After declawing the monster that is MMA, Shawn Lunghi anxious to see how far he can go

Shawn Lunghi never really wanted to be a fighter. In fact, he had to be talked into it.

"I started wrestling in high school, and I didn't really ever consider myself, like, a martial artist," Lunghi said. "After college, I started doing jiu-jitsu, and it was kind of the only place to get back on the mat without having to go back to a high school and coach or something like that, so I did that, and that kind of progressed from jiu-jitsu to boxing, then muay Thai, and then I got talked into MMA, and then the rest is history. Been kind of taking a fight pretty much at least once a year ever since."

It's not that Lunghi wasn't passionate about his training. Quite the opposite, in fact. But he also didn't necessarily see himself stepping into a steel cage and exchanging fisticuffs with another highly trained individual. To make that decision, he needed some pushing.

"I loved doing it; I just never thought that I'd be any good at it, to be honest with you," Lunghi said. "My coaches were like, 'No, man, you should do it. You should do it.' Finally, I did it.

"I think I had to just kind of declaw it. In my mind, I had it built up as being this thing that was just out of reach and I would never be able to do. Once you do it, you kind of declaw that animal, and the rest is history."

Lunghi, now a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt who works full-time in Florida with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, went undefeated as an amateur before making his professional debut earlier this year, scoring a submission victory in just 96 seconds. Lunghi said the experience was a good one and believes that perhaps his lack of expectations for himself made the whole process easier.

"To be honest with you, for me, I treated it the same way as any other fight," Lunghi said. "Win, lose or draw, I'm still going to work on Monday. I've still got a great life and a great girlfriend, great family, great friends, so if I lose, it's not the worst thing in the world. Just go back to the great people around me, so it wasn't too intimidating for me. It wasn't a big step up. I was telling myself the whole camp, 'This is just another fight, just like any other.'"

On Thursday, Lunghi (1-0) looks to take another step forward in his career when he takes on former CFFC NextGen featherweight champion Mark Grey (1-0) at CFFC 110, which streams live on UFC FIGHT PASS from Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tampa. Like Lunghi, Grey also started his martial arts journey in wrestling, and he also recently earned his first professional win following an undefeated amateur career.

"We've been watching some film on Mark and looking up some of his old wrestling videos and all of that," Lunghi said. "The guy's got a tremendous knack for getting people down. He's got a really slick double leg that he's pretty successful with. It seems like he's hard to move once he gets on top of you, so I'm excited for it. I think I've never fought a wrestler of this caliber, so it's going to present some challenges for me, but I think it's a great stylistic matchup for me because that's where I'm the most dangerous, is off my back.

"My Brazilian jiu-jitsu and my submission game is on point. That's where I feel the most developed, so if he takes me down, I think that's bad for him. If he stands with me, I think that's bad for him, so it's just a great matchup for me, and it's a clear step up and competition for me, and I'm really excited to just go out there and execute our gameplan and prove that it really doesn't matter who's in front of me. As long as we're sticking to the gameplan and we're fighting smart, we can get the job done."

Despite the hesitant start to his fighting career, Lunghi says he's all in now and dreams of perhaps making it to the sport's biggest stage. In the meantime, he's just enjoying the process and hopes to make a splash in his CFFC debut.

"I'm going to try to fight at least twice a year going forward," Lunghi said. "It really depends on the timing and what we could work out. If I could get one in like October, I think that would be great. I have no problem doing that.

"For now, I'm just excited to fight for the CFFC and put on a show for everybody."