[Reavant]

Awsome Chuck interview...

http://www.fighthype.com/pages/content657.html

LIDDELL: "I FEEL LIKE IF I HIT YOU MORE TIMES THAN YOU HIT ME, I'M GOING TO WIN BECAUSE I HIT HARDER!" By Percy Crawford | August 14, 2007 FightHype.com recently caught up with former UFC light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell to talk about his training for his upcoming clash with Keith Jardine at UFC 76 on September 22nd at The Honda Center in Anaheim California. You don't want to miss what he had to say about Jardine, Wanderlei Silva, Quinton Jackson, Shogun Rua and much more. PC: How have you been doing my man? CL: I'm doing great; training hard and getting ready. PC: How is your training going for this fight and who are some of the guys you are training with? CL: I train with the same guys I've always trained with: Glover Teixeira, Scott Lighty, John Hackleman, you know, my trainer, Scott Adams, Chuck Sandler and Eric Swartz. PC: Before we get into the fight with Keith, you have MMAJacked.com coming out. Can you tell us about the site a little bit? CL: It's coming along good. I'm trying to get a website where it has all of the things that I want on it. If I was a fan, I would want interviews with good fighters. It's a social network, obviously, but it's one of them things where I'm trying to connect with everyone. I'm trying to make it like a fight finder thing. I want to know records. I want to be able to go on there and if I'm in a strange town, know what gyms they have there and go talk to people and hang out. If someone is in a gym in Obispo, they could find out where I'm training at; or if they're going to Illinois, find out where Matt Hughes is training at. I want to have that information available on the website. PC: Are you a big football fan and if so, I'm sure you are looking forward to the season coming up? CL: I am a big football fan. I do Fantasy Football every year; usually a couple of leagues. I'm a Green Bay fan, except for my boys which is the Chargers. I have friends on the Chargers. Lorenzo Neal is a good friend of mine and as long as he is playing with the Chargers, I'm a Chargers fan. They're tough man. Neal is a bad man at fullback. Every back behind him has always gotten 1,000 yards. PC: Yeah, I knew you used to play, but I didn't know if you were still into it. CL: Yeah, I played in high school and 1 year of college. PC: What made you give up football? CL: It was going back and fourth between…and honestly, to tell the truth, they were trying to get me bigger and saying, "You need to get bigger." I was getting a lot of pressure to use something to make me bigger that wasn't natural. I was working out 6 days a week as hard as I could and I wasn't getting any bigger. It wasn't worth it to me. I was playing Division 2 football and doing steroids and that stuff was not worth it to me to play. PC: Have you had a chance to get a vacation since the Rampage fight? CL: I started training a week later. I started training again a week later and I found time for little things to have fun. I spent time with my kids; went to Disneyland and did that kind of thing and had a blast and stuff like that, but for the most part, I've been back to training. I just want to get back out there and fight. PC: How important was it for you to get right back in the gym because John told me that you used to take a month or so off to just do Chuck? CL: That's one of the things we've talked about. Me and John talked about it and it's one of those things where I'm getting older now and I just can't take that much time off. You need to get back in the gym and start training. You don't have to kill yourself, but you need to be back in their working. I think a week off is perfect for me. If I have an injury, I'll take a little more time off, but without injury, a week off and then get back in the gym and start training again. I love training anyway. I love sparring, hanging out with the guys and now, I'm making enough money in the fights that I don't have to do so much peripheral stuff. Before it was hard to pass up all that stuff because we had to make up for what we weren't making in the fight, but now I make enough in the fights to where I don't have to do that extra stuff. I turned down a $10,000 autograph signing for 2 hours, but it was to spend the day with my kid. I told them, "You know what, honestly, I'm with my son. I can't do it. I'm sorry." I can't do it and that was 10 grand for 2 hours. It was important for me to stay with my kid. I'm not trying to be a dick, but you have to understand, it's not worth it for me. I get people giving me a hard time for not doing seminars. You gotta understand, if you're going to take me out of my home away from my kids for 3 days, because I would have to leave on Friday and come back on Sunday, you can't charge 10 or 15 grand for that. I can't, because you know what, I'd rather pay you 5 grand to stay home and play with my kids for those 3 days. PC: It has to be nice to finally be able to turn things like that down to be with your family? CL: Well back in the day, you can't. It's one of those things that's relevant to what you're making to fight. When you're making 50 grand to fight you, can't turn down a $10,000 deal. When you're making the money we're making now, you can pick and choose which one's you want to do. I'm a nice guy. I tell everybody I've been doing mixed martial arts my whole life. I will do seminars for people. If I'm in town, I'm reasonable. If I have to be in town anyway, I'll do a seminar for you very reasonably, but if you're actually asking me to leave my house to come to your town to do a seminar and then go home, it's going to cost you a lot of money. If I have to be there for some other reason, I like martial arts, I like teaching and doing that stuff so we could make something happen; especially if I know the guy. I try to help out guys. If I'm in your town for something and I know you, I don't mind doing a seminar at your school. I did a private [seminar] with a kid up in Colorado one time. He wanted to get private lessons and I'm talking to him the whole time and I find out he's working 2 jobs and putting himself through school. At the end of the lessons, he asked, "How much do I owe you?" I said, "I don't want nothing kid; get out of here." How am I going to charge the kid? I was charging $150 per private? How am I going to charge this kid who's working his way through college and just excited that I'm there? It was worth him giving up his work and all of that stuff he does to pay me 150 bucks an hour. Fuck it! I had fun with the kid. I was teaching him stuff. He's a nice kid; great guy and now me and him are friends.