November 30, 2016
Fighting cancer in the cage
Local mixed martial arts fighter battles his way back after Hodgkins Lymphoma diagnosis
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By Brett Auten A.J. Siscoe is the epitome of a fighter. The St. Peters resident and budding mixed martial artist was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma in 2015 just before turning 25-years-old. Now 26, Siscoe has clawed and scratched his way back to the cage. This Friday he makes his return to professional MMA on the main card of Shamrock FC 279 at the River City Casino. But just getting to this point was enough to break most. Beginning in the fall of 2014, in a nine-month span, Siscoe competed in the fight capital of the world, then made his pro MMA debut and followed that with a part in one the biggest cards St. Louis had hosted in years. And during that time, a frightening mass was there inside of him, latched onto a lung, feeding off this young fighter with a head full of dreams. Cancer just doesn’t care. A staple at Weldon Spring’s Gracie Humaita and liked well enough to segue through the tribal waters of local gyms and conflicting promotions, Siscoe - a solid prospect with a slick jiu-jitsu game teamed with a blue collar toughness and just general orneriness - went all in on his MMA career in the summer of 2015. He borrowed his girlfriend’s car, jammed it full of clothes and gear and like a wanna-be starlet, aimed southeast in hopes of catching on somewhere and somehow with The Blackzilians – one of the perennial MMA teams in the world in plush Boca Roton, Florida. While there time shifted, reality shattered. It was a harrowing journey from his last amateur fight in Las Vegas in the fall of 2014 to the unknown of Florida, the Bellator cage and then a sterile doctor’s office back in Missouri. “I went to a local doctor down there and he told me I just had allergies,” Siscoe said. “He didn’t listen (with a stethoscope) to me or anything. He was sitting about as far away as you and me are.
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A.J. Siscoe poses with a friend while in the hospital receiving treatment for Hodgkins Lymphoma.
He didn’t even check on me, man. He brushed me off almost like I didn’t matter.” Siscoe was prescribed steroids and he started to improve. He made his way back to training with the Blackzillians, a team full of the upper echelon in the UFC, but he still couldn’t push as hard as normal. One day during a conditioning session, Siscoe had to bow out. This professional athlete couldn’t even run one mile. “I was like, man I gotta go home and figure out what’s going on,” he said. “The next day I packed up my stuff and left at three-four o’clock in the morning.” Full of questions and emotions, Siscoe returned home to St. Charles County and made a doctor’s appointment. “The day after I got back from Florida I remember sitting in the room forever,” Siscoe said. “It was like time wasn’t moving. He walked in and he puts the x-rays up on the screen and you could see the light gray where my lung is and the darker gray on top. He says you see this right here, and he circles it, and I’ll never forget for as long as I live, and he says this is abnormal. I turned around
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to leave. I didn’t know where I was going but I just wanted to get the hell out of there. It was like it wasn’t real. It was the worst day of my life. Part of the day is just so fuzzy that I can’t remember anything and other parts of the day I’ll never forget.” Siscoe couldn’t pinpoint when he started feeling off. He had lost his last See FIGHTING page 2
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