Tom Nolan Makes It Permanent: The City Kickboxing Move
“Yeah, it's the best camp I've ever had by a mile,”
Tom Nolan has changed his life for the biggest fight of his life.
The rising UFC lightweight has moved from Australia to New Zealand to join Eugene Bareman's City Kickboxing gym in Auckland, and he has done it permanently. He returns to the cage this Saturday in the main event of UFC Fight Night 292 against veteran Renato Moicano, at the Meta Apex on October 31.
It started as a trial. Nolan went to Auckland for two weeks, liked what he found, and stayed.
"I went over there for two weeks as a trial, and then, yeah, I made the permanent move. I got the call up after that," Nolan told MMA Junkie.
The timing could hardly be better. The Moicano bout is a pivotal five-round fight, and it marks Nolan's first UFC headliner spot. By his own account, the preparation has been the best of his career, and the reason is the room itself: the sheer number of UFC fighters under one roof.
"Yeah, it's the best camp I've ever had by a mile," Nolan said. "It's unreal, dude. I'm so stoked that the timing of this worked out to be that it has because it's the biggest gym in this part of the world for us. There's multiple coaches, there's countless UFC fighters. The amount of UFC fighters on the mat at one time is more than members in most gyms in Australia."
That depth, Nolan says, is what sets City Kickboxing apart. It is not only the established names on the mat. It is the layers beneath them as well: professionals still chasing a UFC contract, amateurs trying to turn professional, and coaches with different minds to learn from.
"There's just so many guys. It's crazy. And then you count on top of that, all the aspiring other pros who aren't in the UFC yet and then the aspiring amateurs who are trying to go pro. It's endless. There's so many people to train with, and there's so many minds to learn from and different coaches to work with."
A permanent move is a statement in itself. Nolan has not just borrowed a camp for one fight week; he has relocated his career to Auckland ahead of his first main event. Whether that move pays off will be answered on Saturday night, against veteran Moicano. But Nolan goes into the biggest fight of his career believing he has just completed the best camp of his life.
