Tywan Claxton revealed the key to figuring out his MMA game. The up and coming Bellator Featherweight stated that opponents just need to read the source code in his computer language to figure out his move set. Really.
The self-taught, computer coder noted that you can figure out his “movements” if you learned how he put together his apps. Of course, the Cleveland-native has a budding Bellator career ahead of him but his self-taught computer learning is a potential side business that could flourish. Claxton is coming off a win this past December over Brayden Akeo in Hawaii and is ready to get back in the cage when everyone is ready to get back to business. He is 7-1 in his professional career with all fights in Bellator.
Notably, Claxton’s very first pro fight he won via flying knee against Jonny Bonilla-Bowman in the very first round. The flying knee is used in t-shirts that the fighter sells on his web site. The gregarious Claxton has shown that he is social in the cage. In his fight against James Bennett, Claxton started a conversation during his fight with rapper 50 Cent who was sitting cage side. The interaction also spawned a “What up Fifty,” t-shirt.
"Whaddup, @50Cent!"-@TClax149#Bellator221 pic.twitter.com/oXBJp7zuUm
— BellatorMMA (@BellatorMMA) May 12, 2019
The former Ohio University wrestling standout was training for a fight in Las Vegas that was to happen in May when the stay-in-place orders were issued. Instead of heading home to Ohio, Claxton decided to stay in Vegas with his coaches to train.
The matchup that was to happen at one of the Bellator cards in May, was postponed before the fight was announced according to Claxton. “My life hasn’t changed much in the day to day,” Claxton said in a phone interview with MPO.
Claxton is training and coding as usual in Vegas.
For those that don’t know, coding is the process of using a programming language to get a computer to behave how you want it to. Every line of code tells the computer to do something. “In college, I had an app idea,” said Claxton, “I wanted to build it so I went to the head of the Computer Science department.” However, when he asked the Computer Science department head for help,” he was turned away. “I was told it was a super-complicated process.”
“He told me that I had to pay someone [to build the app] a lot of money or change majors [to go through Computer Science classes].” The inference was that Claxton couldn’t do it. This angered Claxton who saw this as a challenge and decided to learn it on his own. “I’m going to teach myself and I’m going to start learning how to code,” Claxton recalled.
“I first started with YouTube,” Claxton added, “[t]here’s free documentation out there.” The goal to learn how to code to build an app became a budding interest for Claxton. “I like to do tech things.”
Claxton searched the internet on learning how to code and read as many books on computer programming in his spare time from training. “I would sit up in a coffee shop and just code,” Claxton reminisced about the times he worked on deciphering what essentially is a foreign language. He eventually took coding class online to help him with some of the more difficult issues.
“I’ve got 20 different apps,” Claxton said of his project. He stated that 45% of them are done. The biggest one is not ready yet.
“I find that my note-taking skills [from school] transferred to go into coding,” he added. “You have to be super organized and understand all the moving pieces of the puzzle. Organization and always knowing that there are options in breaking down and putting something together. It’s critical in making an app work.” There is more than one code language, and Claxton has become versed in several of them to make the app more accessible. He noted that Android and Apple code language differs.
The lessons learned from deciphering code are readily transferrable to Claxton’s work and success in the cage.
While Claxton has had more time to on coding, he also ready to get back into the cage when Scott Coker and Bellator decide that they can safely be back. “I haven’t heard anything yet,” said Claxton as to if the company has reached out about news on a return. He indicated that he has faith that Bellator will do what’s right in bringing events back.
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