Brandon Birr has seen some interesting things working at Strong Style Training Center his whole combative career including the UFC’s heavyweight GOAT fighting while adorned in ballerina attire. Appearing on Bare Knuckle Bowker, Brandon Birr touched on several subjects before his fight with BKB’s number one ranked featherweight contender Yampier Ramirez at BKB 41 on May 31st. Birr mentioned during this chat that he would train at Strong Style until he was done fighting and Stipe Miocic certainly stands out as a massive name that came from that gym.
When offering up an anecdote from the training room that invovled the former multi-time UFC heavyweight champion in a particularly memorable way, Birr said,
“He likes to have fun in the gym. You see a lot of those guys once they get to a certain level like it’s all business. They’re there, they deal with the people that they deal with specifically, and kind of everybody else is kind of out of their orbit you know. Either between, I don’t know, paranoia of somebody doing something, whatever. But man, he’ll talk to (you) if it’s the first day in the gym, he’s talking with you the same way he talks to somebody he’s known for 20 years. He’s very personable.”
“One specific thing I can remember he, you know; you got the locker room, you get changed, you come out. Then you’re on the floor for sparring and stuff and everybody’s getting ready. He has rounds and he comes out in like a bright red tutu to spar. He sparred all his rounds in this bright red tutu and just beat the crap out of these guys [laughs]. It was just funny to watch.”
Brandon Birr and Strong Style’s growing presence in bare knuckle
Brandon Birr feels like he has helped play a role in normalizing bare knuckle boxing to his gym compatriots and with his help, seems confident they can become one of the big gyms in the MMA world as well as in the bare knuckle world. SS teammate Chad Kelly has already fought a handful of times for BKB and now there are a couple more guys that are slowly starting to become more open to gloveless combat. The former inaugural BKB featherweight champion even mentioned how Strong Style might be the number one MMA gym and number one bare knuckle gym coming up soon.
