Hi Jason, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule for this interview with MMAFrenzy.com.
Hey, I’m going to get you video tape for this interview. Turn on the video camera, he says to his friend in the background. (Note: Mayhem is known, for doing video spoofs such as his hilarious misrepresentation of the Tapout TV Series that he remixed into the comedy chokeout that can be found readily on YouTube).
Your most recent fight was the epic three round decision over Tim Kennedy on HD Net Fights. What have you been doing since then?
I’ve been training, I’ve been lifting weights, and getting stronger because that is basically what I got to do to beat people up. I wasn’t as strong as I needed to be and don’t think I should have to sacrifice my cardio to be able to be just as strong. I want to be stronger and still have that same level of cardio.
Tim Kennedy is no lightweight those were some phenomenal fights.
They were world famous with me and him. We both know how to fight any day and everyday.
What was it like growing up as an Army Child and moving from base to base?
It was terrible my whole life was living in the back of a Humvee, like a science experiment. Now that I think about it, it was wack, but my old man had to do what he had to do to get by.
Being a famous fighter you have a lot of men tell you they love you. Are you comfortable with that, does it not sound gay?
I can love another man without being gay, I love Kristophe the camera man (laughing), and I have thousands of Mayhem Monkey’s everywhere a whole army of them behind me. (Note: He numbers his Mayhem Monkey’s, they each get their own personal identification number)
You don’t go out and say I wish you could train with this guy, you train and become friends with people. You learn what they need and what you need, so say I am fighting a dude that is really strong, it would be cool to train with Rampage, because he is real strong and kicks ass. He’s also a good boxer, and he has a certain style that I can adapt myself to, that way I get better and he gets better. Same thing as Dan, he has a more of an upper body wrestling edge and a slugger mentality, when I train with him I get better at it.
So what you are saying is that you pick your training partners by the opponents you have?
You have to.
Who are you fighting next? For whom?
I don’t know yet, they keep that guarded like secret documents.
Who do you respect the most in the fight game?
That is a tough question I ask myself that all the time, I wrote a forward for a book written by Dr. David Maeda and I asked that of myself, who is the toughest dude? Who do I respect the most in the fight game? I respect everyone they all have their own story, struggles and their own things to overcome. To me that is what gives the respect in this sport, it is not only the accomplishments in the ring.
I think that is what draws people to the sport, the people, and the camaraderie shown between the fighters.
You can’t help it, these guys are all like my brothers we beat the hell out of each other when given the chance, but we will be friends after.
I lived in England for 5 years and the English are very much like that.
I was in London and this guy started talking smack to me so I said, “What did you say mate?” He’s like, “You wanna fight, I’ll give you a fight mate!” So I said, “Put your chicken sandwich down and we’ll box.” He said, “I’ve been boxing since I was 12 years old.” Well I replied, “Finish your chicken sammy and we can get down to business,” but he was just talking smack. I like that, we should be able to talk smack without having to draw down weapons or punch each other in the face. Just talk smack a little.
The majority I knew were very loyal and honorable people the type that will fight you and then pick you up and buy you a pint afterwards, because they respect that you gave them a good fight.
That’s the thing, I don’t drink, so I’ll be stuck. So we will just fight each other and laugh. I did that with my boys growing up everyday. This one time my friend here who is just back from Iraq ran through the house and gave me a Jackie Chan drop kick that put me through the screen door. Of course then I had to bust his head on the damn concrete (laughing), but then right after we were buddies again. We’re still friends today.
Having been to many events, what is the weirdest thing you have ever seen going on back stage?
These crazy Hawaiian chicks got past security and were watching me shower, working a half chub. It is crazy because it is true (laughing).
The question is did you get any that night?
No, you have to be more than a groupie chick to get with this guy!
Being a wrestling fan do you ever think the UFC will have tag team matches? If so who would you partner up with?
No way, the UFC is trying to legitimize the sport to the point where it is on par with boxing like the sport of kings. We are like prize horses not like totally ghetto hood. Don’t worry I would love to do a tag team match and straight go up top rope and choke a guy unconscious. However, I do understand that is not what I am doing in this legitimate sport. The showmanship before the match that is awesome, and I want to see maybe some confetti falling from the ceiling when I beat someone up, but at the same time I understand they are trying to make it like boxing as much as possible.
I can totally appreciate that, because here in Ontario, Canada we struggle with a commission that won’t allow MMA events.
Wow that shows you that we are still fighting for acceptance and legitimacy.
We have done this for a long time (practicing MMA), and we are very serious about what we do. I wrote the forward for the book, “Fighting for Acceptance” and it goes in depth for Dr. Maeda with fighters like Rampage Jackson, Dan Henderson, all the big names in the sport that could speak English, if I knew how to speak Portuguese we would have got some of those knuckle heads too (laughing). It was on the perspective of how Mixed martial Arts has achieved legitimacy, maybe if some people in Ontario would read the damn book and get their panties out of a wad for ultimate fighting things would change.
This is not human cockfighting with razor blades on our hands and ruffling my tail feathers so I can stab someone with a knife. This is a legitimate sport where I have trained all the martial arts since I was a kid. If you are going to say Judo is an Olympic sport, boxing is an Olympic sport, we’re just mixing them all up together. It is a combination of wrestling, judo, and people have to understand that.
Here boxing is legalized and the injury rate of fighters who take a constant pounding to the head in training and in 10 to 15 rounds far exceeds the damage done in MMA.
A constant pounding round after round!
What is your next goal of interplanetary domination and funniness?
Well the interplanetary domination part is already done, all I have to do now essentially is keep beating people up, and eating fresh nuts (chewing).
Why the nuts?
Because I’m nuts!
Well if given the opportunity, who would you like to beat the crap out of In the ring?
Well Anderson Silva is the best fighter in the world now at 185, and he had a really good night against Dan so I want to fight him. I know, I haven’t earned my shot, but I am going to prove to everybody this year that I should be in there against him. I plan on using the next year to prove to everyone that I need a shot at the man. If he is still the man at the time then so be it, we’ll make it happen.
You just have to scratch and claw and beat everyone they put in front of you that is the business we are in. I have to go out there and beat people up to show what I can do.
If you could build your own Freak Horror movie fighter like Frankenstein whose parts would you use for the hands?
Pound for pound, who do you think is the greatest fighter out there?
Have you ever trained with BJ?
No, even though we both lived in Hawaii, he was on a totally different island. It’s not like I could take a paddle boat across the waves.
With your wealth of knowledge and training you definitely have an educated opinion. So we would like to test your prognosticator abilities. Let us go through 5 of the biggest fights on the horizon and you can give us a winner.
That is a toss up for me, either.
Another toss up, I would say Rampage by experience.
I want Mark Coleman only if he is allowed to wear his wrestling shoes. I think he is going to have a lot better time if he does.
Is that fight ever going to happen? I hope that fight happens, but I won’t comment on it, all I can say is that Houston Alexander is going to wear some tight ass shorts.
I’m going to be fighting bro, check me out on TV, or go on to MySpace, Youtube, or TriumphMMA.com where you can check out my dumpster blog. I dump my whole life on there. I live on the inter-webs!
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Flashing Blade
