In part two of this exclusive interview with the UFC Hall of Famer and MMA legend, Dan "The Beast" Severn looks back on his own career, shares his thoughts on Randy Couture, and discusses the importance of being a positive role model. Check it out.
PC: What do you think the best advice is that you could give to a young mixed martial artist?
DS: I can answer that in a couple of ways. Running a training facility, we get phone calls every evening. Whether it's young athletes, 20-year-olds, 30-year-old guys and 40-year-old guys, I'm their inspiration to make them think they still can do this. With most of them, whether it's to do professional wrestling or mixed martial arts, I ask, "why?" Why do you want to do this? Most of it is for the notoriety and for the money. I don't mean to burst their bubble, but the reality is they probably have more of a chance to pick out the winning lottery numbers than to become a superstar in professional wrestling or mixed martial arts. You have to be a very unique person to come along here. To me, there is no secret style or anything. It is just that unique individual that will come along and do all of the work. I'm not going to hold anything back, but I know as a whole, people are lazy. It's easy to sit on the sidelines and watch things happen as opposed to getting out there and going through the climb of what it takes in order to achieve that kind of success. I tell my students that I hear all of these martial arts masters say that "I do not teach all of my grasshoppers all of the things that I know. I must hold back some secrets." I think that is a bunch of crock right there. I hate to say this, but I've yet to see a karate guy that wins in an Ultimate Fighting situation. I have to take that back. Keith Hackney, from Kenpo Karate, he ended up being known as "The Giant Killer." He beat a Samoan by the name of Manny Yarborough that weighed 616 pounds. We go back old school, no holds barred, but Keith Hackney was a Kenpo Karate guy. I actually teach a youth class and its called MMA, but that stands for Modern Martial Arts. It's a combination of wrestling, Jiu Jitsu and it also adds boxing and kickboxing; really just things that kids just don't do anymore. You drive by a playground now and it's a ghost town. They're playing video games and computer games. Even my own son one time was like, "Hey dad, watch what I can do on this video game." He was playing a basketball game and he does this spin around back dunk. I told him, "Hey Michael, put that on pause and come with dad." We go outside and I'm standing between him and the backboard and I tell him to show me that move for real. I told him I only know how to play one game and that's called brawlball. He's looking at me and I'm using my intimidation factor on him.
PC: When you substitute, do these kids know they have a legend in front of them?
DS: I usually do physical education and they usually don't know my background. One time, I walked out and I reached underneath my shirt and pulled out my whistle and I strapped it down in front of me and I said, "I am ready now." They got a kick out of me having my own whistle prepared. I command their attention. There are two physical education classes in there and I don't know who are my students and who are the other instructor's students. I tell them that if they don't come check in with me, they will be marked absent and the other instructor asks me how I do that. I command respect. They say ever since they took corporal punishment away, they have kids doing this, that and the other. Rest assured, that does not pertain to me. If something goes down and I need to protect myself or other students, I will lay hands on them. That's why I have two pitbull attorneys. It's sad that I have to have that, but I'm not going to let some kid run my class. I will run the class because that's my job. I like to go into Juvenile Centers and I have a little two minute highlight reel and whoever the instructor is at that time will say, "we have an interesting speaker here today and it's hard to describe what he does, but we have this little DVD to show you and show you the most horrific thing he has done to people, from headbutts to the whole nine yards," and as I come in, I'm putting my game face on and staring these kids down. They don't want to make eye contact with me. They're staring at the floor with their heads down and I get to the podium and I'm like, "Are there any questions?" I'll say something like, "Not too shabby for a guy that's never been in a fight his entire life, huh?" They look at the monitor like, "what did we just watch then?" There was a referee out there and rules. I only take kids that have a high school diploma or pursuing their G.E.D. I only do that because I'm trying to change the world, even if it's only one person. Education is important to me.
PC: You've never had a street fight?
DS: No. I know a lot of people find that hard to believe, but no I have not. I've been a competitor my whole life. In my fights, I used to always tell people, "I will make you think." I know I'm not that old war dog I used to be, but I will make you think. A lot of times, I used the crowd. I used to deliberately slow a match down, and when you slow a match down, the crowd doesn't like a slow match so what happens? They'll start to boo! I'm thinking in my mind, "you people can boo all you want. I will not allow you too dictate anything." They could boo me outside in them stands, but if they stood across from me in this cage and I start moving towards them, you would see a little puddle form at their feet. It affects the younger fighters I go against and they start thinking, "I got to do something." All I am thinking is "come a little closer." From a distance, I might be slow, but I think I'm a pretty fast individual the closer you get to me. I did the same thing to Ken Shamrock when we had our second meeting in Detroit. We went 35 minutes and you could fast forward all 35 minutes down to about 45 seconds of actual action. It got to the point where people were booing and throwing garbage inside of the actual Octagon. Shamrock was even talking to me. He was like, "Come on, come on." I'm like, "I could bring it to you or you could bring it to me, but I've got nothing but time to kill." I would love to see some of these guys make it in an 8-man tournament.
PC: I understand that people can get advice from you at your martial arts camps. When will you hold your next camp and how can people find information about these camps?
DS: The biggest thing out there to find out any and everything that I do is to go to dansevern.com. It keeps you up on everything that I do, whether it pertains to professional wrestling, mixed martial arts, appearances and seminars. A lot of people want me to let them know when I'm going to be in their area and I tell them I won't remember that, but they can say, "Hey, sign me up for your newsletter." We put out a weekly newsletter and it will show if I'm going to be in your neck of the woods and you can come on out and it will let you know whether it's amateur wrestling, professional wrestling or freestyle wrestling that I'm coming to town to do. I actually will be getting honored for a lifetime achievement award in Los Angeles.
PC: Who are some of the fighters that you enjoy watching right now?
DS: I hate to say this Percy, but I really don't watch too much television, period. Do I know what's going on? Yeah! I have a couple of MMA classes and these guys are talking about it all of the time. I basically kind of know what's happening vicariously through them. I've never really watched live television and I haven't really changed that habit in all of these years. I hope people take this the right way, but there are two types of people: people that will sit on the sideline and watch life pass them by and then there are those that will engage the game. I engage the game. Television is a great tool, but a lot of people let it control their life. That's why people need this, and that On Demand, and record things. To me, it's not that important. The last movie I saw was on some airplane I was on passing some time. The original Rocky movie I like. I did not like any of the other ones. I heard a lot of good things about the last one so somewhere down the road, I will watch that DVD.
PC: Is there a fighter out there right now that reminds you of yourself?
DS: I don't know if I would say remind me of myself, but I really enjoy the success that Randy Couture has had. He's an older fighter and he went into retirement and came back out and won the title again. I like Randy because of his age and he has amateur wrestling background. There are a lot of similarities between the two of us. I saw a classic match between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar and that was a pretty crazy match to watch. I didn't see it live, but people talked about it so much to where I had to check it out.
PC: You've been in over 100 martial arts fights which are incredible. Who was your toughest fight?
DS: It would be hard to say an individual, but the type of athlete that represents the biggest obstacle to me is another grappler. That's the strongest suit that I bring so if it's another athlete that has that, then it kind of neutralizes each other. Then you have to fall back on your secondary skills: your stand up and kickboxing. Me being able to close the distance and land those takedowns have worked very well for me for all these years.
PC: Do you have a fight lined up? When can we expect to see you compete again?
DS: The 21st of this month I'm going to be up in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. That will be my next cage match taking place there. I've been training all along, but starting this week, I will be hitting two-a-days. I will do that for the next few weeks and then start to taper off. I just need to get myself a little more crisper right now, shed a few more pounds and get my cardio up. The hardest part for me is finding footage on my opponents and they could go to any Blockbuster and pick from the archives.
PC: Do you prefer to fight in a ring or in a cage?
DS: The cage a whole lot better. Only because you could fall over the top of the ropes, your butt can hit on the second rope and you can fall in between the ropes and on the ground you can slide under. They try and get you to the middle and recreate the situation, but honestly, if I was in a bad situation, I'm going to try and improve my position. There are techniques and then there are tactics and there are ways to utilize the cage to basically be your partner. I've fallen out of a couple of rings myself and I don't like running that risk.
PC: Every athlete that's very good at what they do is called "Beast" nowadays. How does that feel for you to hear that all of the time?
DS: Honestly, I don't take any kind of offense to it because there were athletes that were referred to as beasts before me and there will be a lot referred to as beast after me. I haven't coined the phrase by any means, but I look at it this way, to be bestowed it by a man such as Jim Brown, who was profiled as one of the top 100 athletes of the past millennium and he was in the top 5, gives me a lot better bragging rights. I ended up getting a football signed by him as well.
PC: It is an honor to speak with such a legend of the sport. I have a great deal of respect for you. Is there anything you want to say in closing?
DS: People can find out more about me by going to dansevern.com. You might even be surprised. I even have a couple of poems on there. You have a guy that's a teacher and writes poetry and it's nothing like, "Roses are red, violets are blue I'm going to pummel you through and through" or nothing like that (laughing). It's actually some stuff that people are like, "that's some good stuff. I can't believe you wrote that." I'm writing 2 different books. One is about technique and the other is just about excerpts of my life. My amateur and professional career, cages I've walked through and countries I've been to. I like going out and I'm a woodworker and I have a barn with my tools in there and just things that you would not expect. Big John McCarthy knows I don't call myself a fighter. I call myself a competitor. I try and be competitive in everything that I do. I will leave you with this last thing here. The nickname "The Beast" has a lot of negative connotations depending upon religious beliefs. I'm a big believer on being a positive influence so I say the word that stands for Dan Severn; teacher, humanitarian and educator. The message to young people is "Beast", believe in yourself, educate yourself, with just your everyday attitude to study hard and then to teach others. I took something that is looked at as negative and spun it into something positive.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]