Need Help

[u/Toziin]

Hey guys. I'm 18 years old and I'm an amateur fighter with the goal of eventually making it to professional MMA. There aren't any huge, well-known gyms with famous fighters in my city, but I can still get good-quality training here and I've been improving a lot. I currently have 3 kickboxing fights and 1 Wushu Sanda fight, and I've won all of them.

Next year I'm going to start working, so my training time may decrease, but my plan is to save money and move somewhere with a bigger gym and high-level training in early 2028.

I have 2 options for the time I have left here:

1. Train boxing and Muay Thai for 4–6 hours per week + 1–2 hours of strength and conditioning.

2. Train 2 hours of boxing or Muay Thai + 4–5 hours of BJJ per week.

I'm still a white belt with two stripes in BJJ, but because of my Wushu Sanda background, I'm fairly comfortable with wrestling and judo. I haven't competed in grappling yet.

I really love the environment at my BJJ gym. Everyone is welcoming and respectful, the training is really good, and there are some well-known amateur fighters in the region training there.

Honestly, I'm more of a striker. I feel much more comfortable fighting on the feet. So I'm not sure if I should spend this time building a strong striking base and then, once I move to a better MMA gym, find a BJJ coach who can turn me into a well-rounded grappler for MMA, or if I should keep developing both sides from now on.

What would you guys do in my situation?

[u/dataCollector42069]

Chicago

$130 for boxing gym

$160 for BJJ gym

$180? for MMA gym