Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a factory of stories. Some narratives seem taken from the best thinking minds behind a movie script, but reality, on many occasions, surpasses fiction. Among these stories, we find that of the Italian Ernesto Schisano, a 31-year-old fighter who has lived in Madrid for several years, who has had to overcome numerous obstacles in his life to become a respected fighter in Spanish mixed martial arts. Under his belt, three professional victories by KO in the first round and having achieved the fastest knockout in the history of WOW, the largest league in Spain.
El Potro, as he is nicknamed, has finished this year with three rivals in just a few minutes, achieving earning the title of ‘fearsome knockout’. «Thank God, everyone likes my fights, because they are not acted, nor do they imitate any style, I have my own. I always work very hard and what I like is to fight, I am not interested in the result,” says the Kiofu Team fighter in conversation with ABC MMA. «They gave me a label: they call me Michael Chandler (UFC fighter) because I have a very explosive style. The truth is that I love it, because it is my nature, and I am always willing to put on a good show,” he points out.
Regarding the horizon ahead, Schisano assures that, although everyone wants to be in the UFC, he is realistic and wants to “enjoy the journey.” «At the moment my next goal is to win more fights and, with a good result, good things will always come. Of course the big leagues will 100% arrive, I want to take a leap to the other side of the pond, abroad,” says the Italian. «You have to make sacrifices and not be comfortable, because if not you are deceiving yourself. I want to do another fight before the end of the year,” adds the Italian athlete, who assures that the night before his fights he likes to eat “a good pizza” like a “good Italian.”
street life
To get to the point he is in, where he even achieved the fastest KO in WOW this year, finishing Jan Cvejn in just 17 seconds, El Potro has had to go through a very complicated childhood, with an absent father and a separated mother. “My father was in prison for 15 years and they separated, so I had to live with my grandparents for a while,” he says during the ABC MMA podcast. «I went to live alone when I was 15, I had to go to work. They kicked me out of the house, I slept on the street… And I decided to come to Spain without a euro, without economic stability, I was desperate: in my country, I would either end up in jail or dead,” he reflects.
Furthermore, El Potro acknowledges, he was a “very conflictive person on the street.” «I was looking for fights and I was looking for a life as best I could. But there came a day when I thought I wanted something better for myself. And I moved to Spain. A cousin of mine had a restaurant and I told him that I was tired of being here, that I was sleeping on the street and I went with him. “I slept in the restaurant and started washing dishes,” the fighter remembers his beginnings in our country. And he concludes forcefully with a warning for young people: «The streets of Naples are very dangerous. “We are made to do big things, not things like that and I tell you that Naples is the super beautiful city, I have my city in my heart.”
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