Last night in front of a sold-out hometown arena, Sam Marles did something incredible.
After eighteen months on the sidelines due to a back surgery—he walked into the cage against one of the most dangerous men in Australian MMA and walked out the Welterweight king.
Five rounds of war. A packed Geelong crowd. Redemption.
The build-up was excellent, the fight was insane, the win was special, and the scenes were epic, but it was Sam’s post-fight interview that really caught my attention.
And it really got me thinking… what does it mean to be a champion?
The story of Sam and me
Sam Marles is a mixed martial artist fighting out of Absolute MMA in Melbourne, Australia.
I first met Sam in late 2022 when I signed up for an amateur fight night at a local boxing gym. Sam was a part-time coach at the gym who was slowly building his reputation in the Australian MMA ranks.
He coached me through an 8-week fight camp that culminated in my first and only fight, and although I didn’t get the win on the night, I uncovered self-belief and strength through that period that changed the trajectory of my life.
That experience led me to The People’s Champ mentality that I later turned into a music project and have since made a part of my identity.
Since then, Sam and I have shared many deep conversations, both recorded and at the end of a big night.
In our first podcast chat in 2023, the theme was finding your obsession.
Our podcast in 2024 touched on developing the mental side of the game and working with a performance coach.
In our most recent conversation (2026), Sam explored the lessons he had taken from his last two fights and how he had learned the value of removing expectations and simply trusting the process.
I’ve seen Sam grow into a complete fighter and mature as a human being. He’s an outstanding and passionate coach who I am glad to call a friend.
The Rise of Sam Marles
Sam has always been a pure striker.
His golf game was good enough to take him to the pro ranks until he hung up the clubs to turn to a different form of striking in his late teens/early twenties, and after getting a taste of martial arts, he hasn’t looked back.
Fighting out of one of the most respected combat sports gyms in Australia (Absolute MMA), Sam has been surrounded by greatness from the outset—with highly decorated athletes like Lachlan Giles, Jack Jenkins (UFC), Kaan Ofli (UFC), Lisa Kyriacou, Joe Luciano and Connor Evans all playing a role in his development.
Sam’s amateur journey finished with a 5-2 record before going pro in 2023.
His first two professional wins came with a certain level of ease, setting him up for a showdown with fellow surging welterweight contender Max Kelly in mid-2024.
The fight started strong, with Sam winning the first and seemingly dominating the second. Then something changed. A few moments didn’t go his way, and the pressure started mounting as expectations diverged from reality.
In the blink of an eye, the fight changed, and the dominant start was rendered worthless as he tapped to a rear-naked choke.
That loss hurt, but Sam credits the lessons learned for a change in his approach:
Trusting the process
Learning to remove expectations
Taking the pressure off during camps
Going deeper on the mindset of a champion
Putting the love of art back into mixed martial arts
The changes instantly paid off as he earned himself a fight of the year victory over a precision striker in Nate Law at Eternal 95 last year.
What was so special about the win was that the fight wasn’t going Sam’s way. He was dropped badly in round one and seemed to be behind early, but he dug deep, changed the range and started taking over until a colossal right hand ended the fight midway through the third round.
Sam’s reaction said everything about what that moment meant for him.
He dropped to his knees and allowed the emotion to pour out of him. He made the necessary adjustments and got the reward. The reward was not the victory; it was the knowledge that his will was not broken and that his mentality held.
That win put him right back in the mix.
The Championship Moment
Although he spent the rest of 2025 and early 2026 recovering from back surgery, the win over Law, movement in the division and his constant presence in the MMA community kept him top of mind for promoters.
A few months ago, he was announced to fight Loni Filimoehala in Geelong for the Welterweight title at Eternal 109.
Sam is a Geelong boy, and he knew he would be headlining in front of a packed home arena, but he welcomed the moment, and in front of his friends and family, he delivered in what ended up being a five-round war with Loni.
It was an insane back-and-forth affair that was genuinely hard to judge.
Sam had the crowd behind him, but Loni had a dog in him that not many in Australian MMA could match. Loni fed off the jeers from the opposing fans and continued to do damage to Sam’s face as well as have success in the grappling exchanges.
Sam’s work on Loni’s calf was evident early, forcing the Tongan warrior to fight out of his non-dominant stance for big portions of the first three rounds.
With no knowledge of how the judges had scored the first three, Sam turned to the hands, pouring on a slick display of boxing in rounds four and five as Loni’s compromised leg made it increasingly more difficult to evade the combinations.
After 25 minutes of war, both men were battered and bruised—a fight truly fitting for the headline slot.
The Geelong stadium erupted as Sam was announced the new Welterweight king.
In front of his family. In front of a packed hometown arena, with the entire Aussie MMA world watching on in anticipation, Sam stood tall, showed his superstar credentials and claimed his title.
He had done it—redemption!
Spoken Like a Champ
This is all well and good; of course it’s nice to see your friends succeed… my partner especially was grateful to hear the fight finish after listening to me scream at my laptop for 25 minutes from the next room.
The fight was good, the victory was special, but the moment that stood tall for me was Sam’s post-fight interview with Australian MMA.
In the brief chat, Sam revealed the depth of his championship qualities.
He started the conversation by talking about how big the moment was for him and his self-belief:
Tonight it’s not even about the result; I pulled something out of myself that you can only find in moments like this… I’m proud of myself.
Going on to talk about how he wanted this experience.
How he needed this experience, this pressure, to be put in front of the bright lights to see what he was really made of:
I seeked this out, I seeked out a big moment… I seeked out pressure because I know that's what's gonna happen at the next level… I wanted this; I wanted to test myself… early in my career, I would've avoided things like this, scared to fail in front of my friends.
Throughout the chat, you can feel the poise, the assuredness—he knew what work he had done, and he was rewarded for it.
That doesn’t always happen.
We don’t always get rewarded for our work. Sometimes the only reward is the work itself, the commitment to our craft and the person we become in the process.
I’ve done so much mental work… I believe in myself; I believe I will show up when it matters.
He did show up.
Win, lose or draw, Sam knew that he had given everything and was prepared to accept whatever result was handed down.
That’s what a champion does: they do the work that no one else wants to do, and they don’t let the outcomes define them. They know that they cannot control outcomes, only themselves.
If you do that often enough over a lifetime, you are more likely to succeed.
Final Thoughts
Sam has always had the athleticism. He has been surrounded by winners from day one, and his skills in martial arts have always been present; he just had to get out of his own way and remove the expectations that come from being a talented athlete.
Those expectations were not his; they belonged to everyone else.
Falling in love with the process and becoming obsessed with improvement (not victory) is what separates the good from the great.
Sam’s figured it out.
This version of Sam Marles is something special. If he can match his crisp striking, championship mentality and world-class training environment with an injury-free run and a bit of luck, the sky is the limit for Marlito.
I’m proud of the fighter he is. I’m prouder of the champion—inside the cage and out—that he’s become.
That’s it for me this week, champs.
With gratitude,
SAV
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Every week I find the lesson inside the moment—the fights, the wins, the quiet work that makes them possible.