Baton Rouge, LA--MMA Profile of Tonny Canales
Tonny Canales is a person who follows his dreams.
Among his passions for years has been the sport of mixed martial arts. "He is s a great contributor to the sport," said Marco Macera, who is a black belt level Brazilian Jitsu competitor and coach at POWER MMA. Canales, 37, says that he was impacted by working with both Macera and a mutual coach Rony Salles. Canales says that Macera, a friend of his, encouraged him to start training with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt Rafael Ellwanger at Gracie Barra, a relationship which has now developed into joint program at Precision Athletics where Canales teaches MMA (or Vale Tudo as he terms it) and Ellwanger instructs Brazilian Jiu Jitsu with a gi.
Canales is also an artist and painter, working on his masters degree in LSU. He has followed his passions in life and Mixed Martial arts, like a painting that he has been working on for more than a year, is one of his long term projects.
Canales began training in martial arts at the age of ten with a karate style known Honto Nekodo, a style that he still uses in his training today. He credits his defense to karate and over the years he has added several styles including Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and kickboxing. Canales says that his offensive training and style have developed over the years as MMA has progressed as a sport.
In 2007 Canales won the 2007 IBJJF won the 145 pound brown belt masters division. Canales holds a black belt ranking in nin-jitsu, a second degree black belt in freestyle fighting, and fourth degree black belt in Honto Nekodo. Canales says he has had more than twenty-five MMA fights saying "I don't even remember all the fights I've had, if you include the ones at Joey Anconas, its a lot." Canales reports that he had a 9-0 amateur MMA record an unofficial record of 20-7 in MMA overall.
Canales recently restarted his coaching career. His last training spot, Xtreme Fighting Academy was impacted by Hurricane Gustav when a tree flew into the gym irreparably harming the student base. But he has now found a new home at Precision Athletics in Baton Rouge teaching Vale Tudo. Among the fighters that he is working with are Roman Pizlatta who is fighting at heavyweight just turned professional, winning his first pro fight. Chris Pham (known C-Lo) recently won the XFC amateur title at 145 pounds and amateurs Chad Roy, Andrew Woo, and Eddie Sanchez.
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