The voice on the mic

Meet Zac Crush

American wrestler turned Southeast Asia's English voice of combat sports. He's called the fights, built the events, won the medals and still can't walk past a mat without asking for a roll.

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ZacCrush.com Storyteller page X @zac_crush Instagram @zaccrush_YouTube

Zac Crush pointing at the camera, microphone in hand

17+Grappling gold medals across Southeast Asia since 2023

D1NCAA Division 1 wrestling before any of this

1stEnglish MMA commentator in Vietnam

35KViews on a one-take video. The edited version got 2K.

On the mat

The tape doesn't lie

Before the microphone, the matches. A main event, an ADCC draw sheet and a Vietnamese champion who had a long afternoon.

All of Zac's matches

Saigon Fight Factory 008 · Main event

Zac Crush vs Rafael Raimond

The main event at Saigon Fight Factory 008. Zac on the mat, not on the mic, for once.

Mostly unserious

Silly videos

Five hours of pre-fight intel nobody asked for, wild moments from the GMA archive, and bonus footage that probably should have stayed bonus.

GMA 05 fight week

The five-hour pre-fight GMA intel drop

He prepared for one fight night like it was a thesis defence. Then he presented it. For five hours.

Playlist

GMA's wildest moments

Walkouts, faceoffs and the moments the broadcast was too polite to replay.

Playlist

Bonus footage

Outtakes and extras from the Vietnam Grappling Podcast vault.

A grappler throwing a training partner on a beach in Vietnam — **Grappling in Vietnam.** Mats optional. Sand provided.

Aerial drone photo of a Vietnamese coastal city — **Drone, 2020.** Yes, he shoots these himself.

Aerial drone photo of a road through rice fields in Vietnam — **Somewhere in Vietnam.** Fight-week B-roll, very scenic edition.

Yearbook photo pending. We're told it exists, and that the singlet was a choice.

The early years

Where it started

High school wrestling

"I know what it's like to walk around scared, unsure if you could protect yourself or trust anything else about who you were."

Age 14One playful wrestling match, a room full of people staring, and one humiliation too many. That's the moment it started.
High schoolHe took it to the mat for real. Practice, weigh-ins, more practice, and a lot of confidence built one takedown at a time.
CollegeNCAA Division 1 wrestling.
Southeast AsiaCoaching wrestling in Saigon, then 17-plus gold medals in BJJ and grappling across the region since 2023.
NowBuilding the community he needed at fourteen, where nobody has to feel powerless.

Get to know him

Stories about Zac

The short version of a long, loud career. He'll tell you the long version on air.

The plot twist
Before the microphone: government, the military, the tech industry and biometric intelligence. He still reads a fight like a dataset, which explains the five-hour intel drop.
The podcast that got him hired
He started the Vietnam Grappling Podcast to cover a scene nobody was covering. It led straight to Gods of Martial Arts and a job with Johnny Trí Nguyễn.
Vietnam's first English MMA voice
At GMA he became Vietnam's first English MMA commentator, hosted GMA Beyond The Fight, and served as the promotion's first Head of International Relations and matchmaker.
He built the stage himself
Saigon Superfights and Phnom Penh Superfights started because good grapplers had nowhere to compete. Half a dozen grassroots events later, they do.
Kun Khmer in a theatre
He co-founded KF Arena with Sov Men: Kun Khmer, Bokator and hip-hop under one roof at the Aquation Theatre in Phnom Penh.
One take beats ten edits
His unedited one-take videos pulled around 35,000 views. The heavily edited ones managed about 2,000. He stopped editing.
He brings a drone
Some of the aerial shots on this site are his. Coastline, rice fields, fight-week B-roll. He flies it himself.
The inbox never closes
Fighters message him every day. Most of his media deals and sponsors came in the same way, because they'd already watched the content.

Octagon file2 UFC bouts · 2012

20 Jan 2012

UFC on FX 1: Guillard vs. MillerAgainst Fabrício Camões

11 Aug 2012

UFC 150: Henderson vs. Edgar 2Against Dennis Bermudez

In the corner · Tommy Hayden

The architect of Thailand MMA

Most fighters dream about the UFC. Tommy Hayden fought there, then moved to Bangkok and helped build the sport from the ground up.

An American lightweight with two UFC appearances in 2012, Tommy went on to headline cards in Bangkok, coach the next wave and become one of the people Thailand's MMA scene was built around. Zac calls him the architect of Thailand MMA, and so does the episode they recorded together.

Now he's pushing the whole ecosystem forward. Combat Matrix connects gyms, coaches, fighters and fans on one platform, in English and Thai, and Tommy is driving its AI developments and pioneering initiatives to make fighters better and the business around them smarter.

BaseBangkok, Thailand
UFCUFC on FX 1 and UFC 150, both in 2012
NowCombat Matrix · WildCard MMA
MissionAI, training tech and pioneering initiatives for the Southeast Asian fight ecosystem