Funky
Gums
By
O. Collins
Need
a fit to protect those pearly whites? Funkygums has you covered. The UK based mouthguard
company is becoming one of the most requested of its kind worldwide. And that’s
no media hype either. Just take a look at the list of professional combat
fighters on their roster.
I
interviewed Andrew Pattinson, Owner/Founder of Funkygums about his madness as he
describes for producing high quality mouth protection. We also discussed WMMA, Carlisle,
and being bad with shotouts.
Q.
How did you become involved with combat sports/martial arts?
FG:
I have been making mouth guards as a dental technician since I was 16. They
were plain and boring although they did the job of protecting your teeth. When
I became a clinical dental technician I wanted to expand my business, and I was
also looking for something different that I could use my skills, but was fun
and a change from dentures. We already made mouth guards for rugby, hockey, etc.,
but we had never made one for MMA until a MMA fighter named Graham Ingledow,
owner of www.7thdayfightwear.com asked me to make him a gummy, and the rest is
history
Q.
How did you come up with the name Funkygums, and what are your immediate and
long term goals for the company?
FG:
I asked my partner Lesa if she could think of a name for a mouth guard company,
she said "Funkygums" I said "sounds good" and that was it.
That was only suggestion and we rolled with it.
Q.
Give us some names of the fighters you've sponsored or made mouth guards for.
FG:
The first was Colin "freak show" Fletcher. He is an awesome fighter and my favorite. We
have made mouth guards for a few UFC fighters including; Dan Hardy, Phil de
fries, John "the one" Maguire, Phil Harris, Paul sass, Ross Pearson,
Luke Barnatt.
We
have also provided mouth guards for fighters outside the UFC as well like
Ronnie Mann, Paul Daley, Paul Kelly. In addition we sponsor some Canadian, and
US fighters such as Mat Veal, Brandon Gardner, Nicdali "the night
queen" Rivera Calanoc, and have a few others in the pipeline.
Our
list of 150 MMA fighters include some fighters in the top of the UKMMA rankings
such as including Rob Sinclair, curt Warburton, Niel grove, Jack Mason, James Brum.
I can't name them all here, but we love every one of them, they do a top job in
representing us.
Q.
What are some the responses you get from clients?
FG:
Our customers are satisfied and they love the attention to detail that we put
into our mouth guard graphics. The fit is better than a boil and bite
mouthguard. We aim to please.
Q.
Talk a little about the dental clinics you hold.
FG:
I am a qualified registered clinical dental technician and dental technician. I
did college for 7 long years and graduated from the royal college of surgeons
of England. We make dentures (false teeth) I'm not a dentist; lots of people
think I am, we have a clinic in Carlisle, UK.
Q.
Explain the process of making the mouthguards.
FG:
First we take an impression of your upper teeth; we also have a kit version of
this you can buy online to do it yourself. We cast a plaster model of your
teeth using this impression and the mouth guard material is pressure formed in
a machine over this model. That gives a
closer fit than other ways of forming the gum shield and is far better than the
boil and bites ones off the shelf.
However, the fit though does depend on how
well you
take your impression if you're doing it yourself. But we don't have many
problems with people getting it wrong. The graphics on the mouth guards are
done by hand and is sometimes painstakingly slow to do.
I sometime wonder why I put so much effort
into it, but I suppose it's because I love doing it and I have an obsessive
compulsive disorder for detail and perfection, lol. There are many methods of
putting graphics on a mouth guard and you would be surprised at how difficult this
is. Many people ask me how I do it but I'm afraid I won't tell. But it's mostly
hard work and a kind of madness.
Q. Are there any other fight gear
companies that you work with?
FG:
We worked with a few companies sponsoring the same fighters. The first was
7thdayfightwear.com, and then Britishfighter.com. Recently we become involved
with JY-Nutrition, Intensitifm, TFL, Sweden fighter managements, as well as
Made4thecage.com and Colin Fletchers management.
Q.
Tell us about Carlisle and the popularity of combat sports there.
FG:
Carlisle is a small city on the border with Scotland and was a roman settlement
on Hadrian's Wall (that's the UK version of the Great Wall of China) built buy
the Romans to keep the Scottish out of England. There are a few martial arts
gyms in Carlisle and the surrounding areas and the popularity in the UK is
growing fast.
Q.
I found about Funkygums through MMA Uncaged. How did your relationship with
them begin, and what are the details of the Gym Junkie Challenge?
FG:
We asked MMA Uncaged if they would be interested in us sponsoring something for
their magazine so they came up with the Gym Junkie Challenge. Each month in the
Gym Junkie Challenge there will be a series of tests that you must complete
with the best performing gym winning 5 custom made MMA Uncaged mouthguards made
by us.
To
enter you need to film yourself beating the challenge, upload it to YouTube
with www.mmauncagedmag.com in the description and forward us the link to
mmauncaged@gmail.com. They will post the best each month here on the website as
well!
Q.
What other publications have you featured in?
FG:
We were in Fighters Only once, but mainly we use twitter and facebook to
promote, and rely on our sponsored fighters’ repping us. Our product sells
itself.
Q.
How much of a fan are you of WMMA, and what are your thoughts on the recent
history making bout of Rousey and Carmouche?
FG:
We love women’s MMA. There should be more of their fights on TV because some of
the best fights I’ve seen in the sport come from them. The UFC Rousey vs Carmouche fight was good
and I look forward to seeing more females signed to the UFC. We love INVICTA.
I’ve mentioned Nicdali, and we sponsor Joanne
Calderwood also who is the first pro MMA female fighter out of Scotland. She is
awesome and will become a top fighter the UFC may want to keep an eye on. In
addition we sponsor Ruthie "the pink machine" Wright, she Britain's
first female chess boxing champion. You should check chess boxing on the
internet, it's different.
Q. Do you feel the UFC brought in
female fighters to save the promotion, or just didn't want to leave any money
on the table, so to speak?
FG:
We can only speculate on the reasons behind UFC bringing in female fights, but
I like to think it's because female fighters deserve it. After all, they work
as hard as guys and their fights are every bit as entertaining as male MMA.
Q.
Are there any upcoming amateur or professional fights you're looking forward to
seeing?
FG:
I can't wait for Colin the freak show Fletchers first mainstream UFC bout
against Mike Ricci UFC 158, and Dan hardy v Matt Brown on UFC Fox.
Q.
What are your thoughts on the IOC's recent decision to cancel the 2020
wrestling competitions?
FG:
They should replace it with MMA.
Q.
Is there anything else you'd like to add?
FG:
Thanks to all the people we sponsor for shouting us out and doing us proud. We can’t
mention everyone but you know who you are and thanks to all who have bought a
mouth guard from us.
Q.
How can we find Funkygums on social media?
Find
us on twitter@funky_gums and on face book we are
https://www.facebook.com/funkygums and we have a facebook page which is
https://www.facebook.com/funkygums#!/pages/FunkyGums/237190619684774
Q.
Are there any shotouts you'd like to give?
Shutouts
can be dangerous as I may forget someone and they come after me, All the guys
and girls we sponsor. Anyone who has bought a gummy from us - Graham Ingledow
and Ross Allan of www.7thdayfightwear, www.made4thecage.com,
www.britishfighter.bigcartel.com www.intensitifightermanagement.com, Jeff young
at www.jy-nutrition.co.uk www.tflsportsagency.com.
And do me a favor anyone reading this and go
out and buy a copy of MMA Uncaged magazine. It’s a top read and you can win 5
gummies each month. Buy it in shops and on line at www.mmauncagedmag.com
