Christopher Newman is a black belt from London, England who currently trains at Fightzone London under Marco Canha. He began training aged 25 and received his black belt at age 31. When asked about his introduction into grappling, Christopher states “My friend introduced me to MMA via YouTube and showed me a Nick Diaz fight on Strikeforce, he won the fight by armbar and the commentator said that Nick was a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt so I Googled it and searched for academies. That’s how I found Fightzone London”.
Best known for his X-Guard, Newman favours the overhead X Sweep which is his most common sweep from the position. When in the top position he will vary his passing game based on the opponent, preferring pressure passing against some, whilst speed passing against others. Elsewhere his favourite submission is the Triangle choke due to its versatility as they can chain into wristlocks, omoplatas and armbars.
His competition weight is typically featherweight which means under 70KG in the Gi and under 67KG in Nogi. His competition achievements include winning European Championships, European Nogi Championships and Pan Pacific Championships at various belts. He is also active on the super fight scene with matches on the likes of Battle Grapple and Polaris. As with many competitors though, there are also hard times as well as the good – and Newman has experienced this when he fully ruptured his ACL.
Newman sees his coach Marco Canha as his biggest influence, stating “I learned a lot from him just by watching him roll, also my style is influenced a little bit from Mendes and Buchecha, I have a hybrid style of fast and dynamic along with slow and pressured”.
To add to this, his is very complimentary about his experience with Fightzone London and mentions “I believe our gym has successful competitors because we train hard but smart, we help and encourage each other and Marco is a great coach with great attention to detail and game plans. We focus a lot of techniques and concepts, we don’t just warm up and then spar for an hour every session“
When asked about the difference between superfights and IBJJF tournament structures Newman says “the only difference between training for the different events is that if it’s sub only Nogi I will focus more on Nogi. I will focus on leg attacks and defences more and of course train less in the gi. I would train longer rounds and do shark tanks, I would do rounds of stand up sparring so no guard pulling allowed”
With this said, it’s clear that he is focused and also equally ambitious. Although Newman has won various medals throughout his BJJ career, he’s still hungry at black belt and finishes by saying “I plan to become a world champion and open my own academy one day, I plan to keep training and keep improving”.
