May’s Fighter of the Month currently holds titles in two of the top promotions in Massachusetts. In May, he successfully defended his Reality Fighting Middleweight championship with a dominating TKO over Rigo Dominicci. The month before, he had captured the Full Force Productions 185-lb. title with a vicious KO of Lance Everson. Sporting a 7-1 record, May’s Fighter of the Month is Green Mountain Boy Nate Kittredge.

Kittredge burst on to the scene in July 2006, slamming and brutalizing Josh Yox on his way to a submission win. From there, he racked up four more wins, including a victory over ranked local fighter Jerry Spiegel, and a TKO of Jesse Peterson that gave him the Reality Fighting title. This past February, Nate tasted defeat for the first time. In his match with Ronnie Wuest, he landed some illegal elbows that caused a disqualification. Despite the loss, Kittredge rebounded and won his last two matches.

Kittredge has been training MMA for four years, but has a heavy wrestling background, dating back to when he was a kid. His wrestling accomplishments are as numerous as what he’s done in MMA. “I wrestled for Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. I was a two-time conference champion and compiled a 105-21 record. After college I was the assistant wrestling coach at PSU and taught PE and Health for a year before moving back home to do the family construction business. I began coaching at my high school as the varsity coach for their program. I was awarded ‘Coach of the Year’ for Vermont after my first season as the coach.”

Nate was then introduced to MMA by friend and local fighter Rich Moskowitz. Kittredge found Nate LaMotte, another Plymouth State University wrestler, and manager John “The Legend” Hagopian, who helped him get fights. After his second fight, he hooked up with another wrestler, Glenn Brown, to form the Green Mountain Boys. From those two training in Brown’s basement, they have since grown the team to twenty-five members.

Although his wrestling is a large part of his training, Nate considers the mental aspect his biggest weapon. “When training for fights I believe its 30 percent physical and 70 percent mental. I’m always visualizing my opponent and depending on what his strengths are I train to overcome them. My ultimate goal is to outlast my opponent in the ring. Every time I train I am training to be the last one standing.”

Nate mentions local fighters who have made it to bigger promotions as his fight heroes. He hopes to follow in the footsteps of guys like Nate LaMotte, Josh Grispi, Kenny Florian, and Jorge Rivera and make it big himself. “My long-term goal in MMA is to make it to the UFC and win. For now I just want to beat up anyone that is standing in my way.” So far, Nate’s been doing a good job of beating up those in his way, and we look forward to seeing him to it again.