Jim Wallhead

Under Adams, Wallhead won three Under-21s British titles as well as placing 7th in the European youth Olympics.

Jim Wallhead (born 14 March 1984) is an English former professional mixed martial artist who competed in the Welterweight division.

He has competed for BAMMA, Bellator, and M-1 Challenge and the UFC.

Wallhead is a member of Team Rough House and Leicester Shootfighters.

In addition to his training at Leicester Shootfighters, Wallhead also works as a coach.

Wallhead joined Team Rough House after back-to-back losses at the beginning of his professional career and dropped his competing weight from Light Heavyweight and Middleweight to Welterweight.

Wallhead comes from a judo background, where he holds a black belt.

He was introduced to judo accidentally after being taken to a class that was believed to be a karate class.

Wallhead was successful early in his judo career for the Beaumont Leys Judo club, before moving to a club in Coventry under Olympic silver medallist Neil Adams.

Wallhead joined Team Rough House in 2005, following back-to-back losses between May and July 2005.

Wallhead is still a member of Team Rough House to this date, alongside fighters such as Dan Hardy, Ross Pearson, Paul Daley and Andre Winner.

Wallhead also trains Muay Thai with the former multi-time Kickboxing champion Owen Comerie, who previously trained Dan Hardy.

Wallhead works his strength and conditioning with Ollie Richardson at the Leicester Tigers Rugby Union training ground.

Wallhead also trains Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Victor Estima, he holds a Black Belt under him.

Early in his career, Wallhead was associated with the Urban Combat Leicester team.

He made his semi-professional debut against Steve Matthews on 8 April 2005, in a two-round fight.

This fight was fought at heavyweight, at the "Cage Warriors: Quest" event where Wallhead was able to defeat his opponent with a rear naked choke after 27 seconds of the first round.

Wallhead soon turned professional and on 30 April 2005, he made his debut at Cage Warriors: Ultimate Force.

Jim fought Leslee Ojugbana, utilising knee strikes from the clinch, whilst preventing Ojugbana from succeeding with takedown attempts.

After one-sided striking from Wallhead, Ojugbana gave up his back and Wallhead was able to pull off a rear naked choke for his debut win after just 64 seconds.

Wallhead competed just weeks later and made his second professional appearance against Boris Jonstomp at Cage Warriors: Strike Force.

This fight was fought at the lower weight of middleweight and saw Wallhead succeed with judo throw attempts early in the fight.

However, Wallhead's ground game was not to the same standard at Jonstomp's and he lost via first round submission (neck crank) after 4:20.

This was followed up by his second consecutive loss, two months later at the Cage Warriors: Quest 2 event, at the hands of Chris Rice.

Wallhead was TKOd 3:32 into the first round, resulting in a 1–2 record at the start of his professional MMA career.

Following this loss, Wallhead joined Team Rough House after meeting Dan Hardy and receiving an invitation to join the team.

Upon doing so, Wallhead dropped two weight categories to his current status as a welterweight.

In his welterweight debut and his first fight under Team Rough House affiliation, Wallhead was victorious.

The fight took place at Cage Warriors: Strike Force 3 where Wallhead faced Greco-Roman wrestler Steve Singh-Sidhu.

Though Wallhead had dropped to welterweight, he still had a considerable weight advantage over his opponent who weighed in at 3.5 kg less than Wallhead.

This perhaps was significant as Singh-Sidhu's strikes seemed to have little bearing on Wallhead, who was able to land takedowns and a standing choke.

Midway through the first round, Singh-Sidhu appeared to be backing away from Wallhead, who chased him down with punches and knees to the head.

After a shin strike to the head, Singh-Sidhu's corner threw in the towel, resulting in a first-round TKO victory for Wallhead.

In December 2005, Wallhead fought Welshman Paul Jenkins.

This was Wallhead's first title fight in mixed martial arts, as they competed for the House of Pain Welterweight title in front of Jenkins' home crowd of Cardiff, Wales.

Wallhead won the fight via majority decision after five rounds, giving him the title.

Just over two years to that day, Wallhead rematched Jenkins in a kickboxing bout (thus not counting towards his pro-MMA record); this time in Wallhead's hometown of Nottingham.

Wallhead showed effective low kicks and combinations which earned him a unanimous decision victory.

After his third successive victory, with his win over Henning Svendsen in March 2006, Wallhead made his first title defense of his House of Pain Welterweight title just two weeks later.

His opponent was John Phillips who was making his second professional appearance.