What do you get when you combine, a mixed martial arts UFC fighter with a passion for animals and the skills to be a certified dog trainer and decoy? You get this issue’s feature student, 25-year old Lex Pappas. His whole life he has been involved in various types of wrestling, such as high school, free style, and Greco Roman. About a year ago he started going to the gym on a membership that his fiance no longer wanted. It was shortly after this that he became involved in mixed martial arts, or better known as Ultimate Fighting competition.
Lex spends long hours in his gym, Sacan Family Martial Arts Center, about four to five days a week, each session being around four hours long. He works with his personal trainer, Neal Rowe, who also trained the well known UFC fighting champ, Rich Franklin.
Lex’s most recent victory was three weeks ago at The Rocktown Throwdown in Rockford, Illinois. He has a spotless, undefeated record of 3-0, as he has expectations of becoming a professional fighter in the future.
Lex takes pride in what he does and is quick to defend that mixed martial arts is not just brutality and insane fighting, but is a sport that contains lots of honor, dedication, and pride.
But fighting in mixed martial arts every two to three months is not the only thing that makes Lex Pappas such a distinctive student. He also has his own dog training and decoying business called “The Dog Guy.” He provides positive training for any problem stricken pooch out there.
He has been in the dog business for about five years and even worked with the Chicago Police, Newport Police, and Cincinnati Police K9 divisions to test the dogs’ ability to react in different situations, and test their tracking instincts.
In addition to this love-of-dogs lifestyle, he also works at a local pet store part time on the weekends and enjoys a pet of his own, his American Pit Bull Terrier, Kane. Lex says he has a special relationship with his dog, one that is controlled and understood as to who calls the shots.
Lex does, however, have downtime from time to time and enjoys spending it with his fiance and three year old son. So, as a full time student, UFC fighter, dog trainer, fiance, and father, Lex Pappas’s many titles all add up to one word: “accomplished.” To know him, is to like him, as his polite personality is inviting and friendly, and that is what makes him a perfect example of what a feature student ought to be.