WEST HAVEN, Conn. - The walls of Fighting Arts Academy are filled with Nick Newell's accomplishments: a giant check from the World Series of Fighting, the Xtreme Fighting Championships lightweight championship belt he won in 2012, various newspaper clippings telling the story of the one-handed fighter from Milford who nearly earned a UFC contract.
Three days earlier, Newell was in Las Vegas, standing just outside the UFC octagon while training Justin Sumter, a middleweight who was fighting for a UFC contract on Dana White's Contender Series TV show. Sumter was knocked out in the first round.
A year earlier, it was Newell in the Contender Series, fighting for his own UFC dream. But he lost a unanimous decision, and White seemingly shut the door on his chances of earning a spot in the UFC.
"I respect that kid very much," White said at the time. "Obviously that's why I gave him an opportunity. I always believed that the UFC was a tough place for Nick. This a tough place with two arms and two legs. This is the real deal. I put him in the Contender Series to see if he could make it to the UFC. He didn't make it."
Newell has a lot going on outside his own fighting career - he trains pro fighters, like Sumter, he runs the gym full time, he runs beginner MMA classes for kids - but he wasn't about to give up. So he returned in May and promptly won by first round submission on a CES card in Hartford.
"It doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks or anyone else says," Newell said. "I'm one of the best fighters in the world, and I know it. And I'm gonna show it. And I'm gonna prove it. And I'm gonna fight on the big stages, and I'm still in my prime. So I'm gonna make it happen."
Newell wasn't always this confident. He lost his first 17 high school wrestling matches - actually, that's not entirely true: on two occasions, the other school didn't have a 106-pounder to face off with him, so Newell won by forfeit.
At first, Jonathan Law wrestling coach Matt Schoonmaker had to teach things to Newell a bit differently because he was missing a hand. Then he realized he didn't really need to.
"He figured out how to do things," Schoonmaker said. "I mean he was tying his shoes with one hand, for Christ's sake. So I kind of just went with it the way it was."
Then, three years later, Newell - born without a left hand due to a condition called congenital amputation - set a state record for most matches in a season and tied the record for wins.
"If you suck at something, and you stop because you suck, you're always gonna suck at it," Newell said. "And it bothered me, especially having one hand, I didn't want to be a victim my whole life. I didn't want people to feel sorry for me. I didn't want people to look at me as lesser."
Newell hadn't always been into wrestling. When he was younger, baseball was his favorite sport, and his hero was Jim Abbott, the pitcher who was born without a right hand and once threw a no-hitter for the Yankees.
Newell kept wrestling in college, but after watching The Ultimate Fighter he got the itch to try out MMA. After only a couple amateur fights, he decided to turn pro.
After earning a few wins to start his career, Newell and his friend and teammate Abi Mestre went to try out for the XFC, and Mestre ended up earning the contract over Newell. Then, while he was training for his first fight with the promotion, Mestre was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident, and they asked Newell to fight on a card honoring him.
"I went from a guy whose last fight was in the 103 Union Hall in Boston to a guy who was fighting in a packed stadium," he said. "And it was the craziest thing I ever experienced."
And that night, when he won by heel hook submission in the first round, was the best moment of his career. Even better than when he won the XFC lightweight strap three fights later and became a world champion.
Newell will push back against anyone who says this, but a lot of people view fighting him as a lose-lose: win, and you beat a guy with one hand. Lose, and you just got beat by a guy with one hand.
"People say that, but really it's a win," he said. "If you win a fight, you win."
The first guy to do that was Justin Gaethje, now the No. 5 UFC lightweight in the world. Gaethje and Newell met for the WSOF title in 2014 and Gaethje walked away with a second-round knockout win. As Newell is quick to point out, Gaethje has won his last two UFC fights by first-round knockout, and he lasted longer and did more damage than those guys did.
A couple fights after that loss, Newell retired. His body was starting to break down and he was opening the FAA gym in West Haven. The gym has taken off in the three years it's been open and is moving to a bigger location next month.
The guys training there come from a ton of different backgrounds. Ronald Roman, 20, was working in Men's Wearhouse when he recognized Newell come into the store.
"I was like 'oh (crap), you're Nick Newell,' " Roman said.
Soon, Roman was training at FAA and plans to start his amateur MMA career in October.
Mike Birarelli, 28, trained with Newell before FAA opened and followed him when the gym opened. At first, he noticed Newell's missing hand whenever they'd train. Then he realized how Newell used it to his benefit.
"It doesn't phase me anymore," he said. "If anything it's an advantage, that's how I look at it. You get caught in a choke on that side and you can't really grasp onto anything. That's why he's the guillotine king."
Of Newell's 15 MMA wins, 10 have come by submission, including his win in the XFC title fight.
Newell is 33 now, but he feels better than he has in years. He wants to fight again soon, maybe on Bellator's Aug. 24 card in Bridgeport, maybe on a CES card on Sept. 7 in Hartford.
He's already had a successful career by any standard, let alone one for a guy born with only one hand. But that isn't stopping him from pushing forward.
"If I just was like 'oh, I'm never gonna fight, I only have one hand, I shouldn't do this, I might get hurt,' no one would know who I am, no one would care," he said. "I am where I am because I took risks and I believed in myself."
He's not stopping now.