"That's my only loss. I'm 8-1 and I got stuck in a position that I had never trained for against Shane and I got tapped. I wake up every single day and train for that rematch. Whether it's a year from now or 3 years from now, I gotta get the rematch with Shane Carwin before I'm done with the sport," stated MMA heavyweight Rex Richards as he talked about his recent win over Dale Gill at Night Of Champion 5 and his desire to one day get a rematch against the only man to beat him, UFC heavyweight contender Shane Carwin. Check it out!
PC: Congratulations on your quick knockout of Dale Gill.
RR: I appreciate it.
PC: You don't like to waste too much time, do you?
RR: You know what? Football has beat me up more than mixed martial arts so for me to live long in this sport, I gotta beat people up a lot quicker. I like to go out there and make the easy money while it lasts and as the fights get tougher, they'll last a little bit longer.
PC: Did you know much about Gill going into that fight?
RR: I heard he was like a Tank Abbott type of guy and he was really going to go after me with that right hand and that was right. I really timed it right and when he dropped his hand, I landed that right hook and felt his jaw go everywhere and I just followed up with a few more shots. It was a fun night though, man. It's always fun knocking somebody out.
PC: Your only loss is to Shane Carwin. Did you watch his fight against Gonzaga and if so, what did you think of his performance?
RR: Man, he did good. I like to watch Shane fight. He's a really nice guy and a true athlete to the sport. He did great though. Gabe came out and hit him with some bombs right off the bat and you can tell he was getting rocked, but he got his legs back and dropped Gonzaga. I thought it was a very interesting fight and Shane did a helluva job.
PC: Is the Carwin rematch something you would like to get back?
RR: Oh, absolutely! He knows that. That's the way I am. That's my only loss. I'm 8-1 and I got stuck in a position that I had never trained for against Shane and I got tapped. I wake up every single day and train for that rematch. Whether it's a year from now or 3 years from now, I gotta get the rematch with Shane Carwin before I'm done with the sport.
PC: In what ways are you different as a fighter since the first time you fought Carwin and how do you feel he's different?
RR: I think we've both evolved into better athletes than we were when we fought the first time. The first time we fought, I wasn't completely respecting it for the way you have to train to be in this game. I was the big and strong ex-football player. I knew I had dynamite in each hand and I had pretty good Jiu Jitsu at the time, but I wasn't training it the right way. I wasn't preparing myself for a true mixed martial arts battle. As a matter of fact, I didn't even have a cage to train in; that actually was part of the reason I lost to Shane. I could get out of a guillotine with no problem. When he was going for the guillotine, I was thinking, "I could get out of this with no problem," but I had never been in one against a cage. When that leverage point changed, I remember thinking, "Well, let's just ride this thing out." It just got tighter and tighter because he's a big strong guy like myself and you give a guy a chance like that and he will come away with the win. I think the thing that will be different next time we fight is that we both will be training full-time like professional mixed martial arts athletes. We're going to see each other's true potential and that's a great fight man. We're both huge heavyweights with knockout power. I think down the road, if the UFC is generous enough to give me the opportunity, they're going to see someone that is explosive and tries to finish every single opponent and that's a fight that they can definitely build down the road.
PC: The big question is can you make the 265-pound heavyweight limit to compete in the bigger organizations?
RR: I'm going to do it. I'm only 20 pounds away right now. We can do this thing pretty quick. I have a fight scheduled for May 2nd for a company called Shark Fight Promotions and it's either going to air on HDNet or they are going to show the highlights on HDNet. Everyone is going to get to see me for the first time at heavyweight. That's an interesting question about me making the weight. When I was playing pro football, I was walking around 340 and it wasn't all solid. That was a big giant guy bench pressing 550 and squatting 800 pounds so I had a lot more football muscle on me and at that point, it was like asking Bob Sapp if he could make heavyweight. Now that I don't train that way, we're close man. I completely changed the way I train. I don't kill myself in the weight room anymore with all of the unnecessary bulk. I'm a mixed martial artist now and not a football player. I'm not out just doing this thing for fun. We're close, but I'm always going to be a guy that has to cut 10-15 pounds the week of the fight to make weight, but we can do this thing. I'm there.
PC: You haven't been out of the first round yet either, much like Carwin. Until you get out of the opening stanza, people will question your cardio. How is your stamina?
RR: Ah man, my cardio is great. For this last fight, I looked over at my cornerman, he is a good friend of mine, and I won after just nineteen seconds and I was pretty ticked. He looked at me and thought I was nuts. He goes, "What are you ticked for?" I told him I wanted it to go longer. I wanted to see what my cardio was because I had to cut 42 pounds for that last fight. I trained the right way and dieted the right way and I wanted to see where my cardio was. I wasn't training for five five-minute rounds. I was training for twelve five-minute rounds. We were hitting the mitts and I was doing 2 hours of cardio before I even made it to my Muay Thai class, Jiu Jitsu class and my wrestling class. I was ready and I think, as a big guy, I have pretty good cardio. That's going to be a question until I go deeper into a fight as well as it will be for Shane because he's never done it either. I think it's going to be there. If I had a choice to go five rounds or one round, of course I want to win quickly.
PC: How did you go from blocking for Peyton Manning to punching people in the face?
RR: My life has always
there hasn't been a year in my life that has not had martial arts or something involved with competing. I've always had combat-style training. I've always trained to better myself as an athlete and as a person, but when the UFC came to town
if there was a UFC on the same day as the Superbowl, you guys would have to tell me what happened in the Superbowl. And that is kind of crazy considering I've played pro football. I've always had a bigger interest in fighting over football. That's slowly starting to happen all over the world. Honestly, it's dramatically starting to happen and fighters are becoming household names. It's the perfect sport man. It's one-on-one and you have no excuses at the end of the day. You come out there and give it a shot and you win big and you lose big and that's what makes it a great sport. It's more opportunities and it gives guys one more chance to compete. The good thing about this sport is that they have weight divisions. They have guys walking around and fighting at 125, 135 and 145 and those guys don't have any place on the football field. There is just no place for them, but in mixed martial arts, these guys are world champions.
PC: Do you ever miss the game of football?
RR: I miss playing football until I remember what it feels like to knock somebody unconscious and then that takes care of it. I miss the camaraderie, but fighting camps are getting real huge right now. Each camp has about 12 big name fighters and we come together like a family and stuff. I miss a little bit of the after the game stuff; eighty-five guys getting together. I miss the long grueling meetings, which I hated at the time, but looking back, football was a blast and MMA is the next journey.
PC: Well, good luck in this journey and in your fight in May. Is there anything you want to say in closing?
RR: I want to thank all of my fans. I have a lot of support right now; it came out of no where. I want to thank my sponsors: Furia Fightwear, Atomic Fightwear, Rupture Fightwear and the guys at KO Dynasty are helping me right now to get some fights and I want to thank those guys for doing a great job. I want to tell everyone out there that we are doing this the right way. We're not just an ex-football player doing martial arts anymore. We've always been martial arts; now we're doing it the right way and hopefully I will get a shot in the UFC or another major company.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]