(Glenwood) -- Former Glenwood standout athlete Cole Loeffelbein has turned to another sport for his next challenge.
The former Rams standout and Iowa Western football player, Loeffelbein is now focusing on mixed martial arts.
“I had always known I wanted to get into this after I was done with team sports,” he told KMA Sports, “but probably within the last three or four years is when I started training.”
Loeffelbein says he first started training with jujitsu to give his “brain a break.”
“Within the last two years, I started doing some striking,” he said. “Within the last year, I’ve been putting it all together. I remember watching Georges St-Pierre, Anderson Silva, the Diaz brothers growing up and looking up to them. I think it was kind of the end of my life in football and baseball (when I started shifting my focus).
“I was realizing the 40-yard dashes, the squat numbers and stuff like that, I’m not going to be able to stack up with the top of the top. But in a sport like MMA, you can be a little more well-rounded. Cardio is a lot bigger of a factor. Plus, I’m game. I like to compete, and I like to go to dark places, so that’s kind of what attracted me to it.”
Loeffelbein won his first fight this past August via triangle choke at an event in Omaha.
“I rocked him in the first, and he kind of shot in,” Loeffelbein said. “We had some scrambles on the ground, and I feel like I got the better of him. In the second round, I had him tired out and got the job done (with a triangle choke). That’s kind of my focus. I don’t have any motivation to go in there and stay safe and win a decision. It’s two men go in and one man goes out. That’s the beauty of fighting. You don’t have to guess. You don’t have any questions. Ninety percent of the time, you know who won.”
Loeffelbein lost his second fight in November, but he’s hoping to bounce back on May 6th when he meets Lamont Weddle in a middleweight fight for Dynasty Combat Sports. The event will be in Lincoln, Nebraska at Pinnacle Bank Arena. Tickets are on sale now at Ticketmaster.com or can be viewed via pay-per-view on MMAFutures.com.
“He actually fought (Jackson Walker), who was my first fight,” Loeffelbein said. “They had a pretty close decision. It looked like a pretty competitive fight, so hopefully it will give me a good challenge and a chance to learn something in there.”
Learning is what Loeffelbein is hoping to do with each training session, each fight and everything else in between.
“I’m hoping to go pro, eventually,” he said. “I want to get a good amount of experience. See a lot of different looks. There’s so many different ways to play this game. You have to take your time and learn all the different looks you’re going to get and how you’re going to deal with specific problems that arise. I’m looking to take it as far as I can take it.”
Listen to much more with Loeffelbein in the interview below.
