Big wave surfing champion Eli Olson of Hawaii makes his MMA debut at Trinity Sport Combat’s TK 10 this Friday

Two years after Trinity Sport Combat held the last locally produced MMA map in the state of Hawaii, the Hawaii-based organization returns this Friday with Trinity Kings 10 in Kapolei.

The fight card, which will feature both pro and amateur fights, will be spearheaded by Bellator veteran Toby Misech from Hilo, who will face off at featherweight against Californian Georgii Eivas for the TK Super Fight Championship.

There will be 17 fights in total, with perhaps the most notorious being an MMA debut as professional surfer Eli Olson will step into the cage for the first time to face off against 145lb Josiah Lagazo.

Crowned the 2020 WSL Red Bull Big Wave Paddle Champion after jumping a stunning wave at Maui’s famous Pe’ahi Break, Olson is no stranger to the martial arts world.

“Actually, I started training Jiu-Jitsu more than twenty years ago. It sounds crazy because I’m still in my twenties, I’ve just always loved it. I fell in love with martial arts and have had my black belt for a few years now and because I train so much jiu-jitsu I have met many friends who are professional fighters and they have started asking me to help them over the years to help with their fight camps,” Olson told KHON2 Sports Director Rob DeMello. “It was Martin Day, Louis Smolka, and they were in the UFC, so I was like, wow, that’s pretty cool. I’m just a local pro surfer but I help out these UFC fighters at their camps and they’ve been trying to get me to have a fight for years and I was like no I surf or I travel. I am too busy. Finally I thought you know what? They told me hey there’s this card coming, the Trinity card and I was like I’m not traveling the waves are pretty slow and I can actually commit to a full camp for once and I just said let’s go and the green meet bright.”

Olson’s debut will serve as the main map’s first bout after the break of a map that begins at 7:00 p.m. and will be streamed globally on FITE TV and the FITE TV App. The big wave surfer doesn’t deny that battling butterflies will be one of the challenges on fight night, but he does draw on past experience of competing at the highest and most dangerous levels of another sport.

“I think I have an edge over the average person when it comes to dealing with nerves. It sounds crazy, but in big wave surfing, whether it’s Jaws, Waimea or Teahup’o, you have to overcome those mental struggles and be happy with the outcome, and you have to know that you’re really giving your life at stake, every time a wave is big. So if I deal with this with preparation and training and as well as getting the mind to overcome such huge obstacles, I feel like that will help me. Of course there will be nerves. You go into a fistfight, there’s going to be a huge crowd with a lot of people cheering for you. The nerve will be there, but I think with a strong attitude and the confidence I’ve put into my team and the training that I’ve put in, I’ve worked so hard leading up to it, so I think that gives me confidence,” Olson said .

What happens next in the sport of MMA for Olson, he says, that’s not a focus right now, he’s just focused on this fight and much like life on the open ocean, he’ll just see what wave he’s going to attack next .

“It’s something that’s kind of cool. A lot of my teammates and coaches are already talking about future fights and I was like, whoa, let’s take this one at a time. It’s cool because right now I don’t have any big goals or try to pursue them and I think that takes the pressure off me because I’m not like putting all the weight on my back that I have to perform, me must win, this is the beginning of this journey. I just feel it and like I said I just have so much love for this sport and surfing is still full time and it’s never been better. So I’m sure that after this camp I just did such tunnel vision training every day that I couldn’t surf as much anymore. You can even see that my tan has even kind of disappeared from just living at the gym. I think the first thing after this fight is definitely to take a surf trip and then just talk to my trainers and go from there.

For more information on the TK 10 combat map, visit trinitysportcombat.com and for viewing options via FITE TV, click here.