“Pat Thompson, I completely forgot about him!”

Harrowing words spoken as we compiled the current rankings for the top fighters in the north east. You’d think a fighter might be disappointed to hear something like that, but it’s quite the contrary.

“That’s fine with me, I’d rather be under estimated,” Pat said, completely void of any defensive undertones. He may be more thrilled to learn that he’s managed to stay out of the lime light than to even be awarded fighter of the month.

“I like it, I like being the underdog. I’d rather fly under the radar for a little bit and just keep fighting and getting better and better.”

Try as he may, Pat’s become a big fat blip on the radar.  Well, maybe a slender blip. Before he started his mixed martial arts career, Pat was meandering around at a svelte 265 pounds.

 “I’d be nothing without the guys from South Shore. They took me from 265 pounds un-athletic kid to what I am now.”

Pat was hard pressed to define, “what” he is now. It was also extremely difficult for him to take credit anything positive about himself and his fight career. Everything we talked about turned into pure praise of his teammates at South Shore Sport Fighting. Feeding into his line answers, I asked him to sum up what it is about SSSF that makes for such great fighters.

“I think the biggest thing we do over there, is that we spar so hard. I think a lot of local guys go into fights and they get hit and it looks like they’re not used to it. They cower in there. We try to go real hard without hurting each other. Scott Lockhart puts workouts together for us. He looks at everybody’s individual fights and ‘this is where you lack.’ Working with Chuck O’Neil, Lee Metcalf, Josh Grispi, Sloppy Joe Lamoureux – you don’t get any easy rounds.

Sometimes I find myself on a plateau for a little while, but eventually I catch on and get better. You’re only as good as the people you train with, metal sharpens metal.”

Trying to stay as humble as a homeless guy at a wedding while keeping his “flying-under-the-radar” status intact, Pat left me with not a single sound bite to qualify his fighter of the month award. Instead, I turned to the people that know him best.

Bill Mahoney, South Shore Sport Fighting instructor / mascot

“Pat was a fair wrestler, but a fat kid lacking confidence that was scared to stand. He managed to go 2-2 and rather than quit or train to work around his weaknesses by pulling guard or learning better takedowns, he decided he never wanted to fight scared again. He took a LONG time off and got beat daily by Grispi, McMaster, Belleton, etc. in the cage standing. BAD. And he kept coming and slowly…very slowly…his awkward ass backwards style started to become marginally effective versus those uber strikers.

So he gets back in there with some tuff street fighter type kid and they mess each other up bad; blood is all over and I’m thinking ‘He’s gunna come back to the corner with that I CANT WIN, I WANT OUT look in his eyes.’ But he comes over when the bell rings, sits down and is like, ‘THAT WAS SO DAMN FUN!’ He’s all smiles. I’m was begging him to take it down to a weight where he WILL win, but he’d rather hang and bang where he MAY win.

So he wins and licks the blood off his face and each fight after he turns more and more into a sprawl and brawl fighter. He not only has the balls to get messed up, risk getting caught, but he had the balls to say ‘I suck at this, and I’ll spend a year getting concussed and messed up, until striking isn’t my enemy but until it’s my friend.’

Losers make it so their weaknesses can be made strong enough so that they get by. Winners like Pat make it a strength. That’s why Pat, the most humble man I know, has a lot less reason to be humble than most of us. He worked, suffered and bled for his skills. And now he doesn’t just, not suck. Many may still think he sucks because he isn’t all jacked up and he’s all smiles but he’s a very dangerous fighter with an uncommonly complete game.
I could still take him though if I wanted to…”

Respected by his coach, Pat has also earned the respect of his teammates, including their newest addition, Chuck “Cold Steel” O’Neil. Chuck told me that Pat was the first guy to welcome him to the team with open arms.

“Paddy is an all around good guy, whether he’s hitting on me in training with his new triangle defense, rolling around ass naked on a grey box while delusional from a weight cut or mutually sexting me…

He may not be the biggest 170 pound guy in the world but Paddy can compete with the best because he has more heart and fighting spirit than 99% of the fighters out there. If he’s not taking a beating in training, he’s not happy with it or himself.

So good luck to his next victim, I mean opponent, who steps in the cage with him.”

Let Metcalf, another seasoned South Shore veteran, had this to share about Pat.

“Paddy Thompson, well, he’s got a super hot girlfriend!

I’m not sure what info I could tell that isn’t already known? He is one of the hardest workers at SSSF. He teaches at our school, his style is very unorthodox and he’s got very slick submissions mixed with good wrestling and good standup.

Whenever Pat and I train we have battles because we’re very close in our unorthodox styles. My first day at SSSF, I tackled him through a wall!

He’s really friendly and personable. On fight day he turns into a different person though. It’s scary! I wouldn’t want to fight Pat Thompson.”

Pat has become a headliner at the American Fighting Organization events. I spoke with AFO President, Pete DiLorenzo, to get a few words about Pat.

“Paddy was a big part of the AFO in the early stages and we turned to him to help us grow. He had a great fan base and main event’ed more fights with us than any other fighter. Mark Vaz, matchmaker for the AFO worked with Paddy at the BBC and from the stories I heard, Mark would laugh at Paddy when he had to fight or throw someone out of the bar. Mark would sit and watch and never help out…

Paddy has been in many wars inside the cage. One thing I always enjoy is seeing how big his face is going get with lumps and stuff. Best moment was watching him knock out Mike Schneider from his knees!”

So there you have it. Much to his chagrin, Pat Thompson is one of the best and most well respected fighters in town.

Pat has one more huge fight at 170 against 6-0 Steve Dunn tentatively scheduled for AFO’s January event. After that, it’s down to 155.

So much for staying off the radar.

Congratulations to Pat Thompson, NorthEastMMA.net’s October Fighter of the Month!