Ole Laursen

Ole Laursen (born August 21, 1977) is a Danish welterweight Muay Thai kickboxer and lightweight mixed martial artist, fighting out of Copenhagen, Denmark 




Ole was born in Manila, Philippines and moved to Denmark when he was 2 years old. He got involved with martial arts through his older brother Christian Laursen. He was 15 when he started practicing Muay thai.
Ole Laursen currently lives in Ubon, Thailand and fights out of his own Legacy Gym.
Ole trained with Peter J McCarthy, the subject, director and producer of the documentary, Fight of Flight. http://www.fightorflight.tv which won "Best Foreign Documentary" at the Long Island Film Festival, New York as well as three other "Best Documentary" awards at festivals in Hamburg, Toronto and California. Ole Laursen assisted the  production team in Ubon Ratchatani.

Career

As an amateur Ole had six fights before turning pro. He lost his first amateur bout, took a year off, and then came back with five straight wins – all by knockout, winning the 1998 Danish amateur kickboxing title in the process. He made his pro debut in 2000 and picked up his first major honour that summer, defeating Eval Denton to win the I.K.F. European title. Laursen relocated from Europe to San Diego in the United States, where he won the vacant I.M.T.C. world title in 2001. However, he was unable to defend his title later on that year, losing a controversial decision to the Thai fighter Kongnapa in what many thought was a Laursen victory.
In 2002 Laursen made his first appearance for the K-1 organization at the K-1 World MAX 2002 USA in Denver, Colorado, where he made the final only to lose to U.S rival Duane Ludwig. This defeat meant that Laursen was unable to participate in the inaugural K-1 MAX final but he made up somewhat for that defeat by winning the prestigious King's Cup in Bangkok, Thailand at the end of the year. In 2003 Laursen signed up with the newly formed European promotion SuperLeague where he faced Shane Chapman on his debut only to lose by decision. Despite this defeat Laursen had some initial success in SuperLeague with his Muay Thai style favouring five round matches, going 4 and 2 with the organization by the end of 2004 and beating world champions such as Peter Crooke and Kamal El Amrani.
Over the following years Laursen spent much of his fighting time flicking back and forth between SuperLeague and K-1, although the increased competition (and shorter fight times introduced by SuperLeague) meant that he had little success with either promotion – finishing with an overall record of 4 wins, 5 defeats in SuperLeague, and 2 and 6 in K-1 and making little impact in any of the tournaments he entered. As he struggled in kickboxing, Laursen would increasingly become involved in the world of MMA.
He had his first MMA fight with K-1 Hero's in 2006 and had two fights with the promotion losing both of his matches against strong opposition in Genki Sudo and Caol Uno. Un-swayed by this initial setback, Laursen became more familiar with MMA training as he focused less and less on Muay Thai and kickboxing and worked on his takedown defence, going on to win his next five matches, including defeating Eduardo Pachu to win the Martial Combat Superfight Lightweight title

	Kickboxing record  Total 53 Wins 34 By knockout 10 Losses 19