Lincoln Fight Factory – The Home of Champions

“The lads in the gym are a joy to train.  They all work so hard on their own and together.  When one lad has a fight they all run together, spar together and pad together, as a coach it makes my job a hell of a lot easier,” said Burton.

“If fighters are prepared to do their own fitness work, mainly running, it allows me and Aaron to look at the finer details of the fight, devising a game plan to combat their opponents strengths and also enhance my guys skills.”

“It is important any fighter who wants to succeed monitors their own weight and diets as I do not see them 24/7, if they want the best results they can achieve then they need to watch what they eat and drink, this is the hardest thing for any fighter and the one thing I have no control over, it is all down to what they want from the sport and how far they want to go.”

“They need to be dedicated 100% if they want to fight, they need to run and run a lot.  At the minute all the fighters are going out together before the classes, this puts my mind at ease as I know how important road work is.  All the lads running together shows the great team spirit we have at the gym, it is like one big family,” added Burton.

Lincoln has always been a hot-bed for breeding successful fighters in many fighting arts.  The likes of Lee Swaby, Kelly Oliver, Mark McCreath and Tony Dowling all competed at a high level in boxing, mixing it with some of the Britain’s biggest names such as David Haye and Enzo Maccarinelli over the last 15 years and Steven Swinburn is making waves in the current paid ranks, Leigh Edlin is doing his thing in the Thai Boxing scene, winning English and British titles and Burton’s gym has a huge list of champions – Callum Thompson and Piotr Bulczynski the latest names to be added to the honors role.

So what is it that makes the small city of Lincoln such a fighting success?? 

Speaking for Lincoln KBA, Burton is very clear, “if one fighter starts to hit a winning run, it isn’t long before it filters out to everyone else in the gym, the confidence and hunger is clear to see in my current stable of fighters, who really are making a name for themselves.  We had Callum win the ISKA British title in March and Piotr Bulczynski win the EFK Midland title in May, as well as Aaron Robinson falling short in an ISKA World title fight in Ireland, a fight I feel he would win if we were to get a rematch.”

“On our last promotion, my team took 9 wins, 1 loss and 1 draw, all in tough fights, this is unheard of for a gym unless matches are hand picked, but mine weren’t.  My lads just train hard, want to learn and want success.  We have several other fighters such as Timo McGuire, Wiktor Gornicki, Tom Scutt, Dan Travis and Sergio Garcia all on the fringe of championship fights, 2012 will be a massive year for the camp,” claimed Burton.

So what is next on the title scene for this championship winning team? 

Sergio Garcia travels to Scotland next Saturday to fight for the Golden Belt Commonwealth title against Jamie McGinness, the following weekend sees Aaron Robinson is in Bristol as he takes on kickboxings most dangerous puncher, Ryan Edmundson for the WRSA European title and the week after that Callum Thompson fly’s to Ireland to face Sean O’Neil for the IKF 5 Nations title.

After the summer holidays Shawn Burton has a huge line up of fights, starting with a fight in Norway and then the WAKO-Pro European title fight in September, before he fights for the ISKA European title in November,  Callum Thompson meets the only fighter who can contest him for the British number 1 spot, James Grindley, for his IKF British title in September and in October Aaron fights in Scotland for the WKA European title against old foe Sam Allan.  This run of fighters could cement the Lincoln Fight Factory’s dominance of the fighting seen in the UK.