Perhaps the first thing that hits — besides the 30 or so fighters in attendance — are the training conditions in the gym at Marquez MMA.

On this oppressively hot June afternoon, temperatures in the second-floor structure at Frankford’s Globe Dye Works are well over 90 degrees as fighters of all levels embarked on a series of drills laid out by top trainer John Marquez and under the careful supervision of his partner, Daniel Gracie.

If that last name of the latter sounds familiar, that’s because it is. The Gracie name has been synonymous with mixed martial arts for more than 50 years, specifically the art of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It’s also a name that has also been licensed across the world as a gold standard for fighters who want to build careers in mixed martial arts. Philly’s version resides in Kensington, steps from the York-Dauphin stop on SEPTA’s Market-Frankford Line, and is one of 11 Gracie says he owns across the United States.

But inside Marquez’s hot, humid, palatial Globe Dye compound, the old Frankford dye factory-turned-maker space is where Gracie spends a good part of his days, grooming fighters of all levels — four, in particular, who continue to make a name for themselves in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Actually, making a name for themselves probably isn’t fair. That’s not what one would refer to a four-man team that collectively is a pristine 15-0 in their UFC bouts. Pat Sabatini (4-0), Andre Petroski (3-0), Jeremiah Wells (3-0), and Sean Brady (5-0) are slowly removing the “up-and-coming” tag from their UFC resumes, and the fact that all hail from Gracie and Marquez’s camp is becoming the UFC’s worst-kept secret.

» If you value this kind of journalism, please subscribe today.

“What you are seeing right now is the result of hard work for many, many years,” Gracie said. “These guys didn’t just show up out of nowhere. They’ve been training with me for a long time. We’ve been through amateur fights, local shows, you name it. Of course, they’re getting talked about now because they are on the big stage [with UFC], but if I put these guys in a bare-knuckle match they’d be successful because they are ready for it. The difference between our place and other places is that even our amateurs are prepared for that. They’re prepared for whatever, and this is what is making the difference.

For nearly as long as Wells, Sabatini, and Brady have been fighters, Gracie has been in their corner. All three received their black belts in jiu-jitsu under Gracie’s tutelage. In many ways, Gracie, a fighter’s coach as a former PRIDE FC contender, could lay claim to being a father figure as much as he can their trainer.

But, as a new father himself at the age of 50, Gracie merely chuckled at the notion.

“I have enough,” he jokes, raising his arms and sharply fixing his glasses. “Don’t do that to me, please. I’m not claiming any more kids.”

“Every step along the way has been a learning experience... You need people like [Gracie] to push you to the next level.”

But it’s hard to not have pride in watching fighters you’ve known since they were teens emerge as preeminent UFC standouts in their respective divisions. Earlier this month, it was Wells who improved the Gracie-Marquez UFC win streak to 15 with his first-round knockout of Court McGee, the same fighter Brady defeated by unanimous decision in his first-ever UFC match.

“When Jeremiah came to me, he had, I think, two or three fights already, but a really awkward game,” recalled Gracie. “It was wild, he would walk on the walls, jump and throw elbow strikes. I told him, I said, ‘Jeremiah, you can do that in the fight, but not sparring with your partners because you’re going to hurt someone.’ So my work with him was really how do we control that? You can’t figure him out. You can film Jeremiah training for one hour and show his opponent all the footage, I promise you they won’t be able to figure him out.”

For Wells, a West Philly native who attended Overbrook and was a standout wrestler before going to live, work, and train in the Poconos, having this opportunity in the UFC under Gracie and Marquez feels somewhat serendipitous.

“Every step along the way [with Gracie] has been a learning experience,” he said. “He taught me that there are levels to this, really levels to this sport. You go into this sport as an amateur and all you’re thinking about is training and fighting. But then when you get to the next step, then you’re thinking about nutrition and sleep. He’s helped me figure out what I’m bad at and what I’m good at. You need people like that to push you to the next level.”

It’s the same for Sabatini, whom Gracie discovered inside a Northeast Philly karate studio, the same studio Sabatini started in at the age of 5. His love of karate mirrored a passion to play hockey, but it wasn’t until his karate instructor infused Brazilian jiu-jitsu into his repertoire did Sabatini hang up the hockey pads for a gi.

“It takes a lot of trust and a lot of balls to do what these guys do... We don’t take that for granted.”

“It actually broke my dad’s heart,” Sabatini said. “He wanted me to pursue a hockey career. But, you know, everything happens for a reason. Around 14, I got into wrestling … and when I was 17, that’s when I had my amateur [MMA] debut. At first, my family was against it, but they’ve always supported me. I say I have two support systems, my family and my girlfriend, and then the guys here at the gym. One thing led to another, and the rest is history.”

As for Petroski, his inclusion into Gracie and Marquez’s camp has only been over the last few years, but it’s been assimilation that has paid dividends for both fighter and trainer. In true Philly fashion, Petroski was labeled a heavy underdog in his UFC Vegas 54 bout against previously unbeaten Nick Maximov in May.

Petroski submitted Maximov in just 76 seconds.

Seventy-six. Doesn’t perhaps get anymore Philly than that.

“He’s a competitor, and his drive is infectious,” Gracie said. “He doesn’t want to lose one position. He doesn’t want to lose one round. He doesn’t like to lose in any situation. And in my opinion, that makes him dangerous.”

He paused and added, “It takes a lot of trust and a lot of balls to do what these guys do. All of these fighters put their trust in [myself and Marquez]. We don’t take that for granted.”

Gracie and Marquez paired just a few years back when Gracie was looking for someone to take the reins as his boxing coach. At the time, Bozy Ennis, father and respected trainer of Philly boxer Jaron “Boots” Ennis, was assisting Gracie but decided to focus his efforts on Boots, an undefeated welterweight with 27 knockouts.

It was right around this same time that Brady was battering opponents on his way to being considered the next great mixed martial artist to represent Philly. Brady’s 5-0 record in the UFC only adds to the fact that to date he’s never been beaten in an MMA cage of any kind (15-0 overall).

“He can’t [rest], he has to be training. There are people who are born fighters, and [Sean Brady] is a born fighter.”

A large part of that is Brady’s refusal to stop perfecting his craft, one that many believe could have his name on the same stratus as Philly-based MMA fighters like Frankie Edgar and Eddie Alvarez, both of whom became UFC champions.

“Sometimes we have to ask him to please rest. ‘Please have fun. Please take a week off,’” Gracie said. “He can’t; he has to be training. There are people who are born fighters, and he is a born fighter.”

Gracie first met Brady inside Semper Fi gym in Northeast Philly, where he taught jiu-jitsu before opening his own gym. It was a 17-year-old Brady who went under Gracie’s wing earning his BJJ blue belt — all along the way “getting the bug” to become an MMA fighter.

“Philly is a hard city and hard cities breed fighters. [My fighters] bring a lot of sh– in here, a lot of hard times... But at the same time, they’re proud.”

“I loved it; I knew I wanted this to be my career,” said Brady, 29. “And have the success I have now is because this is my job, this is how I support my family, support myself. The pride I have in being a fighter comes from the success I’ve had in the sport and the ability of the guys in this gym to push me every day. I don’t have a career like this without them and the support of my family who believed in me when I said without hesitation that this is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do.”

Fight after fight, since his first as an amateur in 2013, Brady’s success has been a testament to his gym-rat mentality. It has led to submissions and knockouts in the Cage Fury Fighting Championships, Legacy Fighting Alliance, Shogun, and now UFC, a level that Gracie always knew was going to be Brady’s end result.

“I’ll never forget, after a year with me, his father came to me and asked if he could be successful in MMA,” Gracie recalled. “My answer to his father was that he is destined to be a UFC fighter. I don’t know if he’s going to be a champion, but I know at least top five, and right now we’re already close to that.”

As Gracie will tell anyone, each of the 30 or so people perfectly comfortable with training in stifling heat on this day inside Marquez MMA comes with a story. Many of them are replete with stories of hardship, stories of loss, stories simply of just something they need to prove to themselves.

“Philly is a hard city and hard cities breed fighters,” Gracie said. “[My fighters] bring a lot of [expletive] in here, a lot of hard times. Look, I’m from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, so I know what it’s like. You can’t relax. But at the same time, they’re proud; they are proud and driven to show they came from here.”

What Gracie and Marquez have built is certainly not the kind of place for everyone. Let’s face it, it takes a certain kind of someone to repeatedly take blows to the face, get choked, or routinely know what it feels like to be seconds away from a joint dislocation. But in here under searing temperatures, fighters left the mat, high-fived their sparring partner, grabbed their stuff and left in preparation to get ready to do it all over again the next day.

“We’re a family and these are my brothers and sisters in this gym. There are no egos here... I’m proud to say I’m a Philly fighter.”

“Having a human in front of you, trying to break your face, trying to choke you, trying to break the arm knowing that a person is there to hurt you and you still want to do it takes a level of mental strength a lot of people just don’t have,” Gracie said. “You can’t doubt yourself here. You can get frustrated, you can get tired, sure, but you can’t doubt yourself. It’s everything that makes you a winner, a champion in there.”

But as much as it’s the training that keeps Gracie’s fighters coming back, they’ll tell you it’s the camaraderie and pride of fighting out of Philly, and out of a gym that provides little by way of creature comforts.

“We’re a family and these are my brothers and sisters in this gym,” Wells said. “There are no egos here, from us pro guys to amateurs, I’m going to cheer as hard for you wherever you are in your journey because we both know what it takes to keep showing up every day. I’m proud to say I’m a Philly fighter. I know people see this as a boxing town, but Philly is an MMA town, too, and I think we in this gym are proof of that.”