Isaac Thomson, 21, may not be a household name in the MMA world just yet, but he plans to accomplish things no other fighter has.
Thomson (5-1), an Australian mixed martial artist who comes from a fighting family, trains full-time at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, Calif., and even with just six pro MMA bouts, Urijah Faber believes if the call came from Thomson to take a short-notice UFC bout, he would get the team’s blessing without hesitation.
“He’s ready for the UFC right now,” Faber told MMA Fighting. “I’ve already talked to Sean [Shelby] about him, and they have a tentative spot for him on the Contender Series, hopefully next [season]. But I think he’s ready now, and I can just say that because I’ve seen who he goes with in the room, and as someone who knows where he stands and the growth I’ve seen.
“I think the biggest growth for him has not just been the technical side, it’s been the comforted discomfort — getting to a high level of fatigue and still pushing through, and also being aware of where he sits in the room, how he does with the highest level guys, because there’s definitely a pecking order, and when a guy can be his age and be towards the top of the pecking order, it’s a good sign. So he’s ready now. I believe that, for sure.”
Thomson has competed in karate, Muay Thai, and jiu-jitsu matches since he was a little kid, and his parents were gym owners. Thomson’s mom was a professional Muay Thai fighter, winning three Australian titles in the process, and she is a main influence in Thomson making the decision to become a professional fighter.
Beginning his competitive fighting run at 8, Thomson found his way to Team Alpha Male — and other high-level MMA gyms — as a young teenager, getting in work with some of the biggest names in the sport. And while his parents knew the type of athletes their son was training with, Thomson had no idea.
“So I think I was like 15, or something like that,” Thomson said of his first trip to Team Alpha Male. “I was competing in jiu-jitsu worlds in [Los Angeles], but I also had a pankration fight just to like get my foot into the MMA scene, because I was a little too young to do MMA at the time. So we came over to Urijah Faber’s gym because my dad had been a big fan of all those guys. I got to do some training with the pro team, and they really took me in. Fast track to when I was 18, and I end up coming over to California and training here full-time.
“I had no idea who they were [when I got here]. I used to train in Miami as well with Henry [Hooft], Michael Johnson, I even sparred Rashad Evans, and my mom was like, ‘Do you know who you just sparred? You just sparred Rashad Evans.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, cool.’ I didn’t know a lot of fighters until now. I’ve only in the past couple of years have really got into studying other fighters and knowing who’s who, and yeah, now it’s like, holy s***.”
Thomson’s amateur run only lasted two fights — both submission victories — before making his pro debut in December 2020, when he stopped Luis Garcia with strikes at iKON FF 4. After a quick finish in his second MMA bout for Empire FC five months later, Thomson ended 2021 with his first fight under the LFA banner and was finished via second-round TKO by Dorian Ramos at LFA 119.
Losing wasn’t something Thomson had a lot of experience with. On top of that, Faber and Thomson’s mentors at Team Alpha Male knew the type of talent they were dealing with, but they needed to fine tune some of the integral pieces of his game.
That led to Thomson taking 2022 off from MMA competition.
“So it was just a big realization that I had a hole in my game, which was wrestling,” Thomson said. “I was doing a little bit of wrestling before that, but not to the extent where I am now. I feel like I’ve really felt that wrestling holding now, and if we fought again, it’d be definitely different.
“[I took all of 2022 from MMA fights and focused on] just wrestling. I did a couple of wrestling tournaments, I did some jiu-jitsu tournaments, and I just really doubled down on my wrestling. I had what they call like a redshirt year: Just don’t fight, just strictly just get down to my basics and get all my wrestling down pat.
“It sucked, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. I honestly feel like it was definitely the right path to take for sure though.”
While Thomson’s wrestling was lacking, Faber says it was more than that, and that with his young age, they were in no real rush.
“I think the biggest thing with him is, because he has such a great family that also loves martial arts and understands it, they’ve been really pushing for him, and he has potential to be a young guy on the roster in the UFC, and I think dialing it back and realizing how young he is and how much time he has is important,” Faber explained. “It wasn’t just the wrestling there, and, ‘Oh, I definitely need to improve on this wrestling stuff,’ but he had a huge amount of legitimate submission attempts in that fight, and that wasn’t the best use of his energy, and once his energy was gone, dealing with being in an uncomfortable place.
“That was what I saw: Not only the wrestling side of things, but having comfort, discomfort, and fatigue, because it’s not a good thing to have that at that level for the first time in a fight. It was wrestling conditioning, wrestling technique, and he’s got a great mentor, one of his best friends and one of our teammates, Alex Munoz, who’s also a coach for him, that has really taken him under his wing and teaching him the finer incremental things about wrestling. They come in and do their privates together, on top of working with me on the blending of jiu-jitsu and MMA with the wrestling and jiu-jitsu, and he’s been thriving.
“I think there is like kind of an over-caution at some point from the people that love him on who we should match him up with. When you’re really looking at him in the room, you see that he can go with high-level guys that are in the UFC right now in his weight, and that for me is a great sign.”
Since the hiatus from in-cage competition, Thomson has certainly made up for lost time in 2023, going 3-0 with a fourth fight booked for Oct. 27, a meeting with A.J. Robb at LFA 170.
In his first fight back, Thomson did something else he hadn’t done in his MMA career: Go to the judges, sweeping the scorecards against Gary Konkol — including a pair of 10-8 rounds — at LFA 150 in January. For Faber, as great as it is to get a quick and dominant finish, it was a big next step for one of his star pupils to go a full 15 minutes in his first bout after a loss.
“I think it’s important and you always have to remind these guys what you put in in a day. He’s a guy that takes the sport seriously, and he’s in the gym before practice in the morning, does the pro practice, comes back in the evening, and he’s putting in the work,” Faber said. Sometimes people try to overthink a 15-minute fight, and when you look at it as a guy that has put in years and years of work for a 15-minute fight, and he’s putting hours and hours in one day.
“I think him realizing the kind of conditioning and abilities he has in the 15-minute fight is awesome.”
Thomson believes the UFC has their sights set on him, and being able to pick up a fourth victory in a 10-month span will certainly shine the spotlight a bit brighter upon him to the UFC brass.
Faber believes that Thomson has star potential for the world’s biggest promotion and says the young fighter “has more Alexander Volkanovski in him than, say, a Sean O’Malley.”
Being in the same conversation as the current featherweight champion is something that means the world to Thomson.
“I feel like I’m on the UFC’s radar right now, and I’m ready to add a little bit more Australian blood in the division,” Thomson said.
“What Alex has done, it’s amazing. I met Alex when I was in Thailand right before I had my striking debut and I got to do like a little bit of training with him. He also kind of helped me out when I went back home, and we did some more training. We’re friends, so seeing one of my friends be the champ, and the greatest of all-time, it’s awesome, man. It gives me goosebumps.
“I strive to be like that as well. I really see him as an idol to me. I want to be able to get to that status and just be myself, and not have the fame change me.”
Volkanovski came up short in his quest to become a two-division champion at UFC 284 in February when he lost a close decision to lightweight champ Islam Makhachev, and then again in a short-notice rematch he lost via knockout this past weekend at UFC 294.
While Thomson sees a UFC world title in his future, two would be great – but three would be even better.
“A big goal of mine would be triple-champ status in the UFC so I can go between [different weight classes],” Thomson said. “I’m at a size right now where I can go to 135 — 155 is a bit big, but I can go 145, 135, then I can bulk up and go to 155.
“So we’re going for triple-champ status before we turn the page here.”
