From outside the open bay doors, it sounds like people are beating each other. And inside, that’s pretty much what’s happening.

About a dozen men and a pair of women are squared off in duos on dirty mats inside what not long ago was a cabinet-making shop in the 500 block of Southeast Dorion Avenue. Nowadays, this is home to Hitman MMA, Umatilla County’s only professional-amateur mixed martial arts training gym.

Mixed martial arts – or MMA – is a full contact combat sport. In common parlance, it’s “cage fighting,” because the fights are often in large cages rather than boxing rings. MMA fighters borrow from a mix of martial arts and a variety of fighting techniques. These fighters aren’t necessarily committed to one form of combat, but instead strive to master many skills so they can punch, kick and throw opponents with equal ferocity and effectiveness and work a “ground game” using grappling and submission holds.

Grunts and huffs echo around the room Monday night as fighters work their ground. It’s tough practice, and gym owner and lead fight instructor Keith Hutchison keeps a wary eye on all of it.

Hutchison is a 29-year-old professional fighter who is undefeated. As an amateur boxer, Hutchison was 11-0, and in amateur MMA he is 4-0. As a pro, he is 7-0 as a boxer and 2-0 in MMA. His next pro fight is Oct. 2 in Los Angeles, Calif.

He occasionally shouts out directions, bits of advice. But Hutchison’s school of hard hits, blocks, kicks and knocks isn’t just about teaching people to fight. He said he wants to help others.

“I give them an opportunity to do something else,” Hutchison said.

Man on a mission

Jason Lambert is one of the bigger fighters at Hitman MMA. The burly Lambert needs to lose about 10 pounds to make his 185 weight, most of which looks like muscle and bone now. Next month, he has a fight in Vancouver, Wash. After that, he said he’s likely to join the professional ranks in October.

After he graduated from Pendleton High School in 2002, Lambert enlisted in the Army. After nearly six years he got out. He participated in combat-style fighting in the military, and after his discharge he said he looked for something to keep him competitive. MMA was it.

Lambert had his first fights in April. He’s now 3-0. He injured his first opponent, cracking his shoulder in a hold. But the second one broke Lambert’s nose 30 seconds into the first of three, 3-minute rounds. He swallowed blood through the whole fight, he said, but kept “going and going” until he prevailed.

As brutal as that sounds, Lambert said he doesn’t see the sport that way.

“It’s more like poetry in motion for me,” he said.

As philosophical as he sounds, Lambert has a deep drive to succeed.

“I like a challenge,” he said. “I’m always try to be the best at everything I’m doing.”

In MMA, Lambert has found a place to test that mettle.

Bloody sport is not bloodthirsty

Hutchison describes MMA fighting in terms of a living chess match. He’s heard the arguments about the seeming brutality of the sport, and he defended it.

“The mental aspect is the most important part of MMA,” Hutchison said. “It’s not human cock fighting.”

People get hurt in MMA fights, but Hutchison said it’s nothing compared to what happens in sports such as football or boxing.

Referees in cage fights are quick to intervene if a fighter is in trouble. There are no standing 8-counts like in boxing, he said.

And in the cage, a fighter can give up, or submit, in the jargon of the sport. If a hold is too painful or can result in serious injury, a fighter “taps out” – quickly and repeatedly tapping the opponent or the canvas is the signal a fighter has had enough.

Love, focus and fun

Liz Kemp, 28, and mother of two, said she joined the gym last year to lose the “baby weight.” She’s done that. Kemp is taunt and wiry.

“I’m in better shape than in high school,” she said.

Originally from Portland, she is still a bit incredulous she has taken to this kind of workout.

“Never was in a fight,” she said, “never even hit anyone until I came here.”

This gym also is where she met Daniel Kemp, her husband. Occasionally the Kemps spar with one another.

“Daniel likes to say this is the best couples therapy,” she said, grinning.

Liz Kemp also said MMA training stretches into the rest of her life. The focus and self discipline she’s learning as a fighter has made her a better college student, she said, and getting stronger has made heaving boxes easier at her job with the J.C. Penney Co. store in downtown Pendleton.

Above all else, she said, MMA training is fun. At times, though, life and work and working out rub.

“They don’t like it at Penney’s when I come in with black eyes,” she said.

The grin was still in place.

Training leads fighter to better path

Tony McCorkindale has a fight next month and is working to drop from 163 to 145. Hutchison said the 25-year-old McCorkindale has what it takes to turn pro.

McCorkindale has a past that he talked about only in broad terms that hinted at dark shadows. At 17, he said, his parents kicked him out of the home.

“I just turned into a hellion,” he said.

He followed friends to Pendleton for work but didn’t seem to have much direction until a night in a bar, when he saw lightweight MMA fighter Alex Alvarez sporting a championship belt.

Seeing Alvarez having a good time, getting attention because of that belt triggered a desire, McCorkindale said, to set about a different path.

“I want a title belt,” he said. “I want to see what it feels like to be called ‘champ.'”

McCorkindale, though, said he is torn between pursuing that dream and fulfilling an obligation to his faith. McCorkindale is Mormon, and he said he wants to serve a mission for the church.

Even if he leaves the mats for a mission, he said fighting has made him a better man. He said he has applied the discipline of fighting to other parts of his life. And he’s now a more open person.

He explained he would learn a new technique and hide it from the other fighters in the gym until he used it against someone. When he finally decided to share, he said he had a revelation.

“You teach somebody something, and you see them use it and it works,” McCorkindale said. “It’s a good feeling.”

But maybe not quite as good, he said, as being called champ.