Issue 167
The award-winning coach of UFC champions, gives some Yoda-like advice.
You’re probably one of the most well traveled men in MMA. It’s hard to think of many coaches who travel as much as you do. Do you get sick of it?
“Certainly I’m the most traveled coach, there’s no debate there. Do I get sick of it? Oh my God I get sick of it. I don’t get sick of the destinations. Seeing a new city or a new place, that’s really fun, but brother do I get sick of sitting in airports and flying. I get sick of airplanes real quick.
“What’s happening now that’s funny is that if I get an actual day off – and I don’t mean a day off from traveling, I mean I actually don’t train fighters, I don’t go into work and I don’t do interviews – it used to recharge me and I used to be like, ‘Man, this is really nice. I could do this.’ It does the opposite now, that I’m dreading work, and I’m like, ‘Argh, I’ve got to go on an airplane tomorrow.’ It’s funny how the world changes when you start getting old.”
What’s your fighting history?
“I’ve never done competitive fighting, and I’ve never really wanted to, it was all self-defense.
I didn’t watch a Bruce Lee movie and get inspired. I grew up in a rough neighborhood in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I was the only white kid amongst a very Hispanic, machismo, very poor community, so my history was fighting for respect.
“My experiences early on were street fights. In fact, I didn’t even want to be a coach. I got talked into the whole coaching thing. For me I was like, ‘Competition’s BS. It’s not fighting. You can’t use park benches – that’s not fighting.’ It wasn’t real to me. Then we started winning everything so then more people came and I have a hard time saying no to my friends, so, here I am (laughs).”
Well, you got a career out of it so it’s not too bad.
“Yeah, it ended up alright.” Who convinced you? “It was Mike Winkeljohn and Chris Luttrell and all those guys. Especially Chris Luttrell who was like, ‘Hey, we should go and compete.’ This was right after the UFC, it was bare-knuckle stuff back then.
“We had started grappling tournaments, and I thought we were going to go to these bare-knuckle fights and grappling tournaments and we’d probably do OK and then they would just not be interested anymore and we’d go back to doing self-defense stuff.
“Instead we won everything and then the fighters were addicted to it, and more people came and they wanted to compete. Before I knew it, I was coaching full-time and going, ‘When did this happen?’ It was a little silly.”
If you could give any advice to young fighters on local shows what would it be?
“My one thing, and I always tell this to fighters and it doesn’t seem like it’s sage advice or anything but it’s the most important advice in the world, and that’s just get ready to deal with discouragement and don’t let it discourage you.
“Don’t let discouragement discourage you because that is the fight game. If you go in there thinking it’s going to be a Rocky movie you’re going to get discouraged. Your real test comes in dealing with discouragement.”
