Ben Saunders is a veteran of both the UFC and Bellator with twenty-one and ten fights in the respective promotions, and now he’s announced his intention to devote more time to coaching by opening up a 10th Planet affiliate in Orlando, Florida. Saunders is most well-known for being the very first person to ever finish a fight with an Omoplata in the UFC, which he did against Chris Heatherly at UFC Fight Night 49 in 2014. Interestingly, this wasn’t actually a one-off either as Saunders had attempted an Omoplata on numerous occasions prior to this, most notably against Luis Santos at Bellator 53.
Over the course of his seventeen-year and thirty-eight fight professional MMA career, Ben Saunders has represented 10th Planet incredibly well and has fought some of the biggest names in the sport in the Welterweight division. Saunders’ last fight at the highest level of the sport was in 2018 against Matt Brown which was his fourth straight loss by finish and resulted in the UFC not renewing his contract. He has competed once since then however, against fellow UFC veteran Ramsey Nijem at XMMA 2 in July, 2021, where he won a unanimous decision.
Ben Saunders is an elite grappler both by MMA standards and in grappling in general, as a BJJ black belt under Ricardo Liborio and a 10th Planet black belt under Eddie Bravo, both earned long before the proposed opening of his new facility in Orlando. Ben Saunders announced the opening of 10th Planet in Orlando, Florida in a post to his official Instagram account where he also linked the brand new official Instagram account and official site of 10th Planet Orlando:
