Issue 101

May 2013

Greg Jackson, arguably the sport’s most successful trainer, talks to Richard Cartey about his role in Bellator reality series Fight Master.

How I came to be involved in Fight Master, the new MMA-based reality series from Bellator MMA, is pretty simple. They approached me and they said, ‘Do you want to do this?’ And I said, ‘Sure.’

I’m doing it basically because they asked. They want to do a show kind of similar, I think, but in a lot of ways different, to The Ultimate Fighter.

Any time I get to help out fighters I’m pretty much in. I enjoy the process very, very much so another opportunity to do that is just fine by me. 

I’m not sure how experienced those guys are going to be but I enjoy working with all levels: the highest level, beginners, and everybody in between. I just enjoy the process. So the more opportunities I get to do that process the happier I am. It doesn’t really matter what their skill level is. 

Obviously, if the skill level is a part of the show we’ll be looking to get the best guys we can on the team, so we’ll see how that goes. 

Some people have asked me whether Fight Master is about building my brand. It’s not. I mean, I’m a big dork so I’m not too worried about my brand. Is it all about the fighters for me? I’m in it to win it, so to speak. I’m not just going to be like, ‘Hey, every fighter, come join my team.’ I’ll try to be smart about which fighters get on my team. I’m sure they’re all very good but probably more personality than anything else. 

On the show, I’ll be coaching a group of fighters, as will former multi-time UFC champion Randy Couture; ex Pancrase, Strikeforce and UFC belt holder Frank Shamrock; and world champion wrestler and former Bellator featherweight champ Joe Warren. They’re all my buddies. 

I’ve known all those guys for a long time. I doubt I’ll have any beef with any of them. Maybe between each other but I get along well with pretty much everybody. And I have no problems with Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney. He’s always been very, very nice to me. I consider him a friend. I guess there’s not a lot of drama there. Bjorn is a nice guy. 

As for whether my being on the show might cause any problems between the UFC and me. For me, it’s a non-issue. It’s a promotion. I corner in a lot of different promotions so for me it’s coaching in a different promotion. Nobody owns me, you know? So, again, it’s a non-issue for me. 

I hope the show will help build the sport. Anything that brings more attention to MMA as a whole is, I think, good. I honestly don’t know if it has the potential to be as big as The Ultimate Fighter. I hope it’s a hit and successful because that would help out the whole sport because more people would watch it. It’ll help the UFC too. The more people that watch it, the more people who’ll watch MMA. If you can hook them and get more fans on it, I think it’d be great. 

I think the UFC has to have places to pull talent from, even right now. You don’t just learn to fight in the UFC; you’ve got to have other shows. I think that Bellator, if it gets bigger that’s great. It certainly is on its

way. It’s doing well; it’s got some great talent. In terms of it being competition, that’s all above my pay grade, so to speak. I guess it’s not stuff that I care about. It’s good for the fighters to have different places to go, I know that. 

Frankie goes to Albuquerque

Frank Mir has already come down from Las Vegas to start training at our facility. It’ll be fun, it’ll be interesting to work with him. He’s a former UFC heavyweight champion. I’m looking forward to it. 

We’re used to having a lot of seasoned guys come over. It’s just a matter of adding what we think we can. Don’t try to change them, they’re great for a reason. Just kind of add to what they’ve got; see how it works.