Pit boss John Hackleman talks about training his fighter, top light heavyweight Glover Teixeira
Q: You first watched Glover losing to one of your old fighters on his pro debut, back in 2002, so what was it about him that led you to inviting him to train at The Pit?
John: “That’s right. He fought Eric Schwartz, who’s not actually a fighter anymore. It was just his personality. We hung out after and we were talking. I quickly realized he’s a cool guy. For me, training at our gym is more about what your personality is like rather than skill. I don’t really base my decisions on that at all.
“We were having fun hanging out and he was telling me about the type of training he was doing, and then we decided he might have fun training with us. That’s how it all happened. It wasn’t because of any particular type of skill or anything like that. I mean, I saw that he was tough, but that’s not what it’s about.”
Q: What areas of his game did you feel he needed to work on the most once he arrived? Reports from the night claim he had very limited striking when he fought Schwartz.
“We worked a lot on his striking and wrestling because jiu-jitsu was his strength. More specifically, we worked a lot on his striking and takedown defense, and eventually Chuck worked a lot more with him on his takedowns.
“In the beginning, we focused on takedown defense, but eventually it evolved to working on his overall wrestling and striking. As you can now see, his striking has improved. He has knockout power and good takedowns, whilst his jiu-jitsu has always been good. Plus, it’s only getting better now as well as when he was in Brazil, during his hiatus from MMA in America, he did a lot of jiu-jitsu tournaments. His game is pretty well-rounded and his conditioning is second to none.”
Q: How long did it take for him to get his striking up to the level it is now? He’s knocked more people out than he’s submitted, despite his base being BJJ.
“I mean we’re always working on it, but it helps that he has that one-in-a-million, one-punch knockout power, that so few people actually have. Obviously, a lot of people hit hard and if you hit someone just right you can knock them out, but he has that Mike Tyson-esque one-punch knockout ability.”
Q: Visa issues kept him in Brazil for four years from 2008 to 2012, so were you able to keep tabs on him whilst he was back home?
“He was training at Pedro Rizzo’s gym in Brazil and he was really good when it came to taping sessions to send to me so I could evaluate it from here. He’d call or Skype me and we’d go over different drills and things like that.
“I didn’t get to do it as much as I wanted to, but you can see how far he’s come along whilst training with Pedro Rizzo.”
Q: What areas of his game would you like him to improve on?
“What we need to do is keep his skills at they level they are, but refine them more and more. I don’t see any holes in his game, I just see us making him better and better. It becomes more of a challenge for us to improve on something that’s really good already.”
