by:  Cory Brady

Josh “The Fluke” Grispi may have to change his nickname to “The Phenom” if he ends up looking impressive in his 145 pound fight with Micah Miller on Sunday nights WEC 35 from Las Vegas.

This nineteen year old rising star in the MMA world trains out of South Shore Sportfighting in Rockland, Massachusetts. As of right now Grispi is living with his parents and has no plans of moving out any time soon. When Grispi’s not training at South Shore Sportfighting, he’s putting in hours working for his father’s roofing company where he works long hard shifts from 4:30 am to 5:00 pm. However, if things go according to plan Grispi hopes to train MMA full time in the near future. To think how far his mixed martial arts skills have come while working these hours is remarkable.

It seems like most fighters focus primarily on a single discipline like BJJ, Muay Thai, wrestling or boxing before getting into MMA. This was not the case with Josh Grispi. Grispi started training in MMA at the tender age of 13 and it has been his primary focus ever since. Considering how far he has come in such a short amount of time and considering his young age it is truly scary to think where his game will be five years from now. Josh has stated that he has aspirations to be the youngest guy to ever hold a WEC belt.

Grispi has a wide array of skills and seems to be rapidly evolving into a complete fighter. His wrestling and submission games are solid and his punching power is reported to be freakishly powerful. Having great genes may have something to do with his explosive fists as Grispi is a distant relative of the legendary undefeated former heavyweight boxing champion, Rocky Marciano. On top of having lead in his fists, the fact that Grispi is known to be aggressive and not afraid to take a punch to give a punch makes him a threat to anybody standing in the 145 pound weight class.

By nature Grispi is an extremely shy and timid young man. In High School he dreaded having to speak in front of the classroom and that same phobia follows him into the cage on fight night. Grispi may dread being in the spotlight but there’s one thing he doesn’t dread and that’s the fight itself. All of Grispi’s phobias dissipate and soon as that cage door slams shut and there’s nothing in front of him but the task at hand. Over 90% of Grispi’s fights being finished in the first round is proof enough that Grispi likes to get right down to business.  Grispi’s last fight took place at WEC 32 when he secured a first round rear naked choke on UFC, TKO, and Affliction veteran, Mark “The Machine” Hominick, in Grispi’s toughest fight to date.

Josh has had a five month layoff since his successful WEC debut and looks to make his successful return on Sunday evening against the always dangerous Micah Miller. Miller sports a 9-1 record at 21 years old and trains with the highly touted and respected American Top Team. Miller is known as a lanky and dangerous submission fighter and will most likely try to get this fight to the ground. In anticipation of Miller’s crafty submission game, Josh Grispi has been training with the Lauzon brothers, who are known to be a couple of extremely dangerous submission guys themselves. Grispi seems to be ready for anything Miller plans to throw at him.

This fight will answer a lot of questions about the up and coming Josh Grispi. He has stated that he wants to finish this fight in convincing fashion and if he does, people will be forced to take notice of this young fighter with more than a bright future ahead.

Here’s a highlight of some of Grispi’s fights:

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