Issue 123
December 2014
MMA pioneer, UFC Hall of Famer and Pride Grand Prix legend. ‘The Hammer’ goes toe-to-toe with FO
Q. Olympic wrestler, UFC champion, Pride Grand Prix champion, UFC Hall of Famer. What emotions do you have when you hear all of those accolades?
A. “It’s a great feeling. Hearing it makes me realize how fortunate and blessed I’ve been. I’m humbled and I realize I was pretty lucky.”
Q. Out of all of those accomplishments is there one that stands above all the others?
A. “I was only 33 years old and people thought I was finished. Then I got booked for the Pride Grand Prix and I decided I was going to train like I was training for the Olympics. That was a special one. People still talk about that one today.
“My favorite win, probably because it was the most recent, had to be UFC 100 when I came back and beat Stephan Bonnar. All the belts were great but to come back and beat Bonnar at 44 years of age was special. I don’t think too many people other than my hardcore fans thought I could do it.”
Q. Which fight from your career do you wish you could take back and fight again?
A. “I don’t know how long it’s been since old Randy Couture put that ass whooping on me but that will go down as my biggest disappointment for sure. Mainly because I think I was a little bit overwhelmed by the whole situation. I was just his punching bag that night.”
Q. Can you talk about that fighting spirit that never really leaves a competitor and how you manage it as you get older?
A. “That was the main part of my life for 40 years. Now I have to find a way to replace that. One of the best ways to compensate is to train and corner other fighters. Being in a corner is probably the closest thing to being in there yourself.”
Q. You trained yourself for over a decade. Do you ever look back in amazement at how far you made it doing it your way?
A. “The word I would lean towards would be stupid. I was blessed with some athletic skill but that only gets you so far… When I got the call to face Stephan Bonnar I packed up and took off to Vegas for a beautiful training camp. I realized how great that was.
“If I could have trained right – that would have required me to leave my kids and that’s something that was always tough to do. I did get to see my kids grow up and you can never trade that in for anything.”
