‘When things scare me, I just run at them’: Uncaged Pedro shapes up for fight of his life

Eight weeks away from his professional boxing debut, former UFC fighter Tyson Pedro is about to enter what he describes as “a monk’s life” in Penrith.

He will move out of the family home, settle into a spartan, rented room and start the serious business of transforming body and mind for his greatest challenge yet: facing Australian heavyweight champion Kris Terzievski on June 12.

Tyson Pedro (yellow gloves) with Ibrahim Lane Saipaia at Bro Fit in Penrith ahead of his debut fight. Credit: Dean Sewell

Pedro has already done 20 rounds of hard sparring this week, and on Friday he will face a young, fast opponent, Ibrahim Sapeia, for three supposedly light rounds to finish. Next door to the gym, a business allows people to pay money to take baseball and cricket bats to computers, televisions and plates for stress relief. Pedro is learning how to use his boxing gloves to dismantle opponents.

There is no small talk in the gym; the only sound is the thick sparring gloves on skin and the grimace of a hard shot landing. The session is meant to be focused on movement, but both men exchange hard shots as Pedro recalibrates his distance control that is hard-wired to the dimensions of a UFC octagon and opponents who are ready to kick and grapple with him.

Pedro and Sapeia end the spar, warm down and start swapping notes on what they saw in each other, where the other can improve, and what they felt they could exploit. Slowly, as Pedro warms down, slugging on a huge metal four-litre water bottle filled with stickers of previous training camps around the world, the fighter becomes noticeably lighter. The heaviness of another tough week of training is off his shoulders, but the reality of life as a fighter is still in his mind.

“It sucks every day in there hurting,” Pedro says. “Sometimes you’ll wake up, I’ll look in the mirror and I’ll be like, I don’t even know how I’m going to get to training.

“It’s all part of it. I love the whole idea of it and the person that it makes me and everything, but it’s shit. Any time kids tell me they want to be a fighter, I tell them don’t do it.

“It must be a love-hate thing because, like I said, I love the process; the process is beautiful, and how you become a better version of yourself, and I think I love the idea that you transform every time you have a fight camp, like I become a whole new person every time, and I love that.

“You just change; you’ll go through a whole metamorphosis, whether you become hardened or you might go through signs that change your perspective on something in camp, and I come home and I’m a noticeably different person in some aspect or another.”

After 15 fights in the UFC, training for large periods in New Zealand and competing abroad, Pedro is pleased to finally be based back home in Penrith. At the Bro Fit Gym where he trains, various family and friends park themselves on seats to watch him compete against a variety of sparring partners, including IBF World Cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia. No advice is given, just silent support.

Tyson Pedro shadowboxes at Bro Fit Gym.Credit: Dean Sewell

In the UFC, Pedro learnt about the importance of discipline, not only in his training, but also ensuring he was early for every promotional engagement. Looking back at the ring where he has just spent 15 minutes sparring, Pedro is aware that there is a huge amount of work to do before he steps into the ring against Terzievski for his professional boxing debut.

“My timing’s definitely still not where I want it to be, but it’ll take me maybe two more weeks before it’ll be on,” Pedro says. “I know where my body is at the moment. Even though we’re just starting fight camp, my timing might be off, or my eyesight might be off, but it usually takes me about two weeks.

“This whole process of going in the deep end, of learning a new skill, of being in a new environment and meeting new people, I think I like that more than the actual outcome itself.”

If Pedro can upset the odds and defeat Terzievski, he will win the WBC international bridgerweight title, a division in which his opponent is ranked fifth in the world. Pedro understands what is at stake, and, beyond the potential of fighting for bigger title belts, he is chasing the respect of the boxing community.

Pedro has worked extensively with mental performance coaches and thinks deeply about the realities of his profession. He understands that whether it is the octagon or the ring, he is facing an opponent who is not only likely to hurt him but to cause him mental anguish. He can now harness these emotions as fuel to make him a more complete fighter.

Pedro is adjusting to a new world in boxing after 15 fights in the UFC.Credit: Dean Sewell

“There’s definitely a part of it that scares me; I think the element that you can fail on the biggest stage and I put myself in that position, but it’s not from anyone else but myself,” Pedro says.

“Like this [boxing] scares me. It’s a scary thing, but it’s the same every time I walked out into that octagon; you’re walking out in front of hundreds of thousands of people, in front of your family, and at any second you can get knocked out in front of everyone.

“When things scare me, I just run at them as hard as I can; it’s always been that way with anything in my life. If something scares me, or it feels confronting or uncomfortable, I just run at it head on and it’s always led me to the right decisions or the right pathway. So why stop now?”

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