MEET THE CORTEX TEAM

sam bastin

HEAD BOXING AND MMA STRIKING COACH

SAM BASTIN

Head Boxing & MMA Striking Coach
Sam's had 59 fights. Australian MMA titles, state boxing championships, 14 pro MMA bouts and an undefeated pro boxing record — 9 wins, no losses, one draw. That's 25 years on the mats and 16 coaching, here and overseas.

For 7 years he was Head Boxing Coach at Tiger Muay Thai — one of the most famous gyms in the world — where he helped build world champions across the UFC, ONE, Lethwei and boxing:

  • Alex Volkanovski — UFC Champion

  • Dricus du Plessis — UFC Champion

  • Fabricio Andrade — ONE Champion

  • Dave Leduc — Lethwei Champion

  • Ryan Ford — UBO World Boxing Champion

  • Mark Hunt — Australian UFC icon

He's worked corners at BKFC in Thailand, K1 in Japan, and pro fights all over. Back home now, he's building boxers who win — multiple state titles and two King of the Ring tournaments so far. Sam runs our boxing and MMA striking.

Sina Farihizadeh

Head Jiu-Jitsu Instructor
Sina's been grappling for over 20 years and coaching for 12. He's a bit obsessed with how people get good — not just on the mats, but everywhere, from elite sport to Formula One — and he pulls all of it back into his coaching.

He started in Judo in 2008, switched to Jiu-Jitsu once he saw what it did on the ground, then picked up wrestling to sharpen his No-Gi game. It's paid off on the competition mat:

  • Bronze — Pan Pacific Championships

  • Gold & Silver — advanced divisions, Grappling Industries and Aus Sub Only

  • Silver — NSW Wrestling State Championships

Judo, Jiu-Jitsu and wrestling all in one coach — exactly what our No-Gi program needs.

Leonid Zaslavsky

Olympic Level Freestyle Wrestling Instructor

Len's an Olympian — he wrestled for Australia in men's freestyle 62kg at the 1996 Atlanta Games. You don't get many of those on a gym mat.

After a stint in pro MMA, he went all-in on the sport he loves: he coaches, he officiates, he sits on the NSW board, and he still prepares prospects for the top level.

And he's a born teacher — he's got a real gift for it, breaking down world-class wrestling so anyone can follow it. Rolling up to a normal gym and learning takedowns from someone who's wrestled at the Olympics is about as rare as it gets. That's the kind of thing you'd usually have to go a long way to find.

Margarita Lariego

Traditional Muay Thai instructor and Strength&Conditioning coach

Margarita's got 25 years in martial arts and the receipts to match — a former Muay Thai fighter who lived and competed in Thailand, so the real thing, not the watered-down version.

She's also a certified strength and conditioning coach who's competed in powerlifting and conditioned fighters across MMA, Muay Thai, Karate, Sambo and BJJ. So she knows how to make you fight and how to build the body that holds up.

There's more — boxing, kickboxing, Kung Fu, and authentic Eskrima (Filipino stick fighting) she's flown to the Philippines to study properly. Her classes are hands-on, with a good dose of tough love. Expect to work.