A new mixed martial arts gym in rural Pa. hopes to tap Penn State’s elite wrestling talent
Penn State has won 10 national wrestling titles since 2011.
PLEASANT GAP, Pa. — The men stood barefoot on the mat, stretching their arms and shadowboxing as Brazilian samba played over the speakers. Most of them had cauliflower ears from years of punches, head slaps, and other blunt forces suffered in the world of combat sports.
One man, Ailton Barbosa, had come from Coconut Creek, Fla., by way of Petrolina, Brazil, after a 13-5 career in mixed martial arts fights.
Bo Nickal, one of the hottest prospects in the Ultimate Fighting Championships, lives here, in this town of 2,800 at the base of Nittany Mountain in Centre County. Nickal made his name about 10 miles up the road, at Penn State, where he won three individual NCAA titles in wrestling.
“Me? I live here, at the gym,” said Adaylton Freitas, a three-time Muay Thai world champion from Sao Paulo.
Most of America’s elite MMA gyms are in California, or Las Vegas, and other balmy places with palm trees, like Coconut Creek. American Top Team Happy Valley started in 2021 with a mission, though: Tap the pipeline of world-class athletes on the Penn State wrestling team, the greatest dynasty in college sports over the last 13 years.
“If this wasn’t here, I wouldn’t be here. I’d probably be in California or Florida,” Nickal said in the gym, just before Thanksgiving. “Everyone knows that wrestling in Pennsylvania, particularly Penn State wrestling, is ingrained in the culture. Obviously, wrestlers do well in MMA and there’s obviously good wrestling around here. It makes sense.”
Long before they became MMA legends, fighters like Jon Jones, Daniel Cormier, Dan Henderson, and Randy Couture woke up in the dark on cold, winter mornings to spend the day at youth wrestling tournaments in high school gymnasiums. Nickal, a Texas native currently 5-0 in MMA, likely wrestled a thousand or more matches before he ever threw a punch, on purpose, at an opponent.
Barbosa, a Brazilian jujitsu black belt and coach at ATT Happy Valley, said in November that he hasn’t been to many wrestling matches yet, but he believes the sport is a perfect foundation for MMA.
“They have body awareness and balance and they’re tough, of course, and it’s easy for wrestlers to learn how to strike,” he said.
Nickal, a partner in the gym, was one of Penn State’s most exciting wrestlers, often turning tricky situations into pins from awkward positions, but he’s proven to have heavy hands in the octagon. He hasn’t needed much wrestling in his five victories. Last month, it was announced that he would fight Cody Brundage, another former wrestler, at UFC 300 in Las Vegas in April.
Weeks before the fight, Nickal, 27, will head down to Coconut Creek, to ATT’s main academy, for more intensive training with a bevy of pro fighters, but Happy Valley is home.
“I feel comfortable here,” he said, “and I want to recreate the same thing up here.”
Cael Sanderson, one of the most accomplished American wrestlers of all time and one of MMA’s greatest “what-ifs,” is just up the road at Penn State, where he’s been the head wrestling coach since 2009. Sanderson went 159-0 wrestling for Iowa State and won an Olympic gold medal in Greece in 2004 before getting into coaching. In an email, Sanderson, 44, said he was approached once to fight a “legendary boxer” for an HBO event that would have been a “huge payday,” but it never panned out.
“MMA wasn’t really a consideration,” he said. “It wasn’t quite the same when I was finishing up my wrestling career as it is today but even if it was I can’t say I would have jumped into it or not. Probably not.”
While there’s been endless debate over which state has the best wrestling pedigree, Pennsylvania is home to the most collegiate programs in the country. Philadelphia, where basketball is king, is home to two Division I programs at Penn and Drexel and Sanderson won his first national title with Penn State there, at the Wells Fargo Center, in 2011. He’s gone on to win nine more and his team is currently ranked No.1, again, putting him alongside the greatest college coaches, in any sport, today.
That’s why some pundits think ATT Happy Valley has a chance to become one of the country’s best gyms for wrestlers looking to fight.
“This isn’t just near a campus, this is near the greatest program the sport of wrestling has ever seen,” longtime MMA fighter and former University of Oregon wrestler Chael Sonnen said in an email.
Anthony Cassar, a former Penn State national champ, trains at ATT Happy Valley, and other NCAA champions, including Roman Bravo-Young and Carter Starocci, have come in to work out. David Taylor, an Olympic gold medalist and two-time champion at Penn State, has a wrestling school for kids about 50 yards from ATT Happy Valley.
Sanderson said having the gym so close is a win-win because it keeps top wrestling talent like Nickal and Cassar in the area. He said he doesn’t try to sway wrestlers in any direction once they’ve graduated. Some go on to compete, internationally, or right into coaching. MMA, he said, is another way for wrestlers to make a living, albeit a dangerous one.
“So far only a few PSU wrestling alumni have chosen to go into MMA and the ones that have didn’t ask me about it. They knew what they wanted to do,” Sanderson said. “That is a decision they have to make, for themselves. There are obviously concerns with getting hit in the head and the potential repercussions.”
Barbosa said he’s still getting used to the cold in Centre County but he’s enjoying the mountains as opposed to the flatness of Florida. The ATT game plan, to become a beacon for fighters, is already working, he said.
“People want to come here,” he said.
Noah Hermosillo is one of them. A four-time Division II All-American at Adams State University in Colorado, he moved to State College from Colorado with his fiancé in 2023 to train with Barbosa, Nickal, Freitas, and particularly Musa Al-Sulaimani, a national boxing champion at Penn State.
“I understand wrestling at a high level but in this sport you can’t be one-dimensional,” he said. “I’m looking to get comfortable on my feet and my striking. I’ll always have the wrestling.”
With ATT Happy Valley still a relatively small gym, compared to Coconut Creek or Team Quest, in Oregon, or the American Kickboxing Academy, in California, Hermosillo can still get intensive, nearly one-on-one training there.
Barbosa said Nickal’s success will only make the gym’s beacon burn brighter. He thinks Nickal will fight for a title sooner than later and he’ll be there, in his corner.
“I call him SpongeBob, cause he’s a sponge. Whatever I tell him, he soaks up,” he said. “The boxing, the Muay Thai, it all comes easy to him. And the wrestling, I mean, you know. "