Rodrigues prepares for kickboxing comeback One Per Cent at a time

Dante Rodrigues has an itch spreading throughout his body that the multi-kickboxing champion is dying to scratch following time away form the sport.

Although the eight-month hiatus from the combat sport to co-found a holistic organisation with cousin Jahdai Vigona may have healed Rodrigues' wounds, it hasn't thwarted his competitive instincts.

Like its name suggests, their One Per Cent program attempts to aid young Indigenous men in the Northern Territory to become better versions of themselves day by day, or 1 per cent at a time.

"Like training for a fight is like another fulltime job," Rodrigues said.

"So trying to run a business at the same time, especially at this development stage of it that we're out now, is near impossible to do.

"But I will be back next year for sure."

Part of their NAIDOC award-winning program is to give young participants that have been caught up in a troubled past cycle a release.

Not only something to air their personal grievances in, but someone to guide them through.

While the Indigenous combat fighters have learned to focus all their energy into the right channels, they've also given Rodrigues something unexpectedly back.

"Watching all these boys competing is making me a bit itchy and making me keen to start again," Rodrigues said.

The last fight Rodrigues had was last November at his second world kickboxing championships.

The quarter-final defeat was enough of a hint to convince Rodrigues to step away from competitions and freshen up after reaching the semi-finals at the 2021 titles.

The former world No.2 cruiserweight junior kickboxer for four years was left holding the belts for the Muay Thai WBC-NT cruiserweight title, the ISKA Australian light-middleweight title and the NT Fight Series super-middleweight title.

Rodrigues could have at any time been forced to defend a belt in the past eight months of his reigns.

He admitted a title fight would have also "depend on the circumstances at the time".

"Luckily no one challenged me for any of my belts on my year off," he laughs.

"I got a couple of good people that I could trust in the business and if I felt like they could run it adequately not being there as much, then it would depend on what belt as well.

"Some belts are worth a bit more than others and I won't say which, but it depends on where I'm fighting too and how much the pay is, and all the rest of those things.

"I definitely think the way I am feeling now, I am a bit more itchy to fight every day.

"If someone did come and make an offer for my belt, I would be in a position to say, 'yes' because I am going in that direction to fight in the next six months anyway."

It doesn't stop there.

While Virgona has been a reliable support behind the One Percent program from a little more than 12 months ago, he has proven that Rodrigues can resume his international fight career when the time suits.

Carefully, Virgona has mimicked his cousin's moves that Rodrigues delivers in the program's kickboxing training.

"I know it's possible because he just had his first fight about two weeks," Rodrigues said.

"I first got him into a gym three years ago and he did it for wellbeing reasons.

"But he has been fighting long enough and built some confidence, went and had a crack it and knocked the guy out in the third round.

"I've been running the business when he can't be around and if the roles were reversed, I'd be pretty confident he could do the same thing for me."

Proving that he is more than the brutal hybrid martial artist, Rodrigues is all but that in the ring.

One Percent wouldn't work any other way.

The kickboxer is articulate enough in front of a mob that he could win a battle with words as much as he could with his feet's striking blows in front of paying spectators.

"We do get quite a lot of misunderstanding," Rodrigues said.

"I think combat sports as a whole is very misunderstood.

"What I think people believe combat sport is about physically battling your opponent, but to be honest, combat sports is more battling yourself and mastering yourself.

"I've taken that lesson on and I just want to share that with my community and my peers."

The program has been operating against a background of high suicide rates in Indigenous communities, poignantly in the Top End, the land of his Tiwi people.

The men of his culture have the highest rate of taking their own lives in the world that was reported to the International Association for Suicide Prevention Conference last year.

A number of social initiatives have looked to address the problem, but not the way that Rodrigues, 21, and Virgona, 24, have with the men in need.

"There was a few people doing this sort of work in our community already, but not so much with the kickboxing side of things," Rodrigues said.

"We just saw a bit of an opportunity to do some surface ground-level work ourselves.

"It wasn't just about the kickboxing hook or the holistic help side-of-things because there are programs like that in the Territory already.

"But it was also about providing a safe space for young men and for families to come and be safe and be heard."

The community program is also about mentoring after Rodrigues just three years earlier was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

Though Rodrigues had been practicing various forms of kickboxing, he knew having an outlet will help engage young members of the Aboriginal community full of testosterone.

"It has a healthy release of the endorphins," he explained.

"I feel like if they take most of their frustration out on the bag or on a pad, it helps them build a better camaraderie between each other as well.

"Because you don't want people opening up and sharing personal information straight away.

"Once you've done a hard training session and you got the blood running, and you are all encouraging each other and sweating together, it builds a bit of a bond together.

"That's what we're trying to do – we're trying to build a community for young men to feel safe.

"The people who keep coming back are very familiar and comfortable, so we're meeting our goals."

As the men have become "mentally stronger", they have also become devotees to the discipline.

The physical attributes kick in later.

"We have got so many young fellas in our gym that have started in a program, and they have made a second home at the gym," he said.

"I love having them there and it's really cool to see that some of these fellas that just came in a bit lost, a bit misguided or didn't know how to go about certain things in life have come and shown completely different sides of themselves.

"It makes me very happy; it makes me very proud.

"There's heaps of them that are even competing and fighting as well."

The followers have every reason to look up at Rodrigues, not the least he has a "tall but pretty scrawny" 195cm frame.

But not to the point of the student ever challenging the master.

"They're all a bit light," Rodrigues chuckled.

"I'm a bit of bigger boy for someone that fights like a cruiserweight, and that's 86 kilos up."