At 45 — a CEO, a bestselling author, two decades out — Lee Matthews decided he wanted back into the Parachute Regiment. It took him two years to get in. The cadre cost him a hip.
That tells you most of what you need to know about him. The rest goes back to a pub car park in Telford, where a 14-year-old got a kicking from a group of older lads and walked away wanting to be invincible. Kickboxing came first — a skinny six-foot-three teenager fighting at 65 kilos — and then, two days after his 18th birthday in December 1994, the Paras. Seven and a half years, 3 PARA, Northern Ireland and Kosovo, a PTI's badge.
When he came out, he turned a single martial arts class into British Military Martial Arts: more than 250 schools across 25 years. He wrote the book. He built Total Kombat, the strike-heavy fight show now pulling serious numbers online.
He'll tell you he didn't struggle with leaving the Army. He'll also tell you about the two years afterwards that he doesn't dress up — when the man who thought he was superhuman had to learn how to be human instead.
Full interview in Issue 2.
