Nick Chasteen

Nick Chasteen and his three siblings - two brothers and a sister - were literally born in the game. Their father John Earley is a second-degree black belt in Kempo Karate and was also a kickboxer and Muay Thai fighter in his day.

John and his wife, Teresa Chasteen, raised a family of fighters. Nick ended up with his mother's last name on his birth certificate, and his parents never got around to changing it before he established a reputation as a fighter.

Nick’s brother Damian fights professionally and their older sister also earned a state kickboxing championship.

"When we were old enough, he'd drag us to the gym," Nick says. "He'd get us on our bikes. We'd ride through all the bad neighborhoods in Phoenix getting chased by pit bulls. All just to get to go work out."

Nick, like his siblings, started his martial-arts career in karate. When he turned 9, he was ready for kickboxing. By the time he was 12, he had a record of 12 wins and one loss in that sport.

Their reputation as a family of fighters made life easier at home and at school, Nick says.

 "We never got physical with each other," he says. "You're so beat-up from the gym that you don't have time to fist-fight at home. And we never had problems at school because everyone knew my older sister. She hit like a dude."

Desiree was a state kickboxing champion at 16. Eventually, Nick's older siblings moved away from combat sports, and even he and his brother, Damien, took a break. After seven years of nonstop training in martial arts, it was time for something different.

The boys spent the next six years being teenagers, excelling at football and baseball in high school.

"We took time off to be kids," Nick says, adding that he would have pursued baseball further had he not fallen in love with Muay Thai.

When Nick and Damien were 19 and 18, they decided it was time to revisit martial arts. Nick soon earned many amateur U.S. Muay Thai Association titles-  Intercontinental, Arizona State Light Welterweight and Regional Welterweight among them - before turning professional and quickly being signed to GLORY.