ABERTILLERY soldier Jack Marshman has gone from fighting at the Pill Millennium Centre in Newport to the Ultimate Fighting Championship in Belfast and now he wants to bring mixed martial arts’ biggest competition to Wales.

Six years after beating Frenchman Karim Mammar in front of a few hundred people in his professional MMA debut in Pill, Marshman wowed a crowd of 13,000 on his UFC bow at the SSE Arena in Belfast on November 19.

The 26-year-old, a Lance Corporal with the 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment, won a $50,000 performance of the night prize after beating Sweden’s Magnus Cedenblad via TKO in round two.

He's been training at Tillery Combat MMA in Abertillery for the past 10 years with coach Richard Shore and the call from UFC was the fulfilment of a long-held ambition for both.

Marshman was the first Welshman to sign up to UFC and was joined on the Belfast bill by Swansea’s Brett Johns, who defeated his opponent, South Korean Kwan Ho Kwak, via unanimous decision.

It was an historic night for the duo and for MMA in Wales and now Marshman is dreaming of bringing UFC to his homeland.

“I’ve come a long way since fighting at the Pill Millennium Centre,” he said.

“I realised a dream by fighting in UFC and the whole experience was everything I thought it would be, and more.

“I loved it, it was amazing and even better as I got a good win and won the performance of the night prize.

“That obviously means I impressed and I’m aiming to get on the card for the London show on March 18.”

He added: “In the longer term I’d love to see a UFC event in Wales.

“We’re the only country in Britain not to have hosted one and now Brett and I are on the scene it can’t be far off.

“Hopefully we’ve inspired a lot of people. There are a lot of great MMA fighters in Wales and we’ve opened the door and shown them that there are opportunities there.

“It would be great if we could get a big event in Wales because the amount of support for the sport here is massive.”

MMA combines various combat sports and Olympic disciplines including Muay Thai, boxing, judo, jiu-jitsu and wrestling.

UFC is the world’s largest and highest level MMA organisation and is often termed ‘the fastest growing sport in the world’.

Producing more than 42 live events globally each year, UFC also remains the largest pay-per-view event provider in the world.

UFC programming is broadcast in more than 150 countries, to 1.1 billion households worldwide, in 35 different languages.