Ian Freeman IFL Interview

[Mulla]

www.ifl.tv

Freeman Talks IFL Team, Bisping, and the State of MMA in the U.K.
11/21/2007
By Ben Fowlkes

England’s Ian “The Machine” Freeman has long been one of the U.K.’s most famous mixed martial artists, as well as a pioneer of the sport in that country. A magazine editor, a comedian, and a champion in the Cage Rage organization, he will now head a team of British fighters for the IFL’s 2008 season. Recently he sat down with IFL.tv to talk about his career, his team, and the state of the sport across the pond.

So Ian, how is your team coming along in their preparations to join the IFL?

IAN FREEMAN: Well, I just managed to get my full squad. I had one light heavyweight rejected by the IFL on account of his fight record and his age. They weren’t too excited by the fact that he was forty years old and only had two fights, which I can understand. What they didn’t take into account was his boxing career, but that’s by the bye.

Now I found the perfect light heavyweight, so I have my full team. I wanted them all to be U.K.-based. They’re not all necessarily English guys. Some of them are foreign guys who live in England. I feel like the U.K. has a lot to offer. I put the U.K. on the map in terms of mixed martial arts, at least I think I did, and I wanted this team to prove that we’re just as good as the rest of the world.

You mentioned your fighter having experience as a boxer. A lot of British MMA fighters seem to come to the sport through boxing, whereas in America there are a lot of guys who come to it through amateur wrestling. Does that make a difference?

Yes, definitely. And I think you’re totally right. Most of our guys do come to it through boxing, but the wrestling side of the sport is actually getting bigger over here now. It’s like my fighter Abdul Mohamed, he’s one of the best wrestlers I’ve seen. He’s from Afghanistan, had lived there all his life, and he came over here and helped my guys really improve their wrestling.

What do you think of the differences between the MMA scene in the U.K. and in America?

I think we’re just a few years behind. The top guys like myself and Michael Bisping who have traveled abroad and trained and fought in other places, we’ve progressed a little quicker. One of the problems here is we have these “trainers” who say they’ve done this and done that, and then when their students come to my gym I look at them and think, what has this guy been showing you? It’s stuff that’s so basic that they aren’t getting.

A guy like Mike Bisping, though, he’s gone around and trained with other people and he’s far ahead of everyone else here. I actually trained with him some for his last fight with Rashad Evans. It’s nice for him to be able to pick up the phone and say, ‘Ian, I need good sparring partners, could you come up.’

What did you think of his fight with Rashad Evans?

I think it was awesome. If Rashad was fighting his best, it proves that Mike really belongs in there with anybody. He had kind of a bad fight with Matt Hamill and a lot of people thought he lost that fight, but whether he did or didn’t I think he proved his worth against Rashad. I believe he did lose the fight, but it was very, very close. I was proud of how he fought.

I read your book a few months back, “Cagefighter”, and I thought it was hilarious and really interesting. The style seemed so conversational. Did you write it yourself or did you have a ghostwriter?

I did have a ghostwriter. I wanted to have a large part in it because you don’t want to have somebody just write it all and then say, ‘Yeah, that sounds like me, do it.’ He interviewed me a bunch of times, he interviewed all my friends.

The thing was, though, the guy had never had a fight in his life. So when he would write the fight scenes he wrote things like, ‘I punched him so many times in the face that he looked as red as a tomato.’ And I thought, what is this? So I had him come down to the gym to watch us train and he was sitting there with his Dictaphone and his pen. I told him to put it down and get on the mat with me. He said, ‘Why, what’s going on?’ I said, ‘I’m going to let you experience it.’

I took him on the mat and smacked him around a bit. I wasn’t really doing anything to him, just a little ground and pound. But after a few minutes of that he crawled off the mat saying, ‘I understand! I understand!’ After that, his writing was so much better. It was unreal.

The book deals a lot with your past as a doorman in English clubs. It sounded pretty dangerous, but you had such a humorous take on it all. Is it only now that you look at it with a sense of humor, or did you feel that way about it then, too?

It was all serious back then. Now I look back and I can see the humor in it, but when you’re a doorman in the U.K., at least back then, it was serious business. Now you have to have a doorman’s license to do it, and most of the guys I worked with would never ever be able to get a doorman’s badge. Back then, anyone could work the door. A murderer could work the door. And when you’re dealing with fights constantly and people with guns and all that, it was life-threatening and really quite serious.

Back then, before I became a fighter, if I heard a rumor that John Doe wanted to fight me, I couldn’t wait until he came to find me. I had to go find John Doe, because I didn’t want to be looking over my shoulder all the time. Then when I became a professional fighter and I was beating some of the best in the world, I felt like, ‘If John Doe wants to come and see me, let him come and see me.’ Becoming a professional fighter made me calmer, more collected, and I realized what my abilities were.

In the IFL we’ve seen that a lot of guys who were great fighters don’t necessarily turn out to be great coaches. What’s your coaching philosophy going to be like?

I’ve been told that I’m a better coach than I am a fighter. Hopefully that’s not a remark on my fighting ability, but I’ve been told that I explain things well and coach people well. When I do seminars, guys say they appreciate how I break things down so they can understand it.

Basically, I think being a good coach is about understanding the physics of the body and having the ability to channel your love of the sport into someone else. If guys have a half-assed attitude, they’ll never be good. But if they think they can do well and they are doing well and you give them a belief in themselves that they can do this, they will do it.

Would you ever consider fighting in the IFL?

I would love to fight in the IFL. I would love to. People now think of me in the U.K. as an M.C. because I do that for a lot of events here. And I get up there and talk to them between fights, because I’m also a comedian. My stuff is a little blue and I don’t know if Americans would like that as much, but here they love comedy having to do with anything that is rude, that is dirty. I basically take every day life and turn it into comedy.

But I’d fight anyone. I came down to light heavyweight for my last two fights, but I’ve been a heavyweight all my career and I’ll fight at either. People think now that I put on a suit and do the M.C. stuff that I’m not a fighter anymore. I’m still fighting. I’m still training five days a week.

And you know something? This is the gospel truth: I feel that I’m a better fighter now because I’ve been coaching so much. It makes you look at things in a different way. Before I was cutting corners on this move, cutting corners on that move. But now I make sure they’re all a hundred percent perfect.

What are you expecting when your guys step in the IFL ring for the first time?

I think it will be awesome for them, and I think it will be very hard. A lot of these guys haven’t fought abroad, and I’m really looking forward to when we come for our first fight.

At the moment, the IFL isn’t really known in the U.K. I’ve been able to watch two IFL shows and it blew my mind. That’s what made me want to become a coach. I think when these guys see how serious it is, how professional it is, it will make them want to train even harder than they do now, and I’m looking forward to it.

Thanks for taking the time to talk with me, Ian. It’s been a pleasure.

No problem at all. Thank you.

[gazbrook]

Great Interview.

I just hope Ian doesn't do a Ken Shamrock on us and compete again. I'm sure he may have improved,but not enough to compete again. Ian is one of my favourite fighters and I don't want his rep being ruined.