Tony Laramie, a guy who freely admits he nearly flushed his career down the drain, is just one victory away from snatching a Rizin flyweight championship. This Sunday, Saturday night for us in the States, he’s stepping into the cage at Rizin 55 in Funabishi to fight Makoto Takahashi for the 125-pound belt, a journey that started in the literal gutter.
From “Scumbag” to Title Contender
Just a couple of years back, you ask Tony what he was doing, and the dude himself calls it straight up: “I was being a scumbag,” he says, running a hand through that Canadian mullet. He was so far off the rails his own brother, former UFC fighter TJ Laramie, kept his distance. Was it drinking? Drugs? Carousing? Causing trouble? Petty crimes? Tony’s answer? “Let’s just say all of above. All of the above.” This mess, a blur of bad choices spanning maybe 2023, 2024, or even 2025, was all before he truly got serious in Rizin. This 27-year-old was headed for nowhere.
A Childhood Ripped Apart
But the roots of that chaos dig deep, way deeper than a couple of years ago. We’re talking about a childhood ripped apart before he even hit his teens. At just six years old, in a brutal couple of months, Tony lost his older brother, then his mother, and then watched his dad go to prison. Six years old. Forced to live with his aunt while barely out of kindergarten, the structure of his entire life just crumbled. He talks about growing up in Ontario, surrounded by “drugs and crime, but and mainly drugs.” The death of his brother, 14 years his senior, was the spark. “I feel like my brother dying really initiated the big spiral down, and then it just snowballed from there,” he explained. He’s still not even sure what killed his brother; he was told a heart defect, but later heard whispers of drug use.
Fighting Saved Him, Twice
So how does a guy go from all that to fighting for a world title? Fighting, for Tony, wasn’t just a sport, it was survival. It was his anchor. “Honestly, it was just with my poor upbringing and stuff like that, it was like I never really had … let’s say the closest family I had I found through the gym,” he said. When he fell “off the rails a bit” as he got older, fighting dragged him back. It gave him “a reason to do better,” a reason “to not being such a f***ing loser.” This sport literally saved him not once, but twice. First, in his younger years, from “a life of no f***ing family or friends or anything like that,” and then again, from those “poor choices” later on, pushing him “to pursue this sport to the fullest.” This isn’t just a comeback story, it’s a redemption arc forged in fire.
Now, the demons Tony Laramie has battled his whole life are taking a backseat. His focus is locked, laser-sharp, on Makoto Takahashi. This Sunday, or Saturday night for us in the States, at Rizin 55 in Funabishi, he’s stepping into that cage for the 125-pound flyweight belt. This isn’t just a title fight, it’s the culmination of a lifetime of battles, inside and out. You can bet we’ll be watching to see if he can complete this incredible journey.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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