Dhacamad Armstrong's next challenge is the King of the Ring tournament. Photo / CSN
Dhacamad Armstrong's next challenge is the King of the Ring tournament. Photo / CSN
From the quiet halls of a Kaikohe funeral home to the bright lights of New Zealand’s fight scene, Dhcamad Armstrong is fast becoming one of the country’s most talked about fighters.
After recently winning $100,000 in UFC star Dan Hooker’s “1 Minute Scraps”, Armstrong is now preparing for his nextchallenge, as he prepares for the King in the Ring 92kg contender tournament on March 21 at Eventfinda Stadium.
The division has become one of the most important pathways in New Zealand striking, producing fighters like Carlos Ulberg, Navajo Stirling and Cam Rawston.
For Armstrong, the leap is dramatic – from training around his work schedule at the family funeral home to fighting at one of the country’s toughest one-night tournaments.
He said working at the family business while preparing for fights required careful planning.
“It’s me, my brother and my dad, we own and run the funeral home, and we just work around my fight schedule.”
He first got into fighting more than a decade ago while living in Japan.
“I went over there to play rugby but the games were on Sundays and I didn’t like missing church. A friend suggested I check out the gym near where I lived and that’s how it all started.”
“I knew I wanted to do something very physical and active and fighting just kind of matched with my character.”
Since then, he had built a career in combat sports while balancing work commitments at home in the Far North.
During fight camps, he trains up to three times a day and said the fighting also offers him an escape.
“The more I train, the more energy I seem to have.”
“In our type of employment, you are dealing with a lot of different emotions from hundreds of different people, so [fighting] is like a little outlet for me and my brother. We can kind of just go away and when you are training properly you can’t really focus on anything else, you have to be all in. So, it’s nice when we can pull away and just focus on ourselves for that one or two hours.”
“I joined because I knew that prize money would bring out the best fighters in New Zealand and Australia. There were some really high-level fighters there. It was such a positive afternoon … I enjoyed it more than in the arena, to be honest.”
The format is simple, one minute to throw everything at your opponent.
“In a normal fight, because sometimes they’re three-minute rounds or five-minute rounds, so you have a lot of time to kind of not rest, but kind of take your time. But in the scraps, it’s just all or nothing and there is a lot of skill that goes into a fight like that.”
He now believes he is in the best shape of his career heading into the King in the Ring tournament.
“I have never been so prepared for a fight in my life. I am really excited for it.”
And if everything goes according to plan, he already knows what comes next.
“If I come out of the tournament with no injuries. I will be on a plane the following morning and head down to the next one-minute bare-knuckle scraps.”
