"MMA is still going to be a college man's sport; a guy that went to college and wrestled and kind of found himself fall into mixed martial arts. Bottom line is MMA is not a poverty sport like boxing is. That's why you're going to see, unfortunately, a lot of Latin fighters, black fighters and poor white fighters in boxing because they have no other options. In boxing, you don't have to have a whole lot of money. To do MMA, you have to have 3 to 4 different disciplines. You have to have boxing, which is the cheapest of it. You gotta learn wrestling, which is not an inexpensive thing, and neither is Jiu Jitsu...for the most part, a lot of the guys you see, whether black or white, in mixed martial arts have gone through college," stated world-class MMA/boxing trainer Ron Frazier as he talked about UFC 114, the future of MMA, and gave an update on several Xtreme Couture fighters. Check it out!
PC: I'm know you guys wanted the fight with Nogueira either way, but I'm sure Forrest would have loved that version of Lil Nog.
RF: Yeah, yeah. Hopefully we could get that fight. He looked a little bit off of his game, but you know, that sometimes happens when you're preparing for one opponent and even though it was like 3 weeks in advance, they switched opponents. He went from having a big name and former ex-champion like Forrest Griffin, who he asked for, to a guy like Jason Brilz, where you're asking, "Who is this guy?" It put him in a no-win situation. It went from, "I can capitalize on this. If I beat Forrest, I can put myself in line for a title shot," to, "If I beat Jason Brilz, nothing happens and if I lose to this guy, I have everything to lose." I think you may have seen some of that come into play.
PC: Forrest's next couple of fights could be important because I saw that Shogun wants that fight back with him and he's the champion right now. Is that something Forrest is thinking about?
RF: I don't know if he's been thinking about it, but I know the night that Shogun won the title, I thought about it. I sent him [Forrest Griffin] a text saying, "Get that shoulder ready because it looks like you're going to be getting a title shot somewhere down the line." Obviously I knew Shogun would want to redeem himself in that fight. He went into that fight injured and so did Forrest. People don't know that, but he wasn't 100% in that fight as well. He would definitely like to reclaim his title.
PC: Diego Sanchez is a guy that's never looked too healthy at 155 to me, but he's always looked too small at 170. He fought a young and hungry guy at UFC 114. He's in a tough situation, but what weight class would you like to see him fight at?
RF: Unfortunately for Diego, I think he's a tweener. I don't think he has the skill set to keep pace with the A-level 55er's. I think you will see the same things happen to him that happened against BJ Penn. Maybe not as dramatic, because BJ has so much power, but those guy's skill set are better than his at 55. It's a big cut for him, but he's not a big 170-pounder. He's fighting guys there that are coming down from 190, so he's at a big strength disadvantage there. He's probably a guy that would be best between 160 and 165, but unfortunately for him, they don't have that weight class.
PC: What did you think of the Bisping-Miller fight?
RF: Bisping is what he is. I think people kind of figured him out a bit, so he's nothing to get too excited about. But he's just a grinder. He's going to grind out his fights. They're not going to be terribly exciting and that's just kind of how he is. Unless you put him in there with somebody that stands a chance of knocking his head off, like Dan Henderson, it's not going to be an exciting fight.
PC: Last but not least, the fight between Rampage and Rashad. What did you think?
RF: I thought it was a bit predictable. I know there was a lot of trashtalking and they made it personal, but I didn't think Rashad would come out there and basically stand toe-to-toe. That was his only way to lose that fight. Here is a guy coming into that fight who had been knocked out and hurt badly in another fight. Why would he go in there and stand toe-to-toe with another heavy puncher? That doesn't make any sense at all. Rampage was coming off of a long layoff, so why not make it a wrestling match, grind it out and push him up against the cage and test his stamina? Why not? That's the smart way to fight. Yeah, if you talk the kind of smack that they talked, you would probably like to see a toe-to-toe bout, but I didn't think that's what you were going to get. Rashad had more ways to win.
And Rampage...is he totally focused on fighting? He's got the A-Team movie coming out and that's probably the way you're going to see him go. He will go more of the movie route and when you have one foot out of the door already, it's hard to sit down and train like you're supposed to and dedicate your body like it needs to be dedicated to get the results that you want. I kind of see that happening a little bit with Rampage.
PC: Ron, you're an African American trainer and that's rare in itself in the sport of mixed martial arts. This past event saw, for the first time, two African American fighters headline a UFC event. Do you think we will see more of this with up-and-coming stars like Anthony Johnson and Jon Jones on the horizon?
RF: We'll see. A couple of years ago, I did an article, and I think ESPN did it during Black History month, talking about black fighters in MMA. Rashad and Rampage was kind of the watershed bone to have them headline the main event. We will see what the numbers are. We'll see how many fighters will come after them and hopefully they will. MMA is still going to be a college man's sport; a guy that went to college and wrestled and kind of found himself fall into mixed martial arts. Bottom line is MMA is not a poverty sport like boxing is. That's why you're going to see, unfortunately, a lot of Latin fighters, black fighters and poor white fighters in boxing because they have no other options. In boxing, you don't have to have a whole lot of money. To do MMA, you have to have 3 to 4 different disciplines. You have to have boxing, which is the cheapest of it. You gotta learn wrestling, which is not an inexpensive thing, and neither is Jiu Jitsu. We'll see. I think you're going to see...when it is a black fighter, it's not going to be the Mike Tyson type of fighter who came up from the hood and came up the hard way. You have Rampage and a couple of other ones, but for the most part, a lot of the guys you see, whether black or white, in mixed martial arts have gone through college. But if you look at Rashad, Jon Jones, Josh Koscheck, Anthony Johnson and Frank Trigg...although I don't know if we should count him as black because he's some of everything (laughing).
PC: What's coming up for the Xtreme Couture guys?
RF: We have Mike Pyle, Martin Kampmann, Tyson Griffin and Evan Dunham coming up in Vancouver. Evan and Tyson are fighting each other and they are out of the same camp. Then we have a break, and obviously the boss, Randy Couture, fighting James Toney.
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