"I've been saying it for years, that wrestling will basically take over the sport. When we started back in the day, you may have looked at it and thought it wasn't going to happen, but its inevitable now. The world is starting to see that wrestling really is the #1 martial art. I'm not saying Jiu Jitsu, kickboxing, Muay Thai and all of those things aren't effective skills, but your base has to be in wrestling because in most fights, the fight ends up on the ground," stated Kevin Jackson, former Olympic gold medalist and Iowa State University head wrestling coach, as he shared his thoughts on the current state of mixed martial arts and several fighters that he's worked with in the past, including Strikeforce light heavyweight champion. Check it out!
PC: How is everything going?
KJ: It's going good. I'm just out on the recruiting trail trying to pick up a couple of more pieces to the puzzle and bring some more wrestlers in. I was just in California doing a clinic and recruiting some kids.
PC: What was it like to be named the head wrestling coach of Iowa State? That's not only your alma mater, but you're in the Hall of Fame there as well.
KJ: It's everything man; it's everything. It was an unbelievable opportunity to coach with the support and the belief of the athletic department. It's exciting to be in a wrestling environment like Iowa State, so I couldn't have asked for anything more.
PC: How different is it to be coaching a kid out of high school making the transition to college as opposed to coaching a kid making the transition from college to the Olympic level?
KJ: College...my frustrations as an Olympic coach was having so few opportunities to coach my athletes. My athletes were greatly spread out. When I became the Nationals coach, my athletes were spread out throughout the country. We would hold a camp when I was making my tours, but it's not like I was able to train them for the majority of the years and watching them train and progress to doing the correct things. I was counting on coaches from other places to train those athletes, so it was a little bit frustrating. I like to be able to have my hands on my athletes every day. That way I can train them the way that I think they need to be trained, watch the progress and develop a relationship like that and continue to build on everyday training. I think that's important and that's why I coach and train athletes as opposed to putting together a training schedule and competition schedule, which is mostly what I was doing with our athletes at the Olympic level. It's a lot more rewarding and a lot more focused on what it really takes to be the best and I enjoy the process of college a lot more.
PC: When you're in the living room of a kid who you are actively recruiting and you're talking to his parents, what is the main thing that you want them to know about the University and, more importantly, about you?
KJ: First of all, about myself, they are under my direction and my guidance, so we're going to treat them like family and make sure they are successful, both academically and athletically. If your son does nothing else but graduate from Iowa State, then he's had a successful college career. Now obviously we want him to perform academically and athletically, but what we do as far as academics is very important to us. We graduate at a 79% graduation rate out of our athletic department, our student athletes, and that's higher than our whole student body. We're at the top of the Big 12 as far as grade point average and graduation rate. We're in the top 8 of BCS schools for graduation rate of our athletes, besides schools like Duke, Stanford, Wake Forest and other Ivy League type of schools. I think it's really important to sell the things that we have done in the past and what we done last year, and based on my credentials, so athletically, everything is a pretty easy sell, but academically is the most important thing. It's what parents want to hear the most and it's what I would want to hear as a parent sending my kid to Iowa State.
PC: King Mo Lawal says he wouldn't be where he is today if it wasn't for you. How does that make you feel to have a guy who is enjoying success in MMA still look up to you and still call you for guidance and advice?
KJ: He's an outstanding guy and an outstanding athlete and the most important thing is that he is an outstanding citizen. He doesn't get into any trouble or create any trouble. He's just having fun doing what he loves to do and that's compete, whether it's in wrestling or MMA. But Muhammad Lawal and some of the other guys...I mean, it's not too many guys out there of African American decent that do MMA that I haven't had some kind of contact or training with. That's one of the things that's fun to say. But to have someone like Mo, and I think he looks at me like a mentor. I think I was one of the first people kind of late in his career to have 100% confidence in him to be the best in the world, whether it was fighting or wrestling. I think he respected that and I think it allowed him to lock in a personal relationship with me and he listened to everything I said. And then to have him share the knowledge and information technically that I shared with him and to see that come into effect in his fighting is really rewarding. So to hear guys say those things about a coach that made them work very hard and put stress and pressure on them to perform, it makes me feel really good and it makes me happy to see the relationship that I have with those guys.
PC: We see a lot of great wrestlers emerging as top martial artists now. You had a lot of success with that, with your background in the early UFC's. Do you think that will be the future of mixed martial arts; a strong wrestling base?
KJ: I've been saying it for years, that wrestling will basically take over the sport. When we started back in the day, you may have looked at it and thought it wasn't going to happen, but its inevitable now. The world is starting to see that wrestling really is the #1 martial art. I'm not saying Jiu Jitsu, kickboxing, Muay Thai and all of those things aren't effective skills, but your base has to be in wrestling because in most fights, the fight ends up on the ground. If you look at Rampage's fight against Rashad Evans, Evans won because he was the better wrestler. He was able to control him on the ground. And what you're seeing from wrestlers now, quite a few of them, including Muhammad Lawal, Bobby Lashley, Phil Davis, Tyron Woodley and Ben Askren, are making the decision to not continue to wrestle, but to go into the fight game in the prime of their athletic careers. So they still have a ton of fights left because they are young enough and fresh enough to continue to perform and get better. With myself and Randy Couture and Dan Henderson, we all entered the sport at the end of our wrestling careers, so we were not close to our prime, but guys like Lawal and the other guys I named are in the prime of their fight careers and they were intelligent enough to say, "If I learn how to defend submissions and I understand that, if I'm not a better boxer than my opponent, then I have to get this guy down to the mat and use my wrestling skills." What these wrestlers are doing now is pure expertise and pure experience from wrestling, so for them to stand and box with someone really negates where they are really an expert at. And these fighters understand that, but a fighter like Muhammad, who actually trains in boxing and boxed in the past, could almost stand with anybody. I haven't seen anybody he can't really stand and punch with, but when that guy shows up, then he can take it to the ground and do what he's really good at.
Again, that's what Rashad Evans had to do and when I talked to Rashad after the Machida loss, he called me up and said, "Coach, what did you think?" I told him, "The last 5 or so fights I have seen you in have been all stand-up and you knocked out a couple of guys, but I haven't seen you hit the hard double and take your opponent down to the mat and fight where you are good at. You're expertise is your wrestling. You are in good conditioning, you are a good stand-up fighter, but your experience is in wrestling and you have to incorporate that at the highest level and then everything else will fall into place." I think when you seen him fight Jackson, he really got back to his wrestling. I think Muhammad Lawal working out with him, Mike Van Arsdale and Jamill Kelly spending time with him made him look like one of the best wrestlers out there. I do believe it's a wrestling era. I think you're only going to see more of them and a lot of them are going to go on to win championship belts. Once that wrestler adds the other dimensions, like defending Jiu Jitsu, develop very strong stand-up and use his wrestling experience, he cannot be beaten.
PC: There was a time when guys who couldn't make the Olympic team in wrestling, which very few can, they had nowhere to go. It has to be exciting to see these guys have MMA as an avenue now.
KJ: Here is my thought. Whether you have success at the Olympic level or collegiate level, for you to have made the sacrifices that you made and paid the price that you paid in the sport of wrestling to allow you to capitalize on your hard work and provide for your family...even guys like Kurt Angle that ended up in the WWE and people used to give him a hard time about it, I never had a problem with him doing that. They used their hard work and their background in wrestling to help them provide for their families the best way possible. What MMA has done is provided a way for these guys to provide for their families in a higher way than if they would have stayed in the sport of wrestling. That's really the shame of it all because wrestling is tougher than MMA. I have done both and wrestling is harder to do. I tell you what, I went into UFC 14 and beat 2 guys rather quickly and one guy came up to me and asked me, "Does it feel like being in the Olympic games all over again?" There is no comparison. I trained for my life to win the Olympic Gold Medal. I beat 6 guys and 6 of the toughest guys in the world. I give MMA fighters a lot of respect, so I trained for the submission game. There was no comparison because I didn't pay the same price to win the UFC 14 championship as I did to become a Gold medalist or become a NCAA All American or even a State Championship. It's a different feel, but I do think the opportunities that MMA offers are great. I think it give us the opportunity to show that we are the #1 martial art in the world and it's great to display that through mixed martial arts. I think it's gratifying for these guys to have the opportunity to go out and make a living after the price they have paid in wrestling.
But at the same time, it does hurt our program to win at the Olympic level. You will have a few guys that will choose to attempt to win at the Olympic level and then go fight after that, but again, they will be towards the end of their careers. It used to be a time where wrestlers went 2 or 3 Olympic cycles in a row and now it's pretty much one Olympic cycle and if you win, you will move on to other areas.
PC: I appreciate your time. Good luck on your recruiting trail. It was an honor to speak to one of the originals who did it. Is there anything you want to say in closing?
KJ: I appreciate your time. MMA is growing at a fast rate and I just hope that it doesn't start going in the direction of boxing, where officials are making poor decisions and questionable calls where you know who's going to win fights. I think the reason people are so excited about MMA is because you're going to see a show and you're going to be entertained. You're going to see fights and sometimes boxing doesn't provide that. And then, some of the judgments in boxing affect how the fans look at the sport. I'm hoping that MMA does not go in that direction. I have seen a few questionable decisions, but I guess it's all subjective.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]