of Martial Arts against each other and soon overshadowed traditional boxing in mainstream popularity. By the early nineties the people were getting bored with traditional boxing and its lazy Lennox Lewis’ and Michael ‘Less Is’ Moorer’s safety first style. Paramount to that, the flagrantly corrupt promoter Don King controlled most of the sport’s top fighters, which had fans questioning certain decisions and the politics of the sport. We wanted straight-up, non-convoluted, non-stop blistering action, and lots of it. When Brazilian jiu-jitsu and vale tudo practitioner and businessman Rorian Gracie hooked up with erstwhile ad executive Art Davie, along with Wow Promotions and SED, they put on the first pay per view UFC competition in 1993, and the fans were hungry for it. Privy for the first time to Rorian’s half brother, the amazingly gifted, scrappy and relatively diminutive 27 year old and now South Bay based Royce Gracie, the world was enthralled and fascinated by his ability to force into submission top Martial Arts competitors that outweighed the 178 pounder by as much as 80 lbs. The Gracie Style of jiu-jitsu, also known internationally as Brazilian jiu-jitsu, was amazingly effective at using bigger opponents own weight against themselves, as Royce so vividly proved. At this point, John Marsh knew his days were numbered in the corporate world and shadowing overpaid Rappers.

  The incredible, legitimately mythic story of the legendary, four- generation, infinitely large and exceptional brood of ground-breaking Brazilian jiu-jitsu and vale tudo competitors, the Gracies, would be too unbelievable in narrative and as characters in a film or novel. The seemingly hyperbole fable would project as way beyond plausible because of the family members accomplishments, the shear sizzling volume and the sibling macho poetry of the tale, yet astonishingly, it is entirely true. There are currently about 50 active world class fight competitors that can connect their chromosomes directly to the original brothers Carlos Sr. and the late great (deceased 2009) Helio Gracie and their Father Gastão Gracie Sr. This unparalleled fight dynasty began in 1914 with Carlos Sr., as the oldest boy, being given private secular jiu-jitsu lessons from well known Japanese expert and Good Will Ambassador Mitsuyo Maeda as a favor to Gastão for his kindness to the insecure Japanese immigrants that arrived in Brazil in the early part of the 1900’s. Carlos Sr. in turn gave lessons to Helio, who was the youngest and because of his slight frame and ill health was known as the runt of the litter. Helio just watched his four brothers train for a few years until one day he took over one of Carlos’ student’s lessons—who ironically preferred Helio to Carlos. Paradoxically, Helio’s undersized physical stature was the key to the invention of the Gracie Style of jiu-jitsu, in that he had to come up with effective techniques that would compensate for his lack of strength and size, that or be murdered by Carlos Sr.  Gastão and Carlos’ fortuitist relationship with Mitsuyo Maeda and later Helio’s genesis of the Art were the original embers that ignited far and away the greatest and largest family of Martial Arts competitors the world will ever know. By the early 90’s they had already made a global name for themselves by self producing a series of videos, The Gracies in Action and featuring The Gracies and their customized style of jiu-jitsu defeating various Martial-Arts masters. Concurrently, Marsh had never stopped training and studying Martial Arts, wrestling and boxing. He was working out hard and absorbing everything he could from the most respected instructors and competitors in the industry, like local instructor Bo Hershberger whom he trained with for 15 years. He also learned Ground Striking techniques from noteworthy teacher John Sibbald. After seeing Royce compete he longed to fight as a professional and intrigued with The Gracie Style jiu-jitsu and MMA, he completed the transition at 23 years of age as Marsh, unbeknownst to him at the time, would become one of the significant pioneers of the new sport. He made his pro depute thereafter.

  Marsh wracked up an impressive six submission wins in his first six fights—a remarkable achievement in this brutal and hyper-competitive sport. To put this in perspective, even the great Randy Couture lost two of his first 6 fights by submission and still went on to world shaking accolades. Marsh was soon beating established top ranked competitors like 260 lb. Wesley ‘Cabbage’ Correira by unanimous decision. By this time, Marsh more than realized his dream of a winning MMA record and studying under, not only Royce Gracie, but three-time former heavyweight champion and two-time light-heavyweight champion of the UFC the aforementioned Randy Couture. Eventually he acquired his black belt in jiu-jitsu and was loaning his magnificent skills to organizations such as the UFC, Pride, and now defunct IFC, Marsh, a devoted family man with two kids, Wyatt 8 and Sydney Jane 5, felt the most satisfaction from teaching his Mixed Martial Arts and Eastern thinking slanted philosophy to all interested students.