Andy’s Blog

I’m heading to Asia for the next couple of weeks to travel, train and teach in a few spots.  The first time I went through Taiwan a few years back, BJJ and MMA was still a novelty but from what I am hearing, the SE Asia region including the Philippines, Thailand, etc. are all growing and expanding and look forward to having a chance to see the development myself.

I plan on coming back to the US shortly thereafter and will be competing soon.  Hopefully, I can sneak in a trip to Thailand and get some work with Enson Inoue’s coach, Sangtiennoi.

 We visited his gym a few years back and it was without question some of the toughest training I have ever experienced.  They train twice a day and each session begins with some roadwork.  You have these little kids running besides you with torn up shoes, no socks and zero bodyfat, as well as zero complaining!  Sangtien was known as one of the best fighters in Thailand during his time and you see that toughness in his athletes.  He had about 15 guys training each session and the first thing you notice are how skinny, yest strong, the fighters are.  Some of them have been doing Muay Thai their whole lives and I didn’t notice any school books or computers. 

The training would be five minute rounds of pads and heavy bag drills until your turn came to clinch sparring, or “plum”, as they call it.  Here in the West, we get pretty used to training on three minute timers, but over there, that’s not the way it works.  Also, the way they hold pads is different as they come at you straight forward and it is up to you to keep him off with whatever combinations you can come up with.  Very tough.  The hardest part was the clinching, as you get in the ring and stay in there for up to 40 minutes, that’s right, FORTY minutes of knees and clinching.  And when these guys throw knees you better believe they know what they are doing!

I’d highly recommend a training trip to Asia, particulary Thailand, as the people are extremely friendly as well. 

This fight has really captured the public’s imagination!  I saw a poster for the event the other day at LEGENDS gym and noticed below their names they have the billing, “Street Certified”.  Not exactly sure what that means, but it definitely has the old-school feel to it.  Remember the original UFCs?  They would hype the “street” aspect to the sport and I’m sure somewhere right now Dana White is rolling his eyes as he’s worked pretty hard to try and move beyond that image.

 I think this contest will be a pretty original one; if it goes past two minutes it will belong to Kimbo.  If the fight is rapid fire and chaotic, Tank has a good chance.  His punching power is well-documented and he’s pretty explosive in the early goings.  I didn’t see Kimbo’s last fight against Ray Mercer but heard he’s got good takedowns and been training them for a while now.  How his takedowns fare against a guy with legitimate MMA experience, I think that will be crucial this time out.  I was surprised to hear Kimbo on the radio and they mentioned him having earned an academic, that’s right, ACADEMIC scholarship to the University of Miami but he stopped after a semester because he needed to make money quickly.  Listening to him on the radio, you’d never guess he was the same guy on those YouTube videos.

I think Tank was probably the second or third most recognizable name in the early UFCs behind Royce and Ken and often wonder where he would be at if he trained more in wrestling and newaza techniques.  He’s a marketing genius; I hear he hasn’t fought for less than a six-figure payday in some time, so you know he’s a good thinker.  I’ve heard rumors of him stopping by jiu-jitsu gyms from time to time but never really staying long.  

This fight will be entertaining, for sure, and last I checked Tank was a huge underdog, about +350 or so.  We know what Tank will do, I think the only question is how Kimbo will react to having to fight in his hometown, all clamoring for a KO.  Should be a good one!

Tonight we decided to go and train at a new facility in Los Angeles, PKG which is probably one of the nicest training centers you can imagine.  Plasma TVs, ring and cage, can’t ask for much more.  The gym was started by a Beverly Hills BJJ black belt, Tahi and his partner Robert who is the resident boxing trainer.  It’s got two floors, bottom one equipped with a ring and heavy bags and the top features tatame mats and fencing for MMA training.  If you are in the Los Angeles -area check out www.MMAinLA.com

 It was a three man crew tonight, Mac Danzig, myself and our latest training partner, Chris Sepulveda.  Chris will be making his professional debut at the March 22nd TFA and we all have the utmost confidence in his abilities.  He has a great attitude, work ethic and most importantly, the desire to compete. 

I like to think of Chris as the next generation; whereas most of the MMA guys you see competing today started with one specific martial art and did it for most of their careers and just added on the other styles, you are starting to see the young guys come into the sport that have been training nearly equally in  all aspects of realistic training and are now “fluent in all forms”, as the legendary R-1 trainer Rico Chiaperelli liked to say. 

Once, while I was training at Enson Inoue’s gym in Saitama I peeked in on one of his kid’s classes.  He had a full program for children under twelve and was taught by two of his professional Shooto fighters.  It was AMAZING.  The kids could punch, kick, wrestle, grapple…you name it.  To them, MMA is a style and they train everything equally.  I’m predicting that in a few years we will see the next generation come out with skills and techniques that will push the sport even more mainstream.  GSP gave us a glimpse of the future, but the next generation will be coming soon!

This week the “Ultimate Fighter 5″ DVD hit the store shelves nationwide and I’ve got to admit, it was weird to see my picture on a DVD box in a major retail chain like Best Buy.  Less exciting, however, was when I turned the box over and saw and the descriptions for each episode and knew the one titled “Waah, Waah!” was for me!

 It still seems surreal that I was a part of the Ultimate Fighter; as they are in the progress of filming for the 7th season already, my season and Mac’s season seems like a blur.  Rarely does a day go by that I don’t think about a funny moment that happened in the house or at the training center, and definitely there are a few things that I wish would have gone differently.  But as most mature folks understand about life, it is not a fairy tale and despite how hard you work or how much you put into something, it doesn’t always go the way you want.  The only thing you can do is keep moving forward and keep staying focused on the prize.

 What are some of the things I wish I could have changed?  I wish Mac was on Season 5 with us, that’s for one!  It would have been great to have a close friend and training partner that would have helped keep some sanity in the house.  Believe it or not, even with all those fighters, cameramen, etc. around, it is a lonely place at times.

I remember when Mac got the call that confirmed he was in for the TUF 6; we were at a restauarant near the Beverly Center and he excused himself to take a call.  He came back to the table with a smile ear-to-ear and we knew, without him having to say it, what that phone call was about.  While everyone at the table was really happy for him, I was also worried about the effects of the house on him.  Training and competing, Mac can hang with anybody…living in a crazy house with crazy people, I knew that was going to be a different experience for him!

Another thing I would have changed would obviously be what happened between BJ and myself.  One of the major reasons that I wanted to be on season 5 was because BJ was someone I had always admired and respected.  In Hawaii, his accomplishments were well documented something we all aspired to.  You all saw the rift on TV, but to show what kind of guy BJ was, the next time I saw him after the show, I reached my hand out to shake and instead he reached out to give me a hug.  I’m glad we were both able to realize the house made us all crazy to a certain extent and we’re both cheering each other on now. 

One other change would obviously be the way I fought Brandon.  Looking back on it now, I think it would have been best to just get it down any way possible, perhaps taking a shallow shot and having him sprawl and pulling guard from there to test his mat work.  I saw the Dean Lister vs. Alessio Sakara fight and think that was a good strategy to use and might have been effective in my case as well.