Issue 018

October 2006

Phil ‘The Gladiator’ Norman earned his nickname by appearing on the hit nineties TV show, out-hustling the resident meatheads to claim victory on the popular programme. Away from the world of television, Phil has proved his ‘Gladiator’ status by testing himself in numerous full contact competitions, most recently pinching a shock unanimous decision against the highly touted Swede, David Bielkheden. Phil currently combines a full time role of lecturer in Sports Science with both training and teaching martial arts up to six times a week, he found time recently to speak with Jim Page, sharing his thoughts on his fight career and the world of MMA. 

Showing a true passion for competition, Phil explained how he tries to fit fight sports into his already busy life; ‘I got 4 in last year, and 2 of them were kickboxing fights. I couldn’t put regular time into training for an actual event. I have to really try and fit it in, with getting up really early in the morning, hooking up with some guys, but again, I teach classes in the evenings so from time to time I get to hook up with guys there as well. But it depends on the pressure at work. Just recently I’m teaching kickboxing, MMA and Jeet Kune Do 5 nights a week and a Sunday afternoon as well. I’m really busy at the moment.’ 

Moving on to talk about his most recent fight at Cage Rage 17, Phil fought with an inexperienced corner and made a special mention of the help they gave him during the fight; ‘The corner team I had was a couple of students to be perfectly honest. Literally only like 19 or 20, they came in at 2 days notice, I have a training partner that usually corners me and he couldn’t make it. The problem I have with corner teams in particular, because I’m usually their instructor, they don’t tell me off, or give me advice because they’re too scared to… they think that they can’t tell me. So I had a really good chat with them and explained that: ‘This is really important, I’m going to be in a lot of trouble here, and if you don’t tell me how to help or escape or get out of certain things, this fight is going to be over really quick.’ One time in particular in that last fight where I got triangled, literally, due to fatigue and stuff, you train everyday you stack people and you work your way out of it, and it wasn’t until one of them shouted ‘Stack him, Phil!’ and I thought, ‘yeah, of course’ and that was when I had faith in my corner team and they started to work for me… I know that they were very nervous about doing the whole thing, but it worked out really well.’

Going into further detail about his mindset for a fight, Phil continued; ‘I’m not an aggressive fighter, that’s really not my thing. I know that a lot of people go in with the ‘Mad dog’ ‘I’m going to tear their head off’ kind of thing, but I actually can’t do that… my techniques just go all to pot if I go out like that and start swinging, so I need to stay calm and try to focus a bit more. I found it even more difficult this time against David [Bielkheden], because everyone told me he was going to rip my head off and knock me out in 10 seconds, it seemed to be the general consensus that that was what was going to happen… I was very pleased that I managed to remain quite relaxed for

that fight.’

When asked what it was like to take on such a feared opponent, Phil was genuinely cheerful; ‘To be perfectly honest, I really enjoyed it. I’m 38 years old, I’m not a full time pro fighter, I’m getting past my prime. To be able to go in there and still have success against a ranked pro fighter is was a really good test for me. 

After watching his highlight reel on his internet site, it made me think I need to work on my ground defence. I could try to wrestle with him, but my game plan was to try and get back on my feet and strike.’

‘Certain things were good, but certain things weren’t... like when I got caught in the triangle after I knocked him down with a head kick. My problem, in couple of my fights, is that I don’t go in to finish people off… I’ll be honest; I really enjoy playing the game. I just want to carry on, playing the game again. There’s been times when I’ve had people out on their legs… they’re standing and I just have to go in there and finish him off, and I’ve stepped back and looked at the ref as if to say ‘Is it over or what do you want to do?’ So I was thinking; ‘I really do need to think about finishing’ and when I came in, I thought I should have stepped off and tried to stay on my feet. I think I frustrated him a lot. I could hear him arguing with his corner on the ground and, when it was standing, it was working really well for me.’

With his fighting career stretching right back to the very early stages of MMA in the UK, Phil had some insightful comments on the development of the sport; ‘In the early days we still had people who were really strong in one area and would work other areas. So you’re up against a fighter where it’s really easy to work out, like if you’re a striker, I’m going to take you down, is he a grappler, ok, I’m going to knock him out. That’s how it was, but now, if you look at what has happened over the years as well as the events getting bigger and really professional, there is a new MMA athlete. We don’t have people who are just versed in one side and a little bit of something else, they train in everything now. It’s an exciting time to be looking at MMA.’

Phil is brutally honest with himself about his limitations, but his dedication to competing shows no sign of waning as he enters the later stages of his career; ‘I’m 38 at the moment, the last fight showed me that my conditioning is still good. I don’t feel as sharp as I used to, but my conditioning feels like I’m still able to train up and go in with pros… I think I’m going to hang around and keep going. I really enjoy going in and playing the game. The only thing that’s going to stop that is going to be a serious injury or the commitments I have to outside, those are the only things that will slow me down, but I’m still really enjoying the MMA game at the moment. I really appreciate that Dave O’Donnell has the trust in me to allow me to come and compete on one of his shows.’

Unfortunately, no interview with a former winner of ITV’s ‘Gladiators’ would be complete without a question about the show; Phil laughed as he explained the impact that it has had on his life: ‘It still gets shown on sky! 10 years ago 12, 13 years and it’s still shown on sky! At college, I still have students who are like, ‘I saw you on TV yesterday, with your girly hair’ and ‘yeah, you moved pretty quick back then…’ The thing is I’m still known from TV… Gladiators, rather than the martial arts and MMA side of it. People are really nice to you, but they always ask the same 3 questions - still today - Is Wolf really that bad? Is the travelator really that hard? And did I sleep with Ulrika? The questions everyone asks me, like 50 times a night!’

‘I’ll be honest, I think a lot of the reason why I did really well on it; the martial arts training, the mental preparation and the fact that it’s a competition, getting ready for an event and that really helped me focus on it and stood me in good stead.’

Mixing a relaxed attitude with a calm dedication to self-understanding and improvement, he finished with some inspirational words for any potential competitors; ‘I don’t think you can go wrong, doing these sort of events where you test yourself and you put yourself under a bit of pressure and you deal with it. Afterwards, dealing with everyday problems that people get stressed about is just no sweat. Everyone you see getting ready for these events, no matter how they do, they are just warriors, they really are, because the worst thing is getting ready before the event and when it actually comes to doing the test that’s the easy bit and everything afterwards is just cake.’