December 16, 2011
BAS RUTTEN TALKS MOVIES, TV, CHAEL SONNEN, AND ALISTAIR OVEREEM
When I scheduled an interview with former UFC and Pancrase champion "El Guapo" Bas Rutten, I expected the standard good stuff that he always provides whenever speaking with the media. Little did I realize that halfway through the interview I would step on a landmine, causing Bas to go off in a way that I've rarely heard him do in public.
PAUL LAZENBY: As a lot of your fans already know, your new movie "Here Comes The Boom" is now in post-production and will be released early next year. What can you tell us about your experience shooting it, and what can moviegoers expect?
BAS RUTTEN: It was a very cool experience. I worked with Kevin [James] before, but never like this. This is the biggest role of my career, a really big part, and it's comedy--I LOVE comedy! On top of that, I worked with Henry Winkler, "The Fonz", who I of course watched as a kid. He's a really nice guy. And Salma Hayek, well, I knew her from the movie "From Dusk Till Dawn", all the way back. Boy, did she leave an impression! (laughs). And you know what? People are going to find out she's really funny! Tough as well, very talented, she asked me every time to show her [fighting techniques], and every fighter on the set was blown away with how fast she picked things up, it was really crazy. Her father used to be a scrapper, she told me. She's hilarious. And what to expect? People can expect a really fun family movie about MMA. They will be amazed with how Kevin James looks; he moved to 218 pounds for the movie, very impressive. He moves great, watch till you see him hit the focus mitts! We just had Rich Franklin on Inside MMA and he saw Kevin hitting the mitts and was impressed, he told us.
PL: I heard that Chael Sonnen had a small role in the film. In the past he has had some derogatory things to say about you. Did that result in any tension between you two on set?
BR: Nah, I just stayed out of his way, but on his last day, when he was done with his scene, he walked with me back to my trailer. He started talking about the time that he said those things. He said: "It was a long time ago, I did stupid stuff, I don't even know why I did it" and he apologized. You know me, I'm an easy guy, and I always liked him, I really did, so it's all good. Plus, in the past, I of course said back what I wanted! For every action there is a reaction, so it's not like I didn't respond! (laughs)
PL: It was recently announced that Chael will be receiving a second shot at Anderson Silva's UFC middleweight title. He came within a hair's breadth of defeating Silva in his previous attempt, how do you think he'll fare in the rematch?
BR: Anderson is gonna be more ready now, and he better come in shape. I mean, Chael looked freaking awesome his last fight [vs. Brian Stann]! Unreal stamina, plus he finished his opponent. That's what was missing in the past, finish capability. Let's hope he puts a bag in front of a cable machine, jumps on top, grabs a handle from the cable machine, and start punching the bag, this way he strengthens his core, gets more power for his ground and pound.
PL: Your new show "Punk Payback" just launched on the FOX-owned FUEL station. What can you tell us about it?
BR: [When] a security camera picks up something bad, whether it's a robbery, purse snatch, pick pocket or car jack, anything bad, we watch the clip. [Then] I tell the people at home what the victims should have done. And then I say: "Let's see what I would do in this situation". After that, we go on a set identical to the crime scene and reenact the whole thing with me in the spot of the victim. We let the bad guy or guys...or girls, El Guapo is not a sexist (laughs)...we let them come in, and "dengerdedengerdedeng!" I show the people at home how to take care of that situation. It's funny, "light" presented, you know, done with a smile but the techniques I use are real. If you like the Bas Rutten Street Fighting video on YouTube, you are gonna love this.
PL: As part of the monumental deal that UFC has with the FOX network, FUEL will be airing over 2000 hours of UFC programming in 2012. What impact do you think that deal will have on the sport of MMA? Do you feel that it will benefit your show as well?
BR: It's gonna do really well for MMA, more people can see it now on a MAJOR Network, that's the key here. FOX has great programming and a huge audience. Even though you think FUEL might be different from the bigger FOX stations, you will realize it's not when you see the promotion for it on FOX, or FX, or FSN. I heard 5.7 million people watched [the "UFC on FOX" special], that's a good start! They also showed the "24/7"-looking deal that told the stories of Cain [Velasquez] and Junior [Dos Santos] before the fights happened. This way, the people at home who don't know the two headliners could get familiar with them. Very smart!
PL: A while back, this website covered the Kim Couture scandal, in which an inept referee allowed Couture to remain locked in a choke long after she had fallen unconscious. Have you seen footage of that incident, and if so, how do you feel about the Calgary Athletic Commission, which oversaw the bout, not only choosing to take no action against the ref, but also allowing him to judge at a recent event?
BR: I saw that fight, but you see this everywhere, it's insane! They should "red flag" the guy. Somebody has to make a website with the referees on there who messed up big time, this way you can keep a track record of it, and then when they did it three times, force them to do a referee course. Big John has great ones! Even better would be [to make it so] every referee needs to do a course, no matter what. If you don't, then you can't referee, period. Just like you test amateur fighters to become pro, you should do this with referees as well.
We all wanna stay away from bad outcomes, and referees should make sure that doesn't happen. Thankfully the Couture fight didn't become a tragedy, since it's very hard to kill a person with a choke. I mean, the police are even allowed to use it, and you know as well as I do, they are not supposed to do anything forceful.
PL: You recently enrolled your youngest daughter in judo classes with Olympic Bronze Medalist and current MMA fighter "Rowdy" Ronda Rousey. How did this come about, and how is your daughter liking judo?
BR: Darin Harvey, Ronda's manager, is one of my best friends. Ronda is teaching privates to a 10 years old girl and heard that my daughter Bianca was that age. You know as well as I do that it's always better to teach two people, this way you can show a technique on one person and the other one can watch, so that's when she asked if Bianca would be interested. First Bianca was not, until I told her how good Ronda was and showed her pictures of Ronda, and then [Bianca] was sold. On top of that, Ronda brought her pink gi jacket that she came out with in her last fight, and gave it to Bianca. That really sealed the deal. And Bianca loves it, she is very excited every time. Yesterday evening she was throwing me...I'm not kidding!
PL: The MMA world suffered a horrible blow last summer with the death of trainer Shawn Tompkins. Shawn was a very close friend of yours and often cited you as one of his primary influences. How has it been for you in trying to adjust to his loss?
BR: Just horrible. One of those situations that you don't really believe, you know? I talked to him two evenings before it happened. It was weird, he texted me with a problem, I felt it needed to be addressed, so thankfully I called him. He was out with his friend "Muscle Beach", and Muscle Beach was messed up. Shawn was not, but he said: "I have never left a man behind!" (laughs) We started right away messing around, and the problem never even came up. I told him I loved him, and when we hang up I received some more text messages that I answered, funny ones. It was weird, the last one said something like this: "I love you, Bas, Team Tompkins loves you, thanks for everything you have done for me." Wow--wild when you later find out this was the last message. I'm gonna miss him dearly.
PL: This December, Brock Lesnar will be returning to the Octagon after his second enforced absence due to serious intestinal problems. This time he had a section of his colon removed, but states that he's now 100%. Do you think that that's true, or will his health issues continue to compromise his performance?
BR: I hope not, he's gonna have a tough opponent. Brock is one of those guys who take training to the next level. I hear he is doing really good and surprising people at his gym, really getting much better. No secret here, he needs this fight on the ground!
PL: Strikeforce, K-1 and Dream champion (and your fellow countryman) Alistair Overeem will be battling Lesnar on December 30th with a UFC world title shot at stake. There has been a lot going on with Overeem lately, including the shocking news that Alistair was leaving the Golden Glory team and firing his managers. Have you discussed any of this with him, maybe found out his reasons for doing it?
BR: Oh no, you didn't go there! (laughs) I thought that if nobody asks, I won't say anything, but now that you ask me I have to! It's been bothering me a lot! OK, here I go.
It's a money thing. He simply doesn't want to pay the people who made him. When he lost three fights in a row...well, like pretty much 5, I mean, he lost, won, lost three times in a row, won, and lost again...and nobody wanted to have him.
But his management kept pushing and using the power that they have because they have other great fighters. Like, for example [they would say]: "If you want Semmy Schilt to fight, then you have to take Alistair as well."
It's funny how fighters think. When it goes bad with them, their team is everything to them, and they love their team. In interviews after they win a fight, they say: "I owe everything to my team". Then when the management starts to put great fights together for them, directing their careers and the fighter gets better and better, some of them simply can't handle it, and it gets to their head.
I had a bad feeling already when he called himself, after he won the K-1 Grand Prix, a "legend". He actually said in an interview right after he won: "I am a legend now". I don't think a fighter can ever make that comment about himself.
And talking about the Grand Prix, let's face it, he had a great deal of luck as well there. He fought Peter Aerts who had a WAR with Semmy Schilt [previously that night] and was completely banged up, and then he fought [Gokhan] Saki, who had a broken arm AND hand, in the finals! At that moment when you win, you should say: "I'm very happy with the result, the stars were in line for me tonight, I also got a little bit of luck". Because everybody is going to say that about you anyway, you might as well simply say it yourself to keep the people respecting you, but NOT: "I'm a legend".
PL: Wow, sounds like you're genuinely pissed off at Alistair about this.
BR: Of course, I see it too many times. I KNOW what Golden Glory did for him. He couldn't punch or kick when he came to them, and I mean, HE COULDN'T PUNCH OR KICK! Some fighters get big and then forget who was fighting for them when they were losing. Two months ago, he wanted to make a belt for the Golden Glory team with "FOR CHAMPION MANAGEMENT" engraved on it. Those were HIS words after they made this huge contract for him, and now he says they are morons? He used them to negotiate the best deal and when they did it, now suddenly they are morons? Explain that to me. It's unreal.
Also, a few months ago, when they started to get close to a good deal with the UFC, he realized that he could make a lot of money. The first thing he did was go to Cor Hemmers, his striking coach, and tried to renegotiate the 10% trainer's fee.
You have to understand, [a deal like Alistair's UFC contract] is a dream for trainers, because there is a possibility that they create, with the help from management of course, a fighter who can make some REAL money for them. Because let's face it, most trainers don't live in a huge house, don't drive a big car, they do it for the love of the fighter they train. They put their whole heart and soul in there.
When a fighter's lost three in a row, and there is no hope for him, the trainer is always there for him, helping him again and again, and the management is trying to find fights for him. Understand as well that trainers like Cor Hemmers and Martijn de Jong are busy with the fighter 24 hours a day. I talked to Cor in the past and he told me he couldn't sleep from all the tension, and about thinking: "What's the best game plan for Alistair?" Also know that when Alistair [first] came to Cor, when he would get hit, he would turn his back to his opponent and didn't want to fight! You saw that when he fought his first K-1 fight in Holland, it was very bad. And when he was losing, [his trainers] were the ones who convinced him to go heavyweight since he was cutting way too much [to make light-heavyweight].
PL: I guess that was when his infamous horse meat diet began, huh? (laughs)
BR: (laughs) I'm not gonna go in there, because that's never been proven and I always say "Only make comments like that if you know 100% it's true, not 99%". So anyway, [Hemmers and de Jong] put him back on track, they GAVE him all those skills, they were there from the beginning, and they build him to become the fighter he is now. So for a fighter to go in and trying to renegotiate the 10% trainer's fee is just absurd. Ask ANY trainer who has made a fighter from scratch if he would think that's good. Please let me know if you can find ONE person.
PL: You've said that Martijn de Jong is one of the people being wronged here, but I can't recall Alistair saying anything bad about him. In fact, from what I've seen it's been quite the opposite, he's been very complimentary of de Jong all through this situation.
BR: Yeah, he tries to let the rest of the world think that the coaches and other fighters are on his side, and that it's only the management he has problems with. But that is absolutely NOT the case. I mean, go to Cor Hemmers' gym and look at the posters with pictures of Alistair on there, see what his fellow fighters did to them.
And you know what he said to Martijn? I know this because I talked with Martijn personally three days ago. When he told Martijn he didn't want to pay the 10% trainer's fee--and remember, Cor and Martijn SPLIT the 10%, so it's not 20% in total--Martijn told him that he was there with him for TWELVE YEARS, and that they trained him for so long and went through the ups and downs, especially the downs. And on top of that, he said that he was Alistair's friend this whole time, and made a big contribution to Alistair's success.
But Alistair said: "Yeah, if we have to talk about people who contributed to my success, then I also have to mention my cleaning lady who cleans my house for eleven and a half Euros an hour."
OK, just think about that for a second. It's almost like it's not real. I mean, he REALLY said this! I wouldn't tell you if it wasn't the truth, you know me, Paul.
PL: Well, while I can't say that this doesn't sound shocking, in the 14 years that I've known you I've never heard you tell lies about anyone or even be accused of it.
BR: Thank you, my friend. But to continue, just the fact that he uses the words "trainer" and "cleaning lady" in the same sentence is so disrespectful. And his new offer to Martijn was LESS THAN ONE PERCENT! Plus then of course Martijn has to see if he actually gets it. I said this before--normally Golden Glory gets the money from promoters in THEIR account. THEY pay the trainers, sparring partners, the fighters and their own fee of course, and this way, everybody who needs to get paid, gets paid! Oh, and many times [Golden Glory] would pay also for extra tickets to the fight, like flights to Japan or America, for the fighter's girlfriend or other friends. They would pay their hotel room, food, everything.
When the UFC said that they wanted to give the check directly to the fighter and not to the management, I already felt the problem coming. I right away thought: "Nobody is gonna get paid". You can actually find that in my long tweet about Golden Glory in the past that many people read. I wrote it when it happened, and sure enough, that's what happened, nobody got their money.
Well, I take that back. From the first check that Alistair personally got, he did pay his trainers 1.5% instead of the 10% that they should have got! So, as example, if the 10% trainer's fee would have been $20,000, Alistair paid $2,500 and still owes $17,500. Meanwhile, the management and sparring partners never got anything at all!
And people wonder why Golden Glory wants it first in their account--well, there you have it, so that EVERYBODY who helped the fighter gets paid! They [allowed direct payment to the fighter] ONE time and it went right away wrong, also with another fighter on that card by the way, so the proof is in the pudding.
Martijn also should have gotten a percentage of the sponsor money, but didn't get anything from that as well. Needless to say, after the "cleaning lady" comment and the "less than 1%" offer, Martijn declined to be [Alistair's] trainer in the future.
Listen, if you leave your old crew, and have a NEW trainer, who comes in NOW after all the real work is done, then YES, you can make a different deal with him, which is exactly what Alistair did now. And since he knew that his management and the Golden Glory guys were not gonna take his new deal, he simply left them and came up with this whole story that's unfolding now.
And I am 100% sure, if he wanted to renegotiate the 20% management fee that he was paying before, [Golden Glory] would have done that in an instant. They would have understood that with a big contract like this, they could take a lesser fee if he really thought they didn't deserve it.
But instead he complains in public about paying 35% of his money, which is another thing! People say, "Oh, 35% is a lot of money, he shouldn't do that!" First of all, it's 30%. He ASKED to make it 35% to get a break on TAXES...but that's another crazy story. But it's 30%, ALWAYS been 30%
With my job now, any TV, movie, commercial, or whatever I do, I am out 30% right away from management, agent, and lawyer fees. But they make sure my life is good, and that I don't make a mistake, so I happily give them that money, and you know what? It's tax deductible! And another thing, EVERY actor pays the same percentage.
Alistair says he wants to come and live here in California. Really? And do WHAT after he stops fighting? What if he starts losing? Acting? TV, movies, commercials? How on earth is he gonna do that? He doesn't want to pay 30%! And these people who he has to hire, like an entertainment manager, an agent and a lawyer, who didn't even help him before now, they will still want him to pay 30%. I wonder how he's gonna justify what he's doing [to his former trainers and management] when he starts having to pay 30% to new people? Just food for thought for the future.
PL: So, going back to my original question, have you actually discussed this stuff with Alistair himself?
BR: Alistair actually called me to explain his side of the story. The only thing I told him was: "If I was you, I would read all the e-mails [that your trainers and management] send to you, because everything is in there. They did NOT try to scam you." He said: "Yeah, but there was talk about a lot of money that they would get half from." This is an outside payment, by the way, not part of his contract or a signing bonus or anything. It was supposed to go half to him, with a group of people who helped him a LOT in the past each getting a share of the other half. He said: "I found out by accident, by accident"--he said it twice--"that they would get half, and we are talking about a lot of money."
I said: "I know what money you talk about, because [Golden Glory] even told me, and they NEVER told me to not to tell you about it. So again, if I were you, I would read the e-mails, it's all in there."
But once a fighter has it in his head that he is being screwed, people around him fuel those thoughts. They say: "Yeah, don't pay 30% to the trainers, management and sparring partners. YOU made them, not the other way around." And these are people who weren't there when Alistair had his bad streak, the 5 losses in 7 fights. No, a bunch of these guys showed up when he started winning.
And if you say that many times enough to a fighter, then eventually they start thinking like that. And he actually said this to his management last month: "I made the team. Because of ME, the team is so good". Well, if he still thinks that after reading everything I just said to you, then I am actually happy that [he and Golden Glory] broke up, because that is NOT a friend or team member.
PL: How much money are we talking about?
BR: I don't wanna go there. I just talk about what I know is 100% true, because I knew this when this all happened. I don't even wanna know how much he could make, but I guess it's enough to make him turn on his friends who were there from the beginning for him, through thick and thin, ups and downs, and especially the downs.
But hey, he's not the only one, there are many fighters who, when they made the switch to the UFC, or any other organization that would pay them "real" money, suddenly left their coaches and management who were there from the beginning. I'm not gonna mention names, but there are many of them, I talked about this in the past, including two other guys from Golden Glory. My question is: where are they now? Because suddenly their careers went down, injuries started to come out of nowhere, and now it's over. They call that "karma".
The last thing I say about this: Alistair never complained before about the 30%. NEVER. Because he knew what [Golden Glory] did for him. And now when he makes it big, now suddenly it's too much? Now suddenly they don't deserve that? That's "Scrooge stuff" right there.
And you know what? He didn't make this money yet, he has to win first, and now he stepped up in the competition. The guys he beat were all let go from the UFC, which means they lost there, and now he has to fight the guys who beat his old opponents. What will he do without a team as strong as Golden Glory, who did everything for him? When everything settles down, when he starts reminiscing about the good things, and starts thinking about stuff like I just wrote about, well, good luck with the fight preparation.
OK, enough, I don't wanna talk about it anymore. For any other interviewer who reads this, this is it, nothing more, so please don't contact me...well, it depends on what's gonna be said now of course. I still have something else I might be sharing, depends on what happens. I will let you know.
But this is my side of the story and both Alistair and I know this is 100% the truth. He hurt my friends emotionally, and then on top of everything he starts writing bad about THEM?! Wow. Cor Hemmers even had to go to the hospital with heart problems TWICE since this whole thing has started, and he never had any problems like that before. And Ron Nyqvist, my good friend, was really emotional about it. He said to me: "I don't care about the money Bas, you know that, it's really not about that. He just really hurt us all. The whole team, everybody." I could hear it in his voice, it got to him, it really did, and that's why I tell you this.
PL: Wow. I'm almost out of breath after hearing all that. Bas, I can't thank you enough for your candor and your time.
BR: No problem, vato. I had to get this off my chest, it was really getting to me, but now it is out there. I will let you know if I want to say any more, but for now, I have said my piece on the matter. But if you think THIS is a lot, wait for what Golden Glory has to say, all the discussions he had with them, favors, anything, they have a lot. But that's between them, I wasn't there, so it's for them to say.
July 31, 2010
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH UFC #1 CONTENDER CHAEL SONNEN
From an interview I conducted for FILES News magazine:
When I called down to Oregon with a list of questions for #1 UFC middleweight contender Chael Sonnen, I knew better than to expect run-of-the-mill answers. One of the most bombastic and unshamedly blunt fighters in the sport, Chael is known for saying anything that crosses his mind, and gleefully pushing the buttons of some of the most respected names in the fighting world.
Even with all that in mind, I was still unprepared for the jaw-dropping, vitriolic, obnoxious, hilarious, and occasionally bizarre responses that I received. Over the course of the interview Sonnen swung at anything that moved, leveling his twelve-gauge vocabulary at not just champion Anderson Silva, but also Hollywood celebrities, Silva's prior opponents, music industry superstars, fraudulent trash-talkers, and even me (and I'm supposed to be one of his friends)!
Read on for a no-holds-barred look into the mind of Chael Sonnen...but I have to warn you, if you're easily offended, a loyal Anderson Silva fan, or both, then you might want to consider turning the page right now.
Seriously.
PL: You were recently in Vancouver attending UFC 115, and also spent some time here during your tenure with bodogFIGHT. What are your impressions of Vancouver?
CS: I know that it's north of Los Angeles and south of Anchorage. Seriously, Vancouver is great. Between the food and the people, I can't think of a better place to spend a weekend. By "food" I mean "crepes", and by "people" I mean "Asian women".
PL: You've been a player on the international MMA scene for some time now, but you recently jumped to the front of the middleweight pack. One reason for that is the unprecedented display of aggression you put on against Nate Marquardt at UFC 109, which was a departure from the more methodical, controlling style that you used in previous fights. Was there a reason for the increase in intensity?
CS: I haven't "jumped" to the front of the middleweights, I clawed and crawled there over the bodies of the rest of those guys who are also clawing and crawling, like a savage, wounded animal. And as for the intensity, I've held back on every opponent I've ever faced.
PL: Lately, you've been a human quote machine, trash-talking the champion in interviews that would put most pro wrestlers to shame. Was it a conscious decision to emphasize the verbal game, or have you been doing this all along and people just weren't paying attention?
CS: My interview style now is the same that it's always been, I just didn't have an outlet before. I've always been in this for myself, and I have never liked the competition. I make no apologies for either. If you stick around long enough, people pay attention to you and to what you say. Then after you say what's on your mind, they start demanding that you say MORE things to fill the spaces in their minds/pages/computers where THEY used to have to think. So they ask for more. As a journalist, do you look inside yourself, and at your subject, and do you challenge yourself to find an angle, an idea, a concept that is interesting...and then research it, refine it, edit [it]...or do you just call Chael? Hmmm...what did YOU do, you lazy bastard? But I'm always happy to do my job, which apparently means doing YOURS, too. What worries me is that when I destroy Anderson, and I have to do even MORE interviews with more journalists, I [might] become a boring, self-referential blowhard like Bono or some other smirking 'celebrity' preaching about global warming or the oppression of Tibet or save the Narwhals or whatever, y'know?
PL: Um...okay...moving on to Silva...he has been destroying some of the best fighters in the world and making it look easy. What do you feel you bring to the Octagon that he hasn't had to deal with before?
CS: He has? He beat a math teacher, a one-legged Canadian, and a few guys who weren't good enough to hold their spots in the company. Who's he beat that's still on the roster? Anderson's flaw is no secret. It's in the bible: "Pride cometh before a fall; and a haughty spirit doth come before destruction." After the fight, Anderson will thank me for doing the Lord's work by destroying that flamboyant, showboating, reactive person inside of him. Remember my previous answer? Anderson's no different than Bono. He's aware of, and a prisoner of, everybody's expectations; so he prances and dances, and does his little jigs, like he used to do his Michael Jackson moondance replete with sparkly jacket and party-favour-quality fedora. He knows who he is. So do I. I have come to beat him, but also, perhaps more importantly, to save him from the gilded cage that everyone's expectations, and his reactions to them, have put him in. The grim, stark reality of losing a bloodbath will re-baptize him, make him a better man, truer to himself and his skills than the silly, ass-shaking fool he's morphed into, because his weak personality created that ass-shaking fool to satisfy everyone but himself. Years from now, when he and I are both retired, he will thank me. In perfect English.
PL: Are you undergoing any specifically-tailored training for the Silva fight, or is it business as usual?
CS: Nothing different, same strategy. I'm like good, old, strong booze. You KNOW what's in the bottle. You KNOW what it does. Handle it if you can. Or else order a sissy drink and go watch "Sex and the City" reruns with your fruity friends in the other room.
PL: While your victory over Marquardt was clear-cut, you appeared to be exhausted by the end of the third round. This has led some to doubt your ability to last the duration in a five-round title fight. Your response?
CS: I expend my energy when and how conditions dictate.
PL: While many fighters openly admit to trash-talking even when they've got nothing against their opponent, you appear to feel legitimate acrimony toward Silva. What is it about him that rubs you the wrong way?
CS: I'm not into [fake trash talk]. That's fraud, in my opinion. It's a huge slap in the face when two boxers meet up and we all pay to see it, then after the $49.95 snoozefest we all have to hear how they didn't mean it and it was "hype". Hype is fraud. I never said anything I didn't mean or anything I would take back. Anderson is a thug. He talks about "respect". Listen, "respect" is what gang-bangers use as an excuse for terrorizing a community. That's not me, and it's not welcome in MY division.
PL: Recently, footage of Silva training with cinematic action hero Steven Seagal has surfaced on the internet. Your thoughts on that?
CS: Smart. Anderson is going to need a job after I get him fired on August 7th. He should cozy up to anyone he thinks can get him paid. He'd make a great double for track star Carl Lewis. They're both the best at what they do, and both sponsored by nobody for the same reason. Seriously, though...STEVEN SEAGAL?!!! JESUS. Well, I've got my OWN celebrity action star to work with...the great MEL GIBSON! On Mondays we deny the Holocaust. On Tuesdays we drink, then we deny the Holocaust. Wednesdays we call our respective girlfriends and bellow insane, drunken threats into the phone. Thursdays we do charity work, visit children's hospitals, etc. Fridays off (except for social drinking and Holocaust-denying cocktail chatter). Saturday it's "racy-racy" time through the Hollywood hills in our matching Bugatti Veyrons. And Sunday is church (of course). Top THAT celebrity training regimen, Anderson! I bet you and Chubby aren't getting bombed more than twice a week! But at least you get to hear him play his guitar, which he does SO well...kinda.
PL: Silva has stated that he's also training with Strikeforce light-heavyweight champion "King" Mo Lawal, who's known for being an extremely talented wrestler. With your skill set also being based in wrestling, how well do you think Mo will be able to prepare Silva for you?
CS: Mo is my friend, has been for years [and he] hasn't touched Anderson Silva. Wouldn't bother me if he did...but he hasn't. Why the scuttling around to Mo, and Seagal, and God knows who else? Why the desperate, unending search for validation from others? WHAT'S MISSING, Anderson? You're the BEST in the WORLD. Did Sinatra go and take singing lessons from Tony Bennett (King Mo) or even more ludicrously, Sonny Bono (Steven Seagal)? NO. What are you searching for? Seriously, guy...stop looking for gurus. And treat [your manager] Ed Soares with more respect. Stop being a misbehaving, recalcitrant child, looking for every and any new toy. Be a...MAN. That's what you need, is people to make you a MAN. And apparently your friends, managers and training partners can not or will not do it. But I will.
PL: Silva has been quoted as saying that when the fight is over, he wants a kiss from you. Your response?
CS: He said that? Wow...I guess he'd make a better double for Carl Lewis than I thought.
PL: Final question, obviously you expect to become the new UFC middleweight champion on August 7th, but in a best-case scenario, how does this fight play out?
CS: Best case? Anderson accepts my offer and withdraws. If he leaves the UFC, issues the fans an apology, and erects a statue in my likeness that he worships daily, then I'll forget the whole thing. Otherwise...we are going to have a fight.
PL: Thanks for your time, Chael, and good luck on August 7th.
CS: Whatever.
July 06, 2010
BOUNCER TALES
BAS RUTTEN BOUNCER TALE
(Excerpted from an interview with FIGHT! magazine, although I'll be getting more stories from Bas firsthand in the future. Bear in mind this that this is written exactly as Bas told it, word-for-word, and the guy speaks four fucking languages so you gotta cut him some slack on any grammatical errors. Besides, if you've ever heard him talk, his accent and occasionally-broken English just make any story sound cooler anyway.)
I was asked to be a bouncer because I could talk, I was very good with people. When I worked, people would look at me funny because I had little round glasses, like John Lennon, that I would wear at the door. I didn't even need them, I have perfect vision, but it was good because people would go, "I don't wanna fight this dude, he wears glasses, and somebody who wears glasses as a bouncer, he's gotta be good, right?"
I had a buddy, and we would go into the bad places where guys would come in and do all kinds of shit. Kind of like "Roadhouse", you know? We would go in and take care of the problems.
One time we were working at this place, and a group came in and a really big guy I was working with, I think his name was Rob, said "Oh, there they are." He knew them and knew that they were gonna be trouble. They were looking at us as soon as they walked in, and then one guy from the group starts playing a slot machine and he starts yelling and shaking the thing. Of course we can't have that, so I look at Rob and I say, "Okay, I'll show you how to do this, how to handle this." But he says "No, I got it, don't worry."
So Rob goes over there and starts talking to the guy, and the guy just looks at him and laughs. Rob turns around, and while he's walking towards me, the guy already starts shaking the thing again. So I start going over there, and as I pass Rob I say "I'll show you how to do this." As soon as I get to the guy, I don't even say a word, I just grab the back of his head and slam his face against the slot machine as hard as I can. He falls down to the floor and then I tip the whole machine over and it dropped on him. And then there was no more problems in that place. In fact, we actually shook hands a few days later! (laughs)
One thing that helped me is that I knew everybody...Jack, Dave, whatever...so if there was a fight I could talk to them, I could say "Hey, guys, c'mon...could you leave it? Could you take it outside if you wanna fight? Or else I'll buy you a beer, and then you shake hands and everything is cool, because obviously you guys are fighting for nothing."
And if they say, "But he looked at my wife!", I'd say, "That's a compliment, you should be happy. Did he touch your wife? No. So that's okay, don't worry about it. If they look at your wife and they make a face and go 'UUUUGH', then that's not a compliment, but if they keep looking, that's good. If you're not up to that, and you got a beautiful wife, you shouldn't be going out always."
Nine of ten times when there was trouble, I fixed it with just talking, and shaking hands, and everything will be good.
I don't like to fight at all, it's very hard to pick a fight with me, but most of the time when I say "I don't wanna fight", they become more violent because they think I'm scared. And then when I realize that, something happens to me...maybe something comes back from when I was a kid, I don't know, but...yeah, I was in the newspapers a few times. Once for fighting a whole bunch of bouncers in Sweden.
It was a night off for me, and I went into a bar, a nice club, and the head doorman says to me, "Bas, keep it relaxed tonight". I knew that some of the guys in there knew me and didn't like me so much, so an alarm bell went off in my head when he said that. I should have turned around, I knew right away they were gonna pick a fight...and sure enough, they picked a fight.
I wasn't there for very long before a couple of the door guys took me to the side and said "You gotta leave because you're bothering the customers with your jumping around." I said "Okay, I'll leave, I don't want any trouble". I could tell from the way they reacted that they didn't expect that. So one of them pushed a finger in my chest. That's one thing I really don't like, you don't really wanna do this to me.
So I tell him "Listen, man, just don't touch me, okay?" And then this other bouncer, a big guy standing behind him, reaches over the first guy's shoulder and sticks his finger right in my eye. I grabbed my eye and said "Hey, man! I told you I don't want any trouble", and then POP!, he puts his finger straight in my other eye. So that was it, and so BOOF! I hit him with a right hand and he went down. Then I turned around, and there they were, six more bouncers just waiting for me.
It was a nightmare, because you know, you're fighting all these guys, and if you drop one of them, he just gets up again because you can't finish him off, you have to fight the other dudes too. It was getting really ugly, I was just punching anything that was in front of me, and I fell against the wall in a corner where there are a bunch of broomsticks leaning there...not brooms, just the sticks. So I grab a stick, but then I think, "I shouldn't do this, because if I grab one then all of them are gonna grab one". So I let it go...but then I heard the clattering sound of them all taking the sticks anyway! And I thought "SHIT! I should have taken a stick!" (laughs)
Now I got the sticks on my head, I got cuts everywhere, the white of my eyes is deep red, and I think "This is it, I'm finished." But all of a sudden, they step back, and I think "Cool...they're scared now. They see in my eyes that I really mean business". But then when I look around behind me, I see that the whole police force was standing there! That's why the bouncers step back...it wasn't cool at all! (laughs)
So then the cops throw ME in fricking jail! What happens is one of the bouncers was a cop, because in Sweden they need to have a cop at the front door, and obviously I hit that guy also when I was fighting with his friends.
After I was two days in jail, they allow me to make my first phone call, so I call my wife and I say "Honey, I got some good and some bad news. What do you wanna hear first?" She says "The good news", so I say "I didn't fuck around with any girls!". So she asks the bad news, and of course I gotta say "I'm in jail!". She goes crazy, yelling at me. "You think this is funny?" and stuff like that.
When I got my lawyer coming in, I ask "How long I'm gonna be here", and he says, "Well, minimum of six months". I say "Whoa, whoa, whoa...what are you saying? Six months? But they started it!" He says, "Yeah, but you hit a cop." So things do not look so good for me.
However, in jail, the guards were all fans of mine, so I have a TV, a VCR, I'm fucking playing cards with these guys! I had coffee, cookies...it was the best! Well, of course it's not the BEST...it's funny afterwards, you know? It's not funny at the time, trust me. If you think you got a half-year to go in that place, it's a very scary thing.
But eventually, the bouncers drew back the charges, and I don't press any charges so they let me go.
You can't turn back the clock, right? That's my saying. The only thing you can do is learn from stuff like this and hopefully you'll never make the mistake again. That's a line I try always to follow.
It didn't always work, though. (laughs)
