Issue 078
August 2011
A Strikeforce veteran and Bellator 2011 lightweight tourney winner, this 8-0 Xtreme Couture prospect doesn’t sweat the cage thanks to his 100-40 college wrestling career.
Your first fight was a first-round TKO win in 2009. Do you remember much about it?
“The weirdest thing is that I wasn’t nervous. I really thought I was going to be because it was my first fight, but I guess with the hundreds of times I’ve wrestled I was used to the hand-to-hand combat and I wasn’t nervous going out there. Even though it was a new sport and it was the first time I could get knocked out or injured. I just remember the cage door closing, the announcer and then after that I went into automatic and went out and got my hand raised. It was a pretty quick blur to be honest.”
Your second-ever MMA fight in November 2009 was in Strikeforce. Surely you were nervous for that?
“I think I was still relaxed. It was in my home state, Missouri, and I even had probably 30–40 people in the stands who’d just come to watch me fight. It was on a bigger stage in the Strikeforce cage, with the Strikeforce lights and the Strikeforce music, but at the same time you go to the NCAA wrestling tournament and you’re wrestling in front of thousands and thousands of people in huge arenas. That really got me prepared for my MMA career. I wasn’t nervous at all.”
You were a stand-out on the University of Missouri wrestling team but you only have two decisions on your record. How come you choose not to use a stereotypical lay ‘n’ pray approach?
“It’s how I conditioned myself through wrestling. When I started out I was kind of behind everyone in the wrestling game, so what I lacked in experience, technique and skill, I made up in getting in people’s faces, pushing the pace and trying to break people. When I wrestled back in Missouri we had a saying that we always wanted to get bonus points. You can wrestle for seven minutes and win on points, but you’re only going to score the minimal amount of points for your team. I always wanted to go out there and get a major decision, a tech fall (gaining a 15-point advantage on your opponent) or a pin. Now when I go out there I’m trying to finish a fight. I want to win every fight but I want to go out there and put on a performance the fans paid big money to watch. It’s kind of my motto and engrained in me. I don’t think I’ll ever be the type of who goes out there and is happy with the decision. A full nine-month NCAA wrestling season is grueling and it definitely shaped me into the athlete I am. Fighting is easy compared to wrestling, in my opinion. Obviously you’re getting beat up but as far as physical and mental demands in the MMA gym, it’s just natural for me to go as hard as I possibly can.”
You’re good friends with Bellator welterweight champion Ben Askren and Strikeforce 170lb’er Tyron Woodley. Did they introduce you to MMA?
“Yeah they did. I probably would have ended up getting into it no matter what, but I definitely had a heads up from them. Tyron started amateur fights first, probably around my sophomore year. He was like a big brother to me, he was one of my coaches and we did a lot of extra stuff together. He’d be starting this new thing called jiu-jitsu and we’d be rolling around with that. I’d hold mitts for him not even knowing what I was doing. I never really was a big fan of MMA before that. Then he signed with Strikeforce and started doing well. And Ben was the same way. He was a couple of years older than me so I wrestled with him, then he got into it and signed with Bellator. I realized that’s what I wanted to do. I credit a lot of my success in wrestling to both or those guys. I definitely wouldn’t have got the honors I did, or be the competitor I am today without those two.”
You train at Xtreme Couture in Vegas with Randy. Are there any particular Randy memories that stand out for you?
“I haven’t had a lot of one-on-one interaction with him, but when he’s at the gym there’s definitely a different intensity in the room … Being a new guy at the gym, his Machida camp was the first time I got to train side-by-side with the legend – I was in camp for the Bellator tournament. There were a couple of times after practice where he would come over and say, ‘Here, this worked for me in this fight,’ or, ‘This is how I controlled this guy.’ Being a new guy at the gym I don’t have a ton of stories. But seeing a man who’s almost 50 years old going through the same workout and keeping the same intensity as I am, it’s motivational.”
