Teen fighting his way to the top
Chaning Hommel kicks high during a training session with coach Murat Keshtov. Photos submitted
By Tom Victoria
Chaning Hommel is fighting for what he wants. The teen is training to become a mixed martial arts fighter.
“I'm looking to hit the UFC,” he said. “I've been training for six years, and that's just been my goal the entire time is to do that.”
Since the UFC doesn’t let anyone under 18 compete, Chaning has more time to hone his combat skills.
“My background is mostly kickboxing, but I do MMA, so I do all of it,” he said. “I've been doing kickboxing; it's got to be three years now.”
Chaning, 15, of New Jersey explained what drew him to MMA.
“I've tried almost every sport you can think of under the sun and I just didn't like it,” he said. “But then I tried this and I love it. It's that weird thing that you can't explain. You're tied to it and you really, really love it and just want to shoot for the stars with it.”
Wrestling was one of the sports Chaning tried.
“We did for a little bit and I wasn't really a fan,” he said. “I'm not that much of a fan of grappling. I'm more of a stand-up guy.”
“You do it for so long, you get immune
to it and
your body conditions.”
Chaning draws a crowd of his four-legged fans.
Chaning said a fighter’s body becomes accustomed to the punishment.
“The more you train, the more you get kicked, the more you get punched, the more you kick people, everything hardens over time,” he said. “I used to get punched in the nose and I tear up and all this stuff and I get up. But now, it's you do it for so long, you get immune to it and your body conditions.”
Chaning said how well people handle blows to their bodies, especially the head, varies.
“It can vary depending on the person, depending on how good your chin is,” he said. “I train with multiple guys where you could tap them in the head with a head kick and then they'll get dazed or there's people like me how if you get hit heavily or you take a mean kick to the head, then you're fine and you deal with it. I feel that everybody conditions to it, but there's different levels of how hard you can take it.”
Chaning said a good fighter has the right mix of skills.
“The more muscle you have, the more mass it is to move and the slower it moves,” he said. “I feel that speed and everything's good in moderation. If you have the right amount of muscle, you have amazing fighting skills, technique. Then that's all you need really to get you by. And of course, mental space as well.”
Chaning is learning as much as he can.
“I say train as much as you possibly can to learn as much as you possibly can,” he said. “I try to pick up everything I can everywhere I go with everyone I train with and the different styles. Training all these years before is the step up of learning different stuff to put together to form you as a fighter into what you're going to do in the cage.”
Chaning’s training has less to do with hitting the weights and more with movement.
“The way we train is we do more body strength training,” he said. “It's more of a calisthenics agility-based training. You be strong to handle your own weight and handle another person. Less of us using weights to train, more agility based. That's all you really need.”
Not all athletic endeavors translate well into fighting as pro wrestler CM Punk discovered the hard way, losing his only two bouts as opposed to Brock Lesnar’s success in two careers. Chaning said not everyone can become a fighter.
“It's completely a whole different sport once you step into it,” he said. “MMA, it takes somebody really, really tough to step into it.”
However, Chaning stressed the only way to know for sure is to try.
“It's really a go out there and just do it,” he said. “You don't like it, you don't like it. All I ever say to people who are interested in getting into it or they want to do it, but they're unsure is go out there and do it. The hardest part is stepping onto a mat, put on gear, put on a pair of gloves and shin guards, and going and getting punched in the face because that's the first thing that I did.”
Chaning said a fighter must try to focus after the opponent lands a blow.
“If you’re dazed, you get hit that hard, your biggest thing is to recover,” he said. “You get your hands up, you're there, and you focus, lock in and you try to recover. And then you build off of that.”
Chaning said people, including those with the infamous glass jaw, have a rougher time.
“It's horrible because you go to spar with them and you hit them — nothing against them — but you hit him with something light and the kid’s dazed,” he said.
“That's all I ever say is just shoot for the stars, man.”
Chaning enjoys working on engines of any kind.
Chaning first saw a bout involving The Notorious.
“I forget what date that was,” he said. “I saw Conor McGregor versus Jose Aldo the first time and I forget how old I was. I had to have been 7 or 8 when I saw that. And then a year or two later, I hopped in the mixed martial arts and then that's when it skyrocketed.”
Chaning was inspired by the Irish fighter.
“That was the first guy,” he said. “I looked up to him. That was the go-to guy for me. He's definitely a character.”
Chaning does follow a diet.
“You gotta watch with your eating in this sport because you don't want to fuel your body with garbage,” he said. “I don't really watch what I eat as in track calories and track how much protein I should get a day. Of course, I eat a diet of organic non-GMO lean, low-ingredient foods that are trying to be the best of the best and having the most clean-cut ingredients to not fill myself with Doritos, Cheetos, Gatorade and stuff like that. That's not great fuel for your body at all.”
Chaning said even those not taking up fighting should make fitness a priority.
“That is the number one thing,” he said. “Watching what you're doing. When you're trying to be fit, it can throw you right back down in a hole. You're overweight and you try to lose weight. You say, okay, I'm gonna go take a fat burner or I'm going to go drink Gatorade. You're trying to do something amazing for your body, but then you're fueling your body with horrible things and putting more chemicals into your body. You're just stunting yourself farther, farther and farther. You should be very keen to reading what you're eating and intaking every single day.”
Chaning is shooting for the top, wanting to win the UFC championship someday.
“And become the greatest of all time,” he said. “That's all I ever say is just shoot for the stars, man. That's it.”
Chaning wants to work his way up to the pinnacle of fighting.
“Whatever fighting associations I can hit up on the way that'll get me closer to that, I'll take anything, any deals, any fights,” he said. “It doesn't matter to me. Whatever can take me up to that career path to get me to saying I hold the belt, then I'll do it.”
Chaning likes to get his hands dirty another way in his free time.
“I love to do mechanical stuff and combustion engines,” he said. “I've had a love for trucks, cars, go-karts and anything involving combustion. I've done tons of stuff on the side when I'm not training that helps me wind down whether that's building go-karts, dirt bikes, fixing lawnmowers for people. It's something that I've always loved doing on the side that keeps me busy.”
Chaning stays motivated to train.
“Really just that end game of saying I won the belt or I'm achieving hall of fame or achieving greatest of all time,” he said. “It just keeps you going because once you get there, then that's the endgame.”
“Going out and stepping foot on the mat for your first time is the hardest part of it.”
Chaning practices his kicks with his coach.
Chaning’s social media handle is sendripp.
“Ripp is my middle name,” he said.
Chaning took the other part from the show Yellowstone, which has a character named Rip.
“Guy in there, his name is Rip, and they say send Rip,” he said. “So my parents said, yo, you should make your name sendripp, but with two Ps, of course, because my middle name is that. I grabbed that. I took the money and run with it.”
Chaning plans to have his own training facility someday.
“I've wanted to own a gym ever since I started training,” he said. “I've obviously dreamed of opening my own brand for gloves, shin guards, elbow pads based on what a fighter likes. Some of these people that when they start a company, they get so commercialized that they start forgetting almost about the fighters themselves. It starts becoming a franchise type of brand that doesn't listen to as much of the customers.”
Chaning offered advice to those wanting to embark on an MMA career.
“Going out and stepping foot on the mat for your first time is the hardest part of it,” he said. “I've been training for six years now, and it's felt like only a year. I stepped on the mats at 9 or 10 years old. I was insanely nervous to do it and I didn't want to do it, but my mom was like, you're going to learn it for self-defense. I'm homeschooled, so I have a lot of time. I didn't want to do it. And then after six years, here I am. Now I want to pursue it and go to the UFC with it.”
Chaning urged fighters to weather any feelings of doubt.
“The times you feel like giving up, just remember what you're training for,” he said. “Because the moment that you go in there, you get your hand raised and they say your name, they say you won, then think, yo, that's what I'm training for. And why would I say I'm gonna give up on it right now.”
Chaning’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sendripp/