By KOTC Staff After having a three fight winning streak snapped by Cody Krahn in May, Trent Thorne returned to the winner’s column in dramatic style at King of the Cage Canada’s recent “Lockdown” event, by knocking out Chad Frey in the second round. Not only was the victory the sixth of Thorne’s relatively brief career, it was the Edmonton fighter’s first knock-out win.
“It was pretty crazy actually; it was weird,” said the 28 year-old Thorne while reflecting on the outcome of his July 30th bout. “I thought that he beat me up in the first, and in the second round I came out and threw some kicks, caught him, and he was out cold. There’s a picture of it afterwards and you can see I have a look of shock on my face. It was pretty cool.”
Of Thorne’s five victories heading into his bout with Frey, 4 were by submission and one was by TKO; in March, Thorne stopped Jordan Murray with strikes at KOTC Canada’s “Diamondback” event.
“I’ve been working my stand-up like crazy to be honest,” said Thorne. “Pretty much all I’ve been trying to get better at is that. I wasn’t expecting to face such a good wrestler because I wasn’t supposed to fight Frey originally, but this guy turned out to be a really good wrestler; I guess he’s best friends with Travis Quesnel, a guy that had already beaten me with his dominant wrestling. So, yeah, it turned out pretty good.”
“I like to think that,” Thorne responded, when asked if the win was important, in terms of serving notice to future opponents that he can finish fights by knock-out. “No matter what happens though I could win the next fight, or I could lose it, and if I lose the next one everyone will be saying ‘oh it was a fluke.’ I’m just going to keep working and maybe I’ll get another one here.”
It’s interesting to note that the KO win comes after Thorne decided to start training, with the only man to defeat him in his last five fights, the aforementioned Cody Krahn.
“The loss to Cody showed that I needed a lot of work in a lot of areas,” Thorne noted. “He’s a better fighter than me and now we train together; he’s been helping me out quite a bit actually. I can only take good things from that loss. He’s a tough guy; he’ll probably be in the UFC at some point.”
In fact, heading into their tilt in May, Krahn questioned whether or not Thorne had a structured and disciplined training regiment in place, to compete at the higher levels of the sport.
“I’m trying to stick with the same guys now you know?” Thorne said. “I still do a little bit of cross training with my friends but the best training I am getting now is with Cody and all the other guys there. He was in the corner for my last fight actually and everything he said, I tried to listen and do it. If he wasn’t in my corner I don’t think I would have won that fight.”
Up next, Thorne will face another tough test, as the 6-3 fighter will face veteran Elmer Waterhen at KOTC Canada’s upcoming September 18th show in Cold Lake, Alberta.
“I think it will be my toughest fight so far,” said Thorne when asked to assess his next opponent. “He’s very experienced and he’s had all kinds of fights with top notch guys. He’s fought at 170 and at 185; he looks good at 185. I know he’s on a bit of a losing skid but the guys he’s lost to are tough guys. I expect a really tough fight from him.”
