Success For Gordon Cunningham Is More Than Just Winning

Still early in his martial arts career, Cunningham, 25, competed for the first time in a kickboxing exhibition match. At the time, he said he still wasn’t sure how often he would like to compete or how far he’d like to go to martial arts.

But it was after securing a quick first-round knockout victory and seeing his mother’s reaction that he realized martial arts is something he needs to do.

For Cunningham’s mother, Barbara, she said watching her son fight for the first time was one of the most nervous moments of her life.

Even to this day, despite enjoying watching her son succeed, Barbara said it doesn’t get any easier for her to watch.

Cunningham’s determination and grit go back all the way to his childhood where he seemed to excel at almost anything he did.

Barbara said Cunningham was always a devoted and talented kid and was always looking for a way to stay busy, especially with sports.

Other than a small amount of jiu-jitsu in grade nine, Cunningham didn’t start training MMA full-on until he was 20 years old.

And, initially, it wasn’t the pursuit of an MMA career that led him to begin training, but more as an outlet.

After witnessing first-hand the accident in which Barbara tripped and fell, and hit her head on a coffee table, resulting in the loss of one of her eyes, Cunningham said he was hard on himself for not being able to prevent the incident, and fell into a state of depression.

“I felt like I could’ve done more to potentially prevent it from happening or maybe make the situation better. I was just super down in the dumps, felt really guilty, and was kind of throwing myself a pity party, falling into a pretty deep depression stage,” said Cunningham.

“I recognized I had to get out of it, and I was just sitting in my apartment one-night watching UFC fights, and in the back of my head I always thought I could do it (MMA) if I tried, and then it just kind of came to me. I was like I’m going to give it a shot.

Barbara said the accident occurred on the other side of the room from where her son was and said there was nothing he could’ve done to prevent it from happening.

In the days and weeks to follow, Barbara said it was hard to see Cunningham being so hard on himself after the accident.

Since day one, Cunningham has been part of the team at Adrenaline MMA Training and Fitness in London, Ont., a gym stacked with some of Canada’s best fighters such as Jesse Ronson, Mark Hominick, and Sam Stout.

Cunningham said being surrounded by such an elite group of training partners and coaches for his entire MMA journey is what has allowed him to progress his career so quickly.