1. Probably wrestling because there are so many kids who do wrestling, so you have that immediate infrastructure for kids: early exposure to competition, coaches who are familiar with how to teach kids, that kind of thing. Of course if said kid were born in Japan or Korea, the answer might be judo. Or if the kid is born in Brazil than the answer might be BJJ.

2. I think I like the over on 20. Maybe 25? A lot of people fighting at 205 could beat him imo.

Definitely worry a bit about brain damage, if I were to suffer a big string of KOs then I would consider quitting. But even getting punched and slammed on my head as often as I do, it's probably still a much safer/healthier lifestyle than going out and getting drunk frequently, which society doesn't really consider "risky".

I didn't really "give up poker". It's just that I used to be a full-time online grinder, but now I play a lot less. I played like 40 live tournaments this year and a few hundred online hours. Hero is super supportive of my MMA efforts. When I signed with them they did a little piece at Aussie Millions of myself, Gavin Griffin and CEO David Jung going to a local MMA gym in Melbourne and having fun there. David himself also traveled to middle-of-nowhere Korea for me to be my translator/guide/cameraman for my second amateur MMA fight.

All of the above is why I'm happy to have Hero as a sponsor; they've done very well by me. My screen name there is simply "TerrenceChan".

Dunno if "humiliated" is the right word. I'd certainly be upset and disappointed. But I think anyone who knows anything knows that being KOd is a risk you take every time you walk into a cage with another athlete.
Those gloves are small, it doesn't take much.

Favourite submission is the triangle choke. It's so versatile, and it's almost the only thing in fighting I would say I'm actually good at.

-As mentioned earlier, I'm about 5'6/5'7, walk around 140, fighting at 125.

-Never did any organized sports as a kid. I was a small, uncoordinated, born-in-December kid and therefore sucked relative to everyone else. I still loved sports and did all the stuff other kids do in playgrounds recreationally with friends and people who were on the teams though: street hockey, basketball, football etc. Never did any organized sports as an adult either until I foudn this.

- While in training camp, I usually do an hour of working out in the morning 2-3x/week, and our advanced technique/sparring class runs from 7:30-10:30pm. So about 15-20 hours a week. Outside of camp, probably like 10 hours of week. During the WSOP or other poker tournaments, whenever I can cram it in.

At least you noticed, which is more than apparently I can say! Evidently all you SNE look the same to me.

That's a crazy compliment, thanks!

1. This is actually a good question about strategy even if you were intending it as a joke. I think in some aspects fight planning has some similarities to poker when you're facing an unknown opponent. Like if you sat down in some 10k buy-in in a foreign country and got involved with an unknown opponent on your first hand, you wouldn't try to build a huge pot with top pair. You would just try to play your normal A-game and find out what this guy's about, but then if you saw weakness you would attempt to exploit it. I think my thoughts on fighting are the same: assume the other guy is good, so come down with your hands up and chin down. If I start seeing opportunities to really hurt the guy, then I'll take it, but I'm not going to come out swinging haymakers from the opening bell.

2. I've had a pretty good year playing live poker tournaments. I mean, I haven't run stupid good or anything, but probably above expectation. So it's been a pretty fun year for that. Still, the full-time poker lifestyle is not something that appeals to me at this stage. I get too easily distracted/bored when I play long hours online, and big live tournaments are fun but the travel/hotel lifestyle is totally counter to being healthy. I hate sitting still for long periods of time as well. So I don't really anticipate a return ever to being a full-time grinder. But I still feel as though I'm a favourite when I play, plus I've invested my money well, so I'm pretty comfortable. If I were to continue the "train MMA and do very little for active income" lifestyle, I'm thinking my body will quit on me before my bankroll does. I hope that answers the question kinda sorta.

As long as it's the right gym and a kid-friendly environment, then I don't see why there should be any kind of minimum. Kids take up judo and BJJ when they're like 4 and 5. I mean you certainly don't want them doing full-on MMA at that age, but there's no reason young kids can't practice boxing technique on bags and pads, and roll around in pyjamas doing positional grappling.

I would say the main safety concern about having kids around an MMA gym is not the physical damage, it's probably the filthy locker-room talk.

1. Not really, I think I'm generally clueless on cold reads of that nature.

On a similar note, I think other people are also bad at it. I've had so many people try to pick fights with me for ridiculous reasons*, despite (or because) of the fact that I am a small Asian dude. And I haven't been in a street fight since I was 11.

2. Run/de-escalate. Seriously. I mean you specified you're an untrained dude so unless you're physically superior to the guy you're a dog to his "range" (remember that his range includes being a good fighter, having a weapon, having 12 buddies around the corner, etc) As I just said, I've had many people try to start fights with me and I have never been in one, mainly because I'm good at just letting go and not escalating.

If you're in a situation where you can't get away (maybe you are cornered, or protecting a loved one), I would say the best thing for an untrained person to do would be closing the distance, getting an over/under clinch (google it) and holding on to the guy until police/security shows up. The goal in self-defence isn't winning; it's surviving.

*quick poker related story, playing APPT 6-max high roller in Sydney, local guy limps bvb and they check down A-high board, SB has AK and BB has JJ. Obvious softplay, so I call the floor, argument ensues and the guy wants to take it outside. Like, really?

As I said earlier, even MMA head trauma is probably better than going out and getting crazy drunk on the regular. And people seem to have no problem with that.

But to answer your question: yes, as I progress later into my 30s I will probably shift over to grappling.

Nope, that was an (again, low) estimate for all the money I've spent.

In most North American cities (other than like NY/SF), if you wanted to stretch 20-25k as far as possible, you would definitely get many years of training out of it. Buy used gear, get a long-term contract at a non-big name school and you'll come in under $1500/year.

- Anderson now, for sure.

- Overrated? No way, the guy is amazing, and he's still pretty new to MMA. He's only going to continue smashing dudes. I don't care that much for the guy's personality but I'm not a "hater". I mean, I probably wouldn't want to be buddy-buddy with very many elite-level fighters tbh.

- Silva/Jones, but only slightly. I'd say Anderson is like -150 vs GSP and +180 vs Jones. But Silva is getting up there in age whereas Jones is getting even better, so that discrepancy will start to widen.

- I think JDS will win the rematch, though very unlikely he'll repeat his last performance. Cain is an absolute monster though and I would not be shocked in the slightest if he put JDS on the mat and beat him up. I think JDS is slight value on the current line of -150ish but if he were to become a significantly bigger favourite on the books I'd start betting the other side.

Heh, this is sort of a convoluted bar fight, now we have referee standups?

Heh. Never hit a twister in practice, but I've won a LHE tournament, so I guess the latter right now. I can all but guarantee you I won't win this next fight by twister because if I have his back, he's getting punched, choked or armbarred.

Of course if like I had some prop bet that I had to win an MMA fight by twister I could just go out and practice it a lot, try to book a fight against some dude with no ground game and do it. Whereas it's pretty hard to game the LHE thing similarly.

Fight well T.

Also my question:

Could you bop the guy in the head a couple times for your friends in NVG? This would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Gl gl

Hey Great thread and best of luck on Saturday!

but one thing that really annoys me dont say your a cage fighter that is what ****** meat heads say who want to be seen as tough guy fighters! Its called mma and its bad for the sport to say your a cage fighter if your serious about it say you say you gave up min betting to become a mixed martial artist. In our mma club if one of the guys said he was a cage fighter he would get beaten up and then thrown out lol

Hope your fight goes great!

Irony, you knows it.

GL, T. Ton of respect for what you do.

Any general nutrition thoughts? Do you think the current 'calorie' system is flawed? ie. I could reduce calories and if I wasn't eating the proper foods I wouldn't lose weight/fat?

Do you have cauliflower ears? Do most fighters ignore wearing protection during training to prevent getting them?

-If you can sit down with Lorenzo and Dana White for 1hr. What would you ask them?

-How gross are the mats with all that sweat and tons of people rolling everyday? Ever catch any infections?

-Any gym in the world to train, where would you go? Which are the top ones? Jackson's, Blackzillians, AKA etc...?

-How useless are classics like Tae Kwan do, Kung Fu, Karate, Wing chun, Aikido and such?

-Do you think in ten years will MMA still be using boxing's blueprint?

How can I bet on this (sorry if it has already been posted).

i live in st.louis, mo, usa, so i theres no way i can go. i'll buy a ticket just to show some support and get you paid a little bit. good luck in the fight man. mma is one of my favorite sports

Last one of these until about 8pm PT tonight, which will be the last one before the fight (weight cut starts tonight):

A punch specifically for NVG? What am I fighting Doug Lee?

I have a lot of nutrition thoughts, probably too many to get at for this post. I will say I am heavily influenced by the paleo/primal folks, dudes like Robb Wolf, Mark Sisson, Chris Kresser, Martin Berkhan, many more to name. Google those names and you will find good resources.

But yes I do believe the common-sense wisdom of simply reducing calories/increasing exercise is terribly terribly flawed. If you try to reduce calories and still eat crappy foods, you will fail to lose weight. If you eat good quality foods, sleep well, and get a moderate amount of exercise, you will lose weight/fat.

I do, but they aren't like Randy Couture-level bad.

I would venture a guess that 60% of people I've trained with use ear protection on occasion, 30% never, and 10% all the time. I am part of the 60%; I'll wear it when it really hurts and is swollen but not otherwise. Not because I'm macho but because even the best-fitting headgear is a pain and gets in the way when grappling.

1. Lorenzo I would certainly ask him about business stuff. Guy seems like a great businessman. I don't know much about his personality though. Dana obviously is better known, I don't even know how much I'd get along with a personality like that! But if he turned out to be a cool guy who was interested in talking to me, I'd probably just geek out and talk about various fights and fighters.

2. Happily most of the gyms I've trained at are very meticulous about wiping down the mats after each class/day. I caught a case of ringworm once, but nothing else. It's definitely gross though when you fall face-first into a puddle of sweat.

3. Of the three you listed, probably AKA, because I hear Dave Camarillo is awesome. For pure BJJ/no-gi grappling, probably Ryan Hall's gym in DC because I love his DVDs and teaching style. For boxing, Freddie Roach seems obvious. I honestly don't know which pure MMA gym though. Team Alpha Male would be interesting simply because they have a lot of 125/135 guys.

4. Individually, all useless. But I mean hey, take something for everything right? There's a video out there of Joe Rogan teaching GSP how to improve his turning side kick because JR was a badass at that kick from his TKD kicks. And we all know Machida uses his karate well and all of that.

5. You'll have to elaborate on this question; not sure what you mean by "blueprint".

Nowhere I know of. I guess you could bet against other 2+2ers

Dude that's like an awesome and amazing gesture, but please don't do that. Throw the $35 at a good charity or something instead. Or buy the PPV and tweet @battlefieldFL on my behalf.


================================================== ==========

Last call for questions will be about 8-9 PM Pacific. At 5 PM Pacific I start depriving myself of all food and water so I'll start becoming a cranky SOB by the late evening. So get 'em in before then if you can! Thanks again for all the support, you guys have been wonderful.

I don't understand the logic of not weight training. Tell it to Bruce Lee.

You obv. are super keen on being good at this athletic endeavour and here is a highly efficient way to increase speed, power and strength AND the endurance of your CNS system with as a little as 2 x 45mins sessions a week. I don't believe you can't work that around your training.

What do you think is a good line for frankie/aldo and how do you see it playing out?

Goodluck in your fight.

Cutting sux. No question about it. It isn't like losing weight the way most perceive it, like where you get some great payoff of feeling and looking better by removing calories. You are essentially taking a low fat body and asking it to give you more, and it doesn't want to, at least not without a price. Secret is doing it right and reducing risks; and sounds like you got a handle on it.

Kick ass.

-What do you think of Johny Hendricks?
I thought the speed at which he covered distance and the precision he maintained while doing so to KO Kampmann were completely ridiculous.

-How much of a dog/fav do you see him as vs GSP?
He's clearly a much less technically-sound striker, but with such nasty wrestling, knockout power and ability to cover ground quickly, I think he actually has a decent chance of taking out GSP.

-Do you think Aldo is actually underrated in the PfP rankings? Seems to me that, perhaps because of the weight class he belongs to, he's not given the respect he deserves as a fighter.
Sure, everyone knows he's nasty but in my mind, he's even much nastier than that, I feel he might be overall the most gifted fighter out there besides perhaps Anderson.


edit: Thanks for answering questions, no worries if you don't feel like doing it while cutting.

OP, you know how they have Chess Boxing matches, do you like the idea of MMA Poker matches? It seems the logical modern equivalent.

Also, do you think you'd have a shot at being MMA Poker World Champion?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing

Hey Terrence thanks for doing this, really interesting read.

I don't watch MMA too often but watched your last fight and enjoyed it a lot, good luck saturday and in the future

Well, glad to see my first thought was wrong. My first thought was someone was fighting AMA (against medical advice).

Good luck.

CONFIRMED :-P I'll be watching and tweeting at battlefieldFL, what time is your fight scheduled for?

Re: AdamSchwartz

I imagine SS could provide an interesting opinion on them

as a big fan of mma i'll be watching, gl in the fight Terrence!

list of supplements?

Thanks again for taking the time to give insight into MMA from a fighters perspective. It's pretty cool.

As a former college athlete I've always felt there are a ton of guys with a lot of physical abilities but the ones that excel are the ones that have the mental part of the sport dialed in. Would you consider this to be the case in MMA, or does technical ability simply trump most of the time?

Also, what are the couple hours leading up to a fight like for you? Are you in a visualization mode for the upcoming fight, or are you just trying to relax and keep a clear mind prior to heading to the ring? Once the referee says fight, is the key to stay calm and clear headed or is it just too easy to get caught in the moment and start throwing haymakers?

Thanks again.

TDA

terrence, don't have any questions, but you're the man! good luck on sat.

Sorry, but I seriously doubt you'll stand much of a chance.
You talk about your sport like fish talk about poker.

May be some inspiration will help:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7oowhw_pBU

GL terrence