Sponsered MMA Pro Fighters
Mitch Clarke
Mitch is a wrestler turned mixed martial artist training with the Hayabusa's Team Yokai in St. Albert, Alberta. Mitch started his training wrestling in high school and made the transition to wrestling for the University of Saskatchewan. After several years of wrestling, Mitch wanted to try a new challenge and became interested in the sport of mixed martial arts when his cousin showed him a VHS tape of Ultimate Ultimate 1996. Mitch inspired by the results the wrestlers were having in MMA decided to begin training and found a local gym and signed up.
Mitch had his first professional MMA fight in May of 2007 for the Extreme Cage Wars promotion against Jase Nibourg and on by submission due to strikes 89 seconds into the first round. Mitch eventually moved to Edmonton, AB and joined the reputable Team Threat consisting of many great Canadian fighter including Jeff Montemurro, Victor Bachmann, Luke Harris and Travis Galbraith Mitch's next big fight was in September, 2008 in the Evolution Fighting Championships inaugural show and was competing for the promotions welterweight championship, winning the bout and the championship belt in 3 minutes due to a modified guillotine choke in 3 minutes.
"Several years after his first professional MMA fight, Mitch is still training with Team Yokai and after 7 professional fights is still undefeated"
Eventually, Team Threat became amalgamated into the Hayabusa's Team Yokai combining itself with other prominent professional fighters out of Edmonton, Ab. Mitch would return to defend his title at EFC 2against the local favorite Paul Grandbois and defeated the challenger with an inverted armbar in the second round.
Corey Lautischer
Corey Lautischer is a professional mixed martial artist training in Edmonton, Alberta, with Hayabusa's Team Yokai. His father is a 5th degree Ketto Ryu japanese Jujutsu instructor and as such Corey has grown up around martial arts.
He began his training in Japanese Jujutsu at approximately 8 years old and kept it up for a little over a year. Around 12 years old he took up boxing, which he also only stayed in for around a year.
It wasn't until a string of bad choices left Corey considering the path he has chosen in life, and when he was around 18 years old he began studying the martial arts.
For a few years he spent the majority of his time reading, studying and practicing the martial arts on his own, inspired by the teachings of Bruce Lee and all of his students.
After 2 years Corey sought out actual instruction, and he began training in Ketto Ryu Jujutsu under sensei Trevor Tessier, one of his father's best students. In approximately 3 years Corey earned his black belt and began passing along the teachings he had learned. In addition, he also began his studies of submission grappling, and soon became very involved in the local tournament scene.
Through approximately 2 years of competition, Corey competed in the year long "series" tournaments held by Arashi-Do and won both 2007 and 2008 in the under 140 weight division, often weighing close to 130 pounds and even being bumped into higher weight classes due to a lack of competition.
When contemplating a third year of competitions, a student of his introduced the idea of taking an MMA fight, and shortly after Corey had his first fight lined up. This is also the time Corey began training with Team Yokai in preparation for his first fight, bringing in little other competitive experience other than his submission grappling.
Within a year Corey earned himself a 2-1 record, and is constantly striving to improve his stand-up, wrestling and jiu jitsu skills, as he continues to train full time with Team Yokai, and is quickly learning what it takes to make it as a professional MMA fighter.