We learned in September from a poster at the fitness center where we participate in the Silver Sneakers fitness program for seniors that there would be an MMA event in Wilmington, North Carolina on October 7.
The poster billed it as "Battle in the South" and featured Allen Crowder, a fellow member of the fitness center. Of course, now that we knew he was a mixed martial artist, we asked for an interview.
Allen is an undergraduate at East Carolina University, in Greenville, and about to change his major to criminal justice toward the hope of one day becoming a U.S. Marshal.
[Our questions are in italics.]
How realistic do you think the fight scenes in Warrior are?
They're realistic. Pretty much everything that is shown could happen in a real fight.
How did you become interested in mixed martial arts?
I played football for a number of years and got into mixed martial arts from meeting a guy who owned his own gym (Fearless Fighting, in Greenville). He let me train there for free as long as I fought for him.
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I mainly compete because I enjoy the thrill I get when I step into the ring. It's great for staying lean as well.
Did your arrangement at the gym in Greenville mean that the owner paid the fees to enter you on fight cards? If you won, did he share the purse with you?
In amateur fighting there is no purse, only your travel expenses and hotel are paid for.
Can professional MMA competitions be lucrative for a successful fighter?
They're fun to be in and the better you are known and liked by the fans the more you will make, with most money coming from sponsors.
How much does it cost to train?
It costs about $120 a month to train at most MMA gyms, but as long as I wore the gym logo on my shorts I didn't have to pay. Depending on the gym you go to, you must pay for weight-training, then for a boxing coach, plus a jiu jitsu coach, and then for food to take in the healthy calories you need. It gets rather expensive.
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I have a boxing coach, Joey Hall, who works with me a couple of days a week on boxing and endurance.
How do you think a well-trained MMA fighter would fare against an equally well-trained boxer, considering what happened to Kimbo Slice....
Depending on the match, if the boxer were fighting someone in a boxing match I would say the boxer would have the advantage, but in an MMA fight the ground game is very important.
Kimbo slice is an average boxer who mainly relied on muscle and back-yard brawling when he was put up against Roy Nelson, who is a black belt in jiu jitsu. Kimbo Slice was easily outmatched in The Ultimate Fighter contest.
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My official record is 4-1. It's 5-1, if you include my first, unofficial fight.
What do you do in the hour or minutes just before entering the ring?
Right before a fight I usually listen to intense rock music like Korn or Disturbed.
How do you prepare more long-term for a fight?
When I prepare for a fight I try and find video on my opponent and study his weaknesses. For my last fight (on October 7), I knew the guy was a good boxer, and I wanted to beat him at what he was good at. I payed for it.
How did he knock you out?
I didn't keep my hands up, which is very important for an MMA fighter. I got caught with a heavy right hook across my jaw. I was unconscious for about five minutes.
The word "extreme" is sometimes applied to mixed martial arts? What does that signify?
Mixed martial arts simply are an extreme sport, and not everyone wants to take the chance of an equally skilled opponent's stepping into the ring with them.
How do people react upon learning that you are active in martial arts?
It has gotten a lot more popular over the years, but not everyone has even heard about it, and I normally don’t bring it up unless someone asks.
There are a few really good female fighters with Cyborg (Cristiane Santos) [a Brazilian mixed martial artist] being one of them. We had a fight with two women on my last card. They went at it pretty good, even with one of them having a slight weight advantage.
I'm not really sure who she is. I never saw the movie.
Do you train others in mixed martial arts?
No, I just help friends out. I basically roll with them and when they mess up I correct them.
How do you work mental training into the physical moves involved, if that's a good way to think of it?
Mentally you have to tell yourself to keep going. When you're in a sparring match and get caught with a left in the face, you have to tell yourself it will make you better and try to avoid it the next time.
What question(s) do you wish we had asked?
I thought you were going to ask me whether you should take up mixed martial arts.
Uh...is there a senior citizens division?
Moristotle reaches a new level of diversity! This is a very nice and informative article about a topic more than a bit out of your normal areas of coverage. Have you added some music by Korn or Disturbed to your workout soundtrack?
ReplyDeleteFor those of us who grew up with boxing and Bruce Lee era martial arts, all the rolling around in the ring that is part of MMA is difficult to figure out or get excited about. I can't remember the exact quote but the comedian Stephen Colbert described MMA as something like a few seconds of excitement followed by long periods of difficult spooning. To the layman that description is almost as accurate as it is humorous.
If you have a chance to do a follow-up with Allen I would be curious if he has any thoughts about possible rule changes for MMA, or better announcing, or something, so those of us who aren't as familiar with it could better understand and appreciate what is going on when two fighters resort to the "ground game" part of their tactics.
Thanks again for the article and the diversity it brings to your website.
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