Issue 096

December 2012

I was super happy when the UFC confirmed my ‘Shogun’ Rua fight. I am fighting a legend, and he’s a real idol of mine. It’s going to be totally awesome. I’ve been a Shogun fan for a very long time. 

He’s one of the champions that definitely inspired me to fight MMA. He likes to go for the finish and give the fans a show, and that’s what I want too. I look up to him. He’s been around and fought in some incredible battles, so it will be an honor to stand in there with him. I can’t wait.

Don’t get me wrong, we are all professionals, so I always respect my opponent whatever his names is. But when it’s time to step inside the cage it’s all about winning. After all, this is my life. This is my career, and nobody is going to stand in the way of my success. I’m going to be ready to go. I’ll be really fired up for this fight.

Fighting on Fox TV means there will be big numbers in the US watching the fight, but that doesn’t bother me. I never think about things like that. To me it’s just another fight. I never put one above another because of how much it may be worth or how many people are watching at home. I don’t think like that. I have to win every fight, no matter who and where it is. If everything goes to plan in this fight I want to have a title shot next. 

I want to fight for the title, and when I beat Shogun I believe I will be in a position to push for that fight. That’s why I am working so hard. That’s my dream; to bring home the belt. If everything goes well against Shogun, I hope that can happen. Jon Jones is the man that I want after Shogun, for sure. 

Don’t get me wrong, Jon Jones is the champ for a reason. He’s a very smart and intelligent fighter and against Vitor Belfort last time out he did exactly what he needed to do to win the fight. He fights smart and he’s at the top. He’s the best right now for a reason. But hopefully my time will come.

I am deep into my camp now for the Shogun fight and all is going well. I’m still at home in Stockholm with my head coach Andreas Michael, where I’ve been training twice a day for the past few weeks. I finished the strength period of the camp at the start of October, and I’m just coming out of the sparring and conditioning part of camp. 

Basically, I do six weeks here in Sweden and then I go to Alliance in San Diego. My head coach Andreas goes with me, along with the whole team from Stockholm, in fact. We’ll travel there in November. And then from California I’ll travel up to Seattle for fight night.

So far I’ve been only sparring with the guys from my team in Sweden. We have a lot of good, talented guys here. And sometimes we’ll bring in other guys from across Europe too. But my sparring will continue with my teammates at Alliance when I get to the US. That way I get the best of both worlds.

COMING SOON… A EUROPEAN UFC CHAMP

Europe has a lot of talented guys right now, we are really making waves towards UFC title fights and it’s only a matter of time before Europe has a UFC champion. I think it’s great. It’s awesome, in fact. We have a lot of talented fighters, and so many are so young too. There really is a great future ahead for European fighters in the UFC.

For sure, European MMA is heading into a really golden age right now. We are taking over! With the likes of myself, Stefan Struve, (Michael) Bisping and Martin Kampmann all moving towards title fights it’s only a matter of time. But we all deserve our success as well; nothing has come easy for any of us. 

We’ve all worked really hard to get here, and we are just the guys pushing for a shot right now. There are a lot of really good young fighters coming through as well, not necessarily with big contracts right now, but who have huge futures in MMA.