Rudi:
: Difficult question! In a nutshell, I try not to define myself by any specific culture or activity. I opened my first gym in April 2014, and have allowed the clubs to evolve as they need to. I have no official fighting credentials, although I regularly spar and have done a white collar event. Instead, I am approaching boxing/ fighting from a business perspective and I want to be involved with the rebirth of the sport in SA. We have a great fighting heritage but seem to have lost the support of the people along the way. I believe this mainly due to the fact that we seem to have lost the majority of the heroes in the sport.
With regards to Fight Club SA, it has been an incredible year for us with seven clubs opening and another five in production. We have joined forces with LFS and are in the process of putting together a social upliftment project designed to take various fighting disciplines and make them available to people with no access. Enjoying boxing/ fighting as a way of increasing fitness has a viable place In the market, and allowing the previously disadvantaged access to these in terms of job creation can and will allow people to improve their lives.
Rudi
The idea just came to me one day when I was still stuck deep within corporate South Africa. However, what makes us interesting is that we don’t focus on the fighting community. We have approached the view of “train like a champ” and made it available to your average citizen that doesn’t want to get a broken nose or black eye, but still enjoys fighting and fight prep as a form of keeping fit. Our trainers however are all pros and compete in most disciplines, and this ensures that our clients receive the real deal.
In teaming up with LFS we intend to broaden our base and allow prospective LFS fighters a place to train and to familiarize themselves with the event.
Firstly, let me congratulate you on such a great partnership with Last Fighter Standing. Before we delve into that partnership, can you tell the fans a bit more about who Rudi Van der Westhuizen is?
South Africa is well known around the world for its love of the martial arts and the fight game. What gave you the idea to set up gyms (Fight Club SA) around the country to train fighters, a concept that goes way beyond the traditional Karate and Taekwondo Martial Arts Dojos ?