Hamid Corassani (5-1-0) from GBG MMA just won his fight against Gregorz Tredowski (11-5-2) on Glory 10.

Congratulations to your victory in Glory 10!
Thanks alot!

Describe the fight for us.

It started off at a very high pace, and since I knew that Gregorz Tredowski was an ex-national team Judoka in Poland I knew he wanted to take the fight to the ground.
He took me down early in the 1st round and my gameplan was to quickly get top position or stand up. I managed to follow through my gameplan and put pressure on him with kicks and well aimed ground n pound. Although he was a more experienced fighter (11-5-2) and has beat some good names I knew that with Joakim Engberg in my corner we were gonna pull this off. I finally won by unanimous decision and the fight was announced “Fight of the night”

Your fight was called “Unified World GP prelim” What’s next after this win and what will this lead to? Any big finale?

I will fight Daniel Sharifi in the finals since he defeated Vincent Latoel in the other -70 kg fight in this 4 man tournament.
The final will probably be a title fight and the winner will qualify to the World Grand Prix.

What’s your background in martial arts how long have you trained and what/where have you trained?

I started training Tae Kwon Do when I was 9 years old and quit when I was 13 (Red Belt with 1 black stripe) Since I was playing Soccer at the same I quit TKD and later on I got drafted to IFK Göteborg youth-section.
Wrestling has always been in my family, my father and uncle were solid Freestyle wrestlers back in Azerbajdzjan. Since they refused to let the tradition be lost all they did was talk shit about soccer, wrestling was obviously the mother of all sports haha! Every time relatives and friends came over for dinner it all turned from a nice calm dinner to Wrestle Mania.
I started MMA when I was 22 years old at Gladius MMA, after 1 year of training I packed my bags and went to Brazil. I trained at the Chute Boxe Academy for 3 months and when I came back to Sweden I started to train at GBG MMA! August 2008 I packed my bags again and left to train at Legends (With Eddie Bravo) and Xtreme Couture for a total of one month. I have trained MMA for about 3.5 years but I´ve watched every Bruce Lee and Van Damme movie out there.

What has inspired you to your fightname Akira?

When I lived in Brazil I stayed at Daniel Acacios house, I lived togeteher with two Japanese fighters and they had a very hard time saying my real name. Not even the Brazilians could pronounce it so the Japanese guys one day said:
“Yo name very crazy, you must more strongu name! Now yu name Akira, very guud strongu name”
From that day on everybody was relieved cos Akira was easier and so I was called Akira for about 2 months! When I came back to sweden Hamid sounded very strange, I believed I was Akira. I realized that Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent were going through the same thing haha! I am Hamid and my alter ego is Akira!

You had some bad luck with your hand lately but still have a big urge to fight how do you keep yourself motivated after the injuries?

I broke my hand in the same spot in three fights in a row now!
What can I say, in the Superior Challenge fight the pain was unbelievable and I lost to a guy I normally would beat 12 times of 10. Even though Semmy Schilt wrapped my hand before the Glory 10 fight it happened again, he said that I would feel no pain with this kind of wrapping and I didn’t! The rehab process and the cast is the worst part, my training is a bit limited but I train other techniques to strengthen my game!
My passion keeps me motivated, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger I believe! It is not so hard to motivate yourself when you have wonderful people around you like Joakim Engberg, Assan Njie, Jean Hanoun, Meher Aziz and all the other guys at GBG MMA.

We have not read much about it but it’s a big thing for you and Assan Njie to get signed with Golden Glory. How did you get signed with Golden Glory?

Me and Assan have been training and fighting frequently in Holland; since Assan has been training in Holland for a couple of years he introduced me to Martijn De Jong who later gave me a fight in Glory 3! My fight got cancelled and I took a fight against Dion Staring on the weigh ins since his opponnent also dropped off! Though he was 23 kilos heavier I was winning the fight but I got smashed in the end of the 2nd round! What I didn’t know was that he was a name in Holland and had a 10-2-0 record! The crowd loved the fight and Golden Glory was interested. Assan got signed off course because of his great skills and awesome technique! Both me and Assan waited a whole year to sign with GG, we needed time to set our minds straight!

Hamid Corassani on goldenglory.com

What’s different for you after you signed with a big team?

Everything I guess! The fight purse is way better than before and we have access to a great team, management and professional doctors. When we train in Holland we train with Cor Hemmers, in the group we train with fighters like Semmy Schilt, Ramon Dekker, Alistair Overeem, Stefan Leko, Sergei Kharitonov, Chalid Arrab, Erol Zimmerman, Nikey Holtzken and other great K1 fighters! Can you ask for better stand up training?

Who’s your favourite swedish fighter?

Usama “Sami” Aziz without a doubt! I like his style and just take a look at his experience; he has wrestled in the Olympics two times and has over 1000 wrestling matches! Not only that he was also in the swedish national boxing team! And on top of that, he is destroyng opponnent after opponnent in MMA!
He is a great character, humble and easy going and has always smart things to say! If I have done half of what Usama has done when I am 36 like him I will be happy!

Who’s your dream opponent and how would you beat him?

I really would like to fight Chuck Norris, I always disliked his movies and the guy thought he could beat Bruce Lee haha! I would take Chuck down and Ground and Pound him on the beard, maybe drag his chest hair like Bruce did!

Oh you mean in a MMA fight…

I would like to fight Georges St Pierre, he is a machine that guy! I would beat him easy, my game plan would be to psych him and probably he would do something stupid like stomp me or fishhook my mouth! And the winner by disqualification Haaaaamiiiid Akiraaaaaa Corassaaani!

What’s your favourite technique?

Anything that knocks my opponent out or makes him tap will be added to the Favorites List! My boxing and wrestling works most of the times.
What’s your strength as a fighter?
I have no problem with focusing before the fights and I rarely make mistakes, I manage to stick to the gameplans. I find my strength in God and the will never leaves my body, I keep going until the time is out or one of us gets knocked out.

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