Lewiston, Maine (April 22, 2016) – During the years 2003-2006, Matt Glover (1-0) was the player from Mountain Valley High School in Rumford, Maine that you did not want to end up facing from the other side of the pigskin. Standing over six feet tall and weighing 250-pounds, the nightmarish middle linebacker helped to build Mountain Valley (MV) into a modern day football dynasty by punishing ball carriers for four decorated years and leading MV to two state championships in the process. He bench pressed over 400 pounds in the weight room and was hell on wheels on the field making him a powerful two-way double-threat player on both offense and defense. His reputation is legendary in the River Valley area of Western Maine as a feared and respected athlete.
After graduating from Mountain Valley in 2007, Glover left football behind to go to work. He married his longtime girlfriend, Lindsey, and had a son. They bought a home together. Throughout the summer and fall seasons, he traveled the agricultural fair circuit in Maine with his pulling horses, a family tradition he had been brought up in from an early age.
“My family has been competing in horse pulling since I was a kid,” Glover explained. “It takes up a lot of time and it keeps my dad young. I get up early every morning to exercise my horse teams before I go into work at night. Between my dad, my wife and I, we have 11 draft horses. We bale our own hay for all of them. I love backing them up to the drag and watching them dig.”
But despite the fullness of his life, the call of competition still beckoned to him and left him with a sense of longing. “I would have killed to have had that same feeling again,” Glover recalled. “And then I stepped into the cage.”
In early 2015, Matt’s younger brother, Ryan—another Mountain Valley football standout—made his mixed martial arts (MMA) debut at “NEF 16.” Ryan swarmed his opponent in his first fight and stopped him in a blistering 12 seconds. Matt was in attendance that night and found his curiosity piqued at the prospect of competing in a different kind of contact sport.
Later in 2015, Ryan competed for the inaugural NEF Amateur Heavyweight Championship. He dropped a decision that night to current title holder, Billy “Bigfoot” Leahy (3-1). After the win, the trash talk quickly escalated between Leahy and members of Berserkers MMA, based out of Rumford and led by head coaches Gary Dolloff and Mike Hansen (3-3). “When Billy Leahy called out all of the guys at Berserkers after he beat my brother, then it was game-on,” recalled Matt.
Matt began training closely with members of the Berserkers coaching staff, including Hansen and others, who he credits for his accelerated learning curve in the sport. Additionally, Matt sparred extensively with brother Ryan, who was preparing for a fight of his own on the same night that Matt was scheduled to make his MMA debut. “My brother and I are not like other brothers,” Matt explained. “We go into the gym and beat the hell out of each other and then ride home in the same truck—that’s just how we have always been. Push, push, push—everything is competition with us. From the first one to get to the next hay bale in the hay field to the first one to get to the supper table—it’s just how we operate.”
“Matt’s a real competitive person,” his wife, Lindsey, confirmed. “Everything is a competition with him. I knew that cagefighting would feed that competitive hunger that he feels all the time when he’s not pulling his horses.”
Matt officially made his MMA debut back in February at “NEF 21: THE IMMORTALS” against durable veteran Gravin Guillen (2-5). Matt exceeded debut expectations by finishing Guillen in just 1:30 of the first round by technical knockout (TKO). When the ref cleared the scene, Guillen’s face showed the effects of Glover’s record-breaking exploits in the weight room. Glover’s Rumford fans that were in attendance in heavy numbers that night, voiced their approval in thunderous applause. “At first, I had butterflies,” Glover remembered, “but once I heard all the people cheering, all it did was pump me up. I was ready to fight. Win or lose, I knew they had my back and more.”
This weekend, Glover is poised to make his second appearance in the NEF cage when he takes on 6’6” Ras Hylton (1-0) from rival gym, First Class MMA. Hylton made his debut on the same night as Glover and, like his challenger this weekend, made quick work of his opponent by earning a TKO victory at 1:21 of the first round.
Berserkers MMA Founder and Head Coach, Mike Hansen, predicts a dominant night for Glover. “Matt happens to be much stronger than he even appears, which is incredible if you have ever seen him,” Hansen stated. “A guy of his size normally struggles with agility, but Matt doesn’t. He is a super athlete and easy to coach. Matt improves daily and will be a juggernaut in the heavyweight amateur division.
“Ras is used to being the bigger guy in all of his fights. That will not be the case on Saturday night. Matt will put his hands on Hylton in a way he’s never been touched before. I don’t see Ras walking away from this fight with his hand held high. He should consider it a win if he can walk away at all when Matt’s done with him.”
Going into Saturday night, Glover feels well prepared to continue building on his success in the sport of MMA that he started to create back in February. If his athletic history is any indicator, he should be confident in the future. “I’m ready for this fight,” Glover stated. “In this fight, I’m more relaxed because my brother’s not fighting and I can just focus on my fight… After that first win, I knew I was hooked because there’s no better feeling.”
“When people first started speaking to Matt about competing in MMA, I was completely against it 110%,” Lindsey stated. “But after watching him train so hard with the guys in the gym and seeing that he has the same passion for that as he does for his horse pulling, I felt more at ease and decided that if this was something he wanted to pursue, I would support him in any way that I possibly could.
“The Glover brothers fighting in MMA is a big thing for Rumford,” Lindsey stated in closing. “Every time it’s getting close to fight night, this town comes alive. No matter where he goes within the sport, this town and his family support him.”
New England Fights’ next event, “NEF 22: ALL ROADS LEAD HERE,” takes place this Saturday, April 23, 2016 at the Androscoggin Bank Colisée in Lewiston, Maine. Tickets for “NEF 22” start at just $25 and are on sale now at www.TheColisee.com or by calling the Colisée box office at 207.783.2009 x 525. For more information on the event and fight card updates, please visit the promotion’s website at www.NewEnglandFights.com. In addition, you can watch NEF videos at www.youtube.com/NEFMMA, follow them on Twitter @nefights and join the official Facebook group “New England Fights.”
