“Those who know how to win are much less numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories.” -Polybius (200-118 BC), History, and Bk X, 36
At the Bellator 160 Open Workouts this past Friday at Metro Flex Gym in Long Beach, Pro MMA Now’s Phantom Street Artist had the opportunity to selectively interview amateur wrestling sensation Joey “Black Ice” Davis who will make the transition to professional mixed martial arts later this month.
Davis is an outstanding 4x NCAA wrestling champion, who as a student at Notre Dame College of Ohio won the Division II championship with an unblemished 133-0 season. Joey Davis, barely out of his teenage years, captured the National Championship laurel as a Freshman in fitting form as his victory painted a deeper significance with a greater allegorical testimonial narrative. In his senior year Davis had Destiny as his true companion, in winning his 4x NCAA championships, but the metaphysical odds for a near fall with no escape from his upbringing were inevitably stacked against him a million to one.
The Victory was more than a win but a poignant vindication of how Joey overcame a life of insurmountable obstacles and endless adversities where many children like him in inner cities are victims of impoverishment, prostitution, gangbanging, family disputes, crime and drugs. His childhood friends on the other hand were taken down in being awarded as only statistical reports of individuals who were either dead or rotting in some isolated penal colony and institution, but it was Joey Davis who remained defiant of the odds, indifferent to perdition, untouched by social stereotypes in standing strong against racial prejudicial and bias. It was Joey who chose not to become profiled like many of his contemporaries’ peers who became social outcasts, or marginal youth who failed at integration. Numerous school playmates were ultimately sentenced to State correctional facilities and reformatories in being denied freedom but not this wrestler, as Joey’s victory carried with it a Message of Promise and Hope…
Joey’s driven accomplishment did not come easy, as he was recognized as the number one high school wrestling recruit in the nation as a misnomer who came from the infamous city of Compton which is not known for the sport of wrestling but more for DRUGS, GANGBANGING and DRIVE BYS. Compton doesn’t even have a junior wrestling program. Joey’s victory made a statement across the nation as he chose not to be victimized by its streets but elected to conquer and BEAT THE STREETS.
Today Joey is welcomed by the Bellator MMA fight organization where he will debut as a professional mixed martial arts cagefighter on Aug. 26, 2016, at the Honda Center in Anaheim.
I had the opportunity to catch up with him at his Bellator Open Workout…
Check out our photo gallery from the Bellator open workouts for more shots of Joey Davis.