Ray Wood’s mixed martial arts career took on a hiatus of sorts as he relocated from the Bangor area first to Gaffney, South Carolina, in mid-2014 and then to Amarillo, Texas, in mid-2015.
But it appears the 26-year-old fighter known as “All Business” has found some stability in both his personal and professional lives.
Wood was married in July 2015, and now he and wife Tiana are expecting their first child in August.
And if Wood’s first-round knockout of Chris “Lionheart” Jones on the undercard of Bellator 151 last Friday in Thackerville, Oklahoma, is any indication, the former New England Fights featherweight champion is now positioned to determine how far he can climb in the MMA world.
“Every time I step in there I feel a little more confident, a little more calm, and I’ve never felt so confident,” said Wood after improving his professional record to 7-1.
Making his first appearance in the cage since an August 2015 win over Carlos Vivas in Charlotte, North Carolina, Wood used superior kicks to gain control of the cage within the opening seconds of his match with the veteran Jones, 10-4 overall and 3-2 for Bellator, the nation’s second-biggest MMA promotion.
The bout ended suddenly at 3:10 of the opening round when Wood followed a side kick to the body with a spinning back fist to the jaw that sent Jones to the mat.
“I had kept attacking with side kicks to the body, and I threw that side kick it slipped off, but the natural momentum brings you around to the spinning back fist, and without even thinking about, it they just flowed together,” said Wood, a Fort Myers, Florida, native who moved to Bucksport as a seventh-grader and went on to graduate from Bucksport High School.
“I didn’t even know what happened until I watched the video, this was just one of those situations where I didn’t remember hitting him with a spinning back fist or anything,” he said.
Plenty of people saw the finish unfold, among them Bellator color commentator Jimmy Smith, who in the immediate aftermath of the bout said of Wood, “I hope we seem him again.”
The stoppage also has gained recognition on the popular MMA webside tapology.com in its listing of the top knockouts of 2016.
“I wasn’t nervous at all as far as having the big-stage jitters or anything like that. For me it was no different than any other fight,” Wood said. “Everything’s the same, you’re just on a different platform. I went out there and executed my game plan and just stayed confident.”
Wood wasn’t in contact with Bellator officials immediately after the fight, but he believes he left a lasting impression with his effort.
“It was a good showing and great for my big-stage debut, but obviously I feel like there’s more to come as long as I can continue performances like that,” he said.
Wood hopes to return to action once before experiencing fatherhood for the first time, but in the interim, he’ll return to Amarillo and resume training at Nick’s Fight Club, which is home to a handful of fighters but is more a boxing club than an MMA gym.
“This gym has kind of brought me back to my original basement days when you just had a couple of guys and you had to earn your respect and you had to train really hard because you don’t have the luxury of 20 or 30 training partners,” said Wood of his earliest MMA days training in the Brewer basement of Young’s MMA co-owner Chris Young.
“You have to make it yourself,” he said.
