OBSERVER Photo by Jeremy Izzio Pictured is Elevation Combat Sports Academy’s Cody Farrington, who will be fighting in the Castricone Bouts on April 22.

Fighting with a new set of trainers in his corner, Silver Creek’s Cody Farrington is ready to enter the ring for the third time Saturday, April 22 at the Castricone Bouts kickboxing event in Buffalo.

Originally fighting out of Grindhouse MMA in Silver Creek, Farrington, a senior at Silver Creek Central School, now represents Elevation Combat Sports Academy (ECSA) and has quickly impressed his new group of trainers.

“Cody came to us already having a good skill set and a good background from his previous gym,” ECSA trainer and owner Dave Harriger said. “I don’t want to take credit for that. What we did was fine tune what he was doing. (Grindhouse MMA owner) Alan Hoelzle did a really good job with him. I think overall he has good instincts, good head movement and he’s tough as nails.”

“Cody came to us as a brawler,” ECSA trainer Kyle Yelich said. “We’ve been working on angles, full rotation on his punches and being able to be dynamic. Not dynamic as in full power per se, but the setup that goes into the strike. He’s come a long way. Dave (Harriger) and I are super excited to corner for him. It will be our first time doing that for him so I’m excited to see what comes out of it.”

Farrington will be fighting at 155 pounds and enters the ring with a 1-1 record. Following a split decision loss in his first fight, Farrington bounced back with a technical knockout victory in his most recent contest.

“I love being at Elevation,” Farrington said of his new team. “There’s a lot of great people training here and the staff has been great to work with. There’s a lot of good personalities here and good hard training.

“In my first fight I had bad anxiety — it was a big event in Hershey, PA — but once I got in there and got hit it was fine. The first round I was fine, but once I sat down the (adrenaline dump) hit me. I had taken a lot of knees to the sternum and the next day I could hardly breathe. In the second fight I knew what to expect and was ready to go and ended up finishing it in the third round. I was beating my opponent up pretty good, but he kept spitting out his mouthpiece (to buy time). Eventually I hit him and he fell back on the ropes and the doctor stopped it.”

Since coming to ECSA, Farrington has been working on fine tuning his craft and learning the science of the fight game. Now that he is over the hump of getting in the ring, the majority of his training has revolved around working angles and staying off the opponents center line to avoid taking damage.

“We worked a lot with his counter striking and when you do that, it all revolves around angles,” Harriger said. “Now when he moves his feet he’s not doing it to back away; he’s doing it to counter-attack. He’s stepping in while still making his opponent miss. We drill a lot of angles. We don’t ever stand in the box and Cody knows to get his head off the center line.”

Come April 22, ECSA will look to put its stamp on the local fight scene. With some of the best martial arts academies in Western New York competing in the event it will be the perfect opportunity for Farrington, his teammates and the ECSA staff to do just that.