The Unstoppable Train

“I truly believe that no one on the planet is f***ing with me in my division. That’s it.”

You sure about that?

"Hell yea. I’ve knocked out many men. I’ve defeated over 100 men in battle that’s a good number, you can directly link me to many men that’s been dropped.”

What is it you have?

“Something about it--when I touch you--something about it, your brain just starts to reboot, goes into naptime. If I touch you, it’s to hurt you; if I hurt you, it’s to end you. It’s real s***, the damage is real. When I step into wherever I step into, I’m already thinking nobody can f*** with me, nobody, nobody on the whole planet earth.”

When a does the character stop and the real person begin? He could seem for all the world like he’s putting it on: the long, drawling southern accent spliced with vocabulary that would make a pirate cringe, the short shorts brazenly donned for any occasion and the swaggered walk that seems to scream “Man, I just don’t give a s***” Stephen Colbert might even break character before this re-manifestation of Ric Flair would ever let you see his feathers get ruffled. Fresh off his first M1 Global win in Kazan Russia, Title Trainer and uber-trash-talking professional fighter Nate Landwehr, aka Nate the Train embodies every element you could possibly want out of a person who makes their living knocking people out in front of crowds of screaming fans under stage lighting. They say don’t flex if you’ve got it—but maybe in Nate’s case that’s a bit of a misnomer; because the man who seems to be all talk, is all action too.

How many average people sitting at home watching UFC take one look at the heaving forms of sweaty bloody men pummeling each other in a caged octagon and think, “Meh, I could do better than that”? That’s exactly what Nate did, he got one wiff of professional fighting and walked away from his track scholarship from his college in Kansas right then and there—a normal life just wasn’t for him. “Sometimes you find something and sometimes something finds you,” he told me. “That happened to me coming in to this sport; I just fell in love with it.”

Since he first started down this violent path eight years ago, the golden boy athlete transformed into Nate the Train, a 145 pound featherweight powerhouse steamrolling his way to become the top ranked fighter in Tennessee and is now gaining recognition on an international scale.   

“When you’re a professional fighter, it’s not a lifestyle, it is life,” he explained. “To me, fighting is the same thing as breathing to a normal person—I don’t have to turn a switch on, I don’t have to think about it.”

Nate’s style in one word: savage. He has what a lot in the industry like to call a granite jaw, he can take a lot of licks with extreme resilience—but he’s even better at dishing them out. To put it simply, he’s a brawler. Favorite method: standing fights—face to face, fists of fury--he goes in there and just scraps. Although he has honed his skills throughout his amateur and professional fighting career, you could say that he's more of a hard rock than a polished stone; and what he has can’t be taught.

“It’s just as easy as walking, talking, breathing--whatever it is—punches, knees, elbows--whatever you have to do at the time. Like I tell people, when I throw a right hand, it’s just a right hand--whatever it needs to turn into to land--if It needs to be an uppercut, a hook, a 45-degree angle--whatever it needs to be at the time it is because it’s just all instinct and it’s all natural.”

And honestly, it’s not hard for Nate to back up all that talk. His professional record now stands at 9-2 coming off of his most recent win in Kazan Russia—in an arena notoriously hostile for foreign adversaries and up against a higher ranked fighter, combat sambo master Mikhail Korobkov who had a record of 13-3. As the Title family gathered around the TV’s in the Clarksville club eagerly watching through clenched fists, Nate’s momentum stalled in round one as he fought to ward off the expert grappling techniques of Korobkov. But by round two, the true ferociousness of Nate the Train was finally unleashed, knocking out Korobkov in little more than a minute—followed by a celebration backflip destined for use in a hundred GIFs and even more flagrant verbal barrage for the eagerly waiting microphones.

Perhaps almost equal to his fighting skill—the charisma and showmanship that follow are an incredible asset to Nate’s career. The courage to get up in front of hundreds of people (with even thousands more watching around the world) and fight a battle with outcomes yet to be determined takes incredible courage. While many others wither under the spotlight—Nate basks in it. “I’m not going to lie, I like to show off,” he told me. “Growing up I was known for three things: sports, showing off, and fighting--and I just kinda combined it all into one little f****ing thing--I just do it all at one time, major swagger you know.”

“Fighting is the most purest thing that you can do, there’s nothing purer than fighting,” he said with a slight glow in his eye. “Two men locking horns in a fair fight—and I’ve gone international now--coming from a small town in Tennessee that happens to be in the US and I might be fighting anybody else from a small city from any country on any continent."

“It’s the ultimate of ultimates, there’s nothing above fighting--except for murder. There’s nothing, that’s it--and you can’t just go around murdering people. If I could have a fight to the death I would probably do it if they paid me.”

Really?!

“Yea I mean it’s enticing, I really like to battle and basically MMA is to me it’s a simulation of what would happen if we was about to fight to the death,” he explained. “If you knock somebody out, you choke somebody out, you break somebody’s arm they’re not necessarily out but that’s the beginning of the end.”

Nate believes that these are the years that he will look back on for the rest of his life—being paid to travel and seeing the world with his beautiful wife Robyn all while conquering the fighting world on a global scale. “There’s nothing that I think I was supposed to do besides this—plus I get to do what the f*** I want to do any day of the week,” he boasted. “I don’t answer to no man—I’m the president, the CEO, the product…everything--and I take major pride in that s*** you know what I mean.” And it’s only up from here--his next M1 fight is set to take place in Moscow on November 10—and he couldn’t be more confident.

 “I’m gonna be fighting this cat named Viktor something,” he laughed with a wave of his hand. “Can’t really pronounce his last name--really doesn’t matter...I’m going to knock his ass out.”

Article by Kirsten Hall