"My legacy when I'm done being a trainer will be, if you go against one of his guys, he is going to hit you, because I'm a big fan of throwing strikes
I want to hurt people while they think they are safe. When you see my guys, they are gonna be really big on counters. They are gonna be really big on going to the body and they will be really proficient in understanding distance and combinations and low kicks. You're not gonna get left off the hook. That's the most important thing with me. I don't want anybody thinking this is a game of tag," stated world-class striking coach Steven "The Warman" Wright, who talked about about the fighters he works with and his experience in combat sports. Wright, who pens the "Wright Way" column for FightHype, had a lot to say and you don't want to miss it. Check it out!
PC: We just kind of started with the "Wright Way" segments and never gave a formal introduction as to who Steven "The Warman" Wright is. Give a little background on yourself to our readers my man.
SW: For those wondering,, my name is Steven "The Warman" Wright. I'm mostly known in the kickboxing community because I have been doing a long-running kickboxing podcast show. Back when I wanted to fight and pursue a career full out in K-1, I was known as Steven "The Warman" Wright, and what happened was, all of a sudden, K-1 and kickboxing had gone done in the states and MMA got really popular. And then the opportunity came for me to be a striking coach. I had a gentleman who worked at the same barbershop; I am a very spiritual man. I was tossing the guy ideas and he was looking to train and I said, "You know what? If you want, I could help you out." I had been striking for a long time. I had been to Thailand and Holland and really picked up the style. I really could kick, so I started working with the guy and he was kicking the pad and he wasn't kicking it that hard. I was like, "Yo man, hold the pads and I'm going to show you what I mean by a good kick." I kicked them twice and he shot across the room. He was like, "How is it possible that you're kicking that hard?" That's when word got out. He was one of my first pros. I started off as mainly the striking coach, and that turned into being the kickboxing guy there, and I had a team of guys and they went like 38-6 over two years. So I started to make a name for myself. And then I went out to Holland to get some work in, and when I was out there, I met, well, I was filming a documentary for charity, and I went out there and the first weekend I was out there, they had a big "It's Showtime" event and one of the people there was Tyrone Spong. Tyrone was helping out a MMA fighter by the name of Muhammad Lawal with his striking. You guys know King Mo. So I started working with them and all of a sudden, I was supposed to just film the documentary because we were hanging out all day, but then after I was done, we were training that night and I brought my Muay Thai shorts just in case we would get work in and I started kicking the pads and they were like, "This dude can kick." We started talking and then all of a sudden, Mo looked up right in the middle of me explaining something and he says, "You're going to be my guy in America. You know your stuff. You really know what you're talking about." And I was like, "Yeah, I've been around the sport for a little while." I came back to the States and I had lost the job that I had while I was gone. It's no big deal; it happens to thousands of Americans, but I lost my job and I said, "I don't want to wear a suit and tie anymore. I want to be a full-time trainer." A month later, I get a call from Mo saying, "I told Mark Laimon about you." Mark Laimon is the head coach of Team Takedown over here in Arlington, Texas. They brought me out for an audition and I got the job and I've been the striking coach over here sense. I still do a podcast show for kickboxing and I have the wonderful fortune of writing for FightHype.
PC: It's great having you on board. I think you've done 3 articles and every one of them was pretty spot on. It's rare to be able to talk to a real combat sports guy. And when I say combat sports, you watch and cover boxing, MMA and kickboxing. I'm gonna put you on the spot now. If you could only watch one, which would it be, or if you could watch all three, in which order would you be watching them in?
SW: Kickboxing (laughing). If I had to choose out of kickboxing, MMA or boxing, I would go kickboxing first, boxing second, and MMA third. In terms of if I had a gun up to my head which one would I choose
kickboxing has a place in my heart. I really fell in love with it. I love being part of the sport. I loved being able to fight, and I feel my days ended too early because of the MMA game. I understood it though because it was more money and less punishment. MMA is a tough game, but Muay Thai and kickboxing is really a brutal sport and it's really tough on the body. And that's why you look at kickboxers and you look at boxers and that's why their lifeline as far as how long they can excel at the sport is not as long as a MMA guy. Because of the wrestling aspect of MMA, they don't have to take as much wear. In fact, in MMA, you can win a fight without even getting hit and without hitting a guy. So because of those advantages, it's definitely a lot safer, but I grew up with striking. And I think that you, just like me and a lot of other Americans, grew up on the Mike Tyson knockouts and guys that had the mentality of "I'm going to hit you and get you out of there". And that was very important to me. That's why I speak of fighting as working towards landing the most effective offense. MMA is something I fell into that became my hobby, that became my job, and I love that I get to work on the same things that I get to do in kickboxing and boxing; you can dirty box like this, you can switch this angle, and do this. My best guy is Johnny Hendricks right now. Hendricks is a guy that has a natural understanding of what I'm talking about, what I'm asking for, and he understands distance and he is so quick. He has lightning head movement and he understands striking really well. I have been blessed to have him and some of the other guys. Chris Feist, you don't know about him, but you will know about him. We have another guy, Chas Skelly, Jared and Jake Rosholt, and pretty soon I'm going to have all of my guys in the UFC fighting at a high level. I'm really blessed to be a part of it. But I will tell them tomorrow if they were kickboxers, I would still love them.
PC: Obviously the name speaks for itself, Team Takedown. Were you a little apprehensive about going to a gym full of wrestlers and teaching them striking, and has it been difficult to do that?
SW: Well, like any trainer in the world, it's always better to start from scratch than to start with someone who had been doing something a certain way. And the first obstacle I realized when I got down here was a lot of these guys had been training with people who didn't focus on the things that I focus on. They didn't focus on clinch a lot, they didn't focus on how they did techniques, and anybody who works with me
my legacy when I'm done being a trainer will be, if you go against one of his guys, he is going to hit you, because I'm a big fan of throwing strikes
I want to hurt people while they think they are safe. When you see my guys, they are gonna be really big on counters. They are gonna be really big on going to the body and they will be really proficient in understanding distance and combinations and low kicks. You're not gonna get left off the hook. That's the most important thing with me. I don't want anybody thinking this is a game of tag. You watch MMA a lot, you will see one guy strike and then they will reset and there will be a big gap and then they will come in and the other guy will strike, and it's like they take turns. I don't play that. My big thing is
the guys to me who are the best in the world are the guys who can hit you while you are hitting. If you make the mistake of leaving your arm out there too long, you throw a punch too long or jab short, the guys who can hit you at that time to me are the most special athletes in the world. Those are the guys who are your Pacquiao's or your Mayweather's. Mayweather in particular is a guy where if you do anything wrong, you are hit. That's what you have to deal with when you go against him, whereas when I got to Team Takedown, a lot of these guys were only used to that style of back and forth striking, with the exception of Johnny, who was more of a natural go get a guy. He had more of a mean streak in how he fought. I realized that technique-wise, they didn't look like the guys I had been training because I didn't have them from jump. As we worked through it slowly, more and more technique started to change, more and more people started to throw combinations, and now when we spar and go to the gyms here in Texas...we love working with some of the gyms down here when we get the opportunity to
I can see that my guys are getting it. They are understanding what I am talking about and they are understanding distance and how to land their offense. And that's just in a year. I have been out here for a year now this month. But now I'm starting to get what I was looking for. So difficult in implementing not so much just technical stuff, because that's going to be tough for anybody if you've been doing it differently, but for me to understand distance, know when to hit a guy and commit to being an offensive striker. So that's kind of been my goal since I've been down here.
PC: Before I let you go, Sonnen/Silva 2 is this Saturday. Who do you like in that fight and why?
SW: I'm always going to pick the most skilled guy. So if you say who do you think is going to win, I'm going to pick the person who I think has the most tools to win the fight. I think Anderson Silva has the most tools to win that fight. I think he can win the fight by stoppage on the feet or I think he can win the fight with a submission on the ground. In order for Chael to beat him, he has to replicate what he did last time, minus a guy who probably doesn't have a rib injury and more importantly a guy who is almost angry about how the first fight went down. He has a different attitude. He was quiet and just kind of letting Chael talk before and he just wanted to go out there and perform. And then all of a sudden, he gets hit a few times and he gets laid on for 4 rounds, and I remember watching that fight thinking Chael pulls this off. He absolutely talked what he was going to do for the last 3 months and he's actually gonna pull it off. He went out there and he held him down and he beat him up, and then the submission came and it was one of the most incredible things I've seen in MMA. And in an industry that doesn't have big rematches, the one fault I say to MMA right now as far as star building and big fights and whatever, it's difficult to get this to happen again because the high level guys go against high level guys so much. In boxing, if you lose a big fight, you can have a tune-up fight and then get another big fight down the road. You can set up that rematch down the road. So there is not a gap in it. Like for instance, Pacquiao and Bradley, as controversial as it is, it looks like it's going to happen again right away, whereas in MMA, there is rarely an opportunity for the fight to come right back unless it's done in a way where it's just so close. Sonnen/Silva, you could have made the argument to come right back, and Chael of course got in trouble with the steroid issue, so it should be interesting. I believe if you got to bet, then you have to lean with the guy who is most likely to stop the fight. For 25 minutes, Chael Sonnen has to avoid getting knocked out and stay away from being submitted. I don't think he can do it. My lean would be towards Anderson Silva.
PC: I appreciate the word man. It's definitely all good stuff. Give me some closing thoughts my man.
SW: For sure, man. I got a big write up coming your way. Of course we had big news in kickboxing this weekend where Glory Series bought out It's Showtime and its roster of fighters. This is the most significant thing to happen in kickboxing in my 23 years, so I'm definitely gonna get a write up on that so people can be looking out for that. And people can hit me up on Twitter at www.twitter.com/steventhewarman.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]