Showtime/EliteXC Conf. Call Quotes: Noons-Edwards-Corbbrey-Lappen-C. Gracie
I’m just excited right now. All I have to do is go out there and fight. I don’t have to think about anything else but KJ. I just get to lay back, relax, and do what I love to do more than anything in the world.
Q. Jeremy, can you give us an idea of the light heavyweight picture in the future? Any notable names we should be on the lookout for?
Jeremy Lappen: Yeah, we mentioned Feijao and Cole as two of our top light heavyweights. We also have Jared Hamman, who was undefeated until he lost to Poai Suganuma, who is also one of our top heavyweights, in sort of controversial fashion.
He was rocked early and a lot of people think that fight was stopped too early, so they’re going to rematch Aug. 15. That will give us one of the top contenders. And we’re always actively looking to bring in other top guys.
So the 205 division is the one we’re looking to build out now. We’ve got good young guys and we’re looking to bring in established people as well.
Q. Jeremy, anything going on with the Tito Ortiz situation?
Jeremy Lappen: We’re interested. We’d love to have Tito Ortiz as part of our organization. Any organization out there would love to have Tito.
Q. Are you in any talks or anything?
Jeremy Lappen: Yeah, we’re talking. We’ll see what happens. The deal has to be good for both sides. He’d be a great addition to our organization. But there are a lot of people actively pursuing him.
Q. Nick couldn’t be on the call with us today. But his coach Cesar Gracie has just joined. Cesar, can you make some comments on Nick’s behalf on his thoughts on this fight?
Gracie: Yeah, he’s training really hard. I don’t know if you got to see his last fight. Fortunately, EliteXC allowed him to do a fight in Japan to make up for the fight that he wasn’t able to do with that fiasco that happened in California.
And Nick came out like the Nick Diaz of old that we’re accustomed to seeing back in the day, really aggressive. Doing what he does. He looked really good.
His focus is on this fight coming up against Muhsin and everything. But he’s not looking past that. He’s got to win this fight, and that’s what he’s focusing on doing right now.
Q. Cesar, what do you think Nick’s mindset is since he had the surgery and the fact that he fought? He didn’t cut at all?
Gracie: No, he didn’t cut (which is something that has happened over and over since his first fight). We had a plastic surgeon look at it. He said that Nick’s ocular bones are extremely sharp, and he’s always going to cut and keep building up scar tissue. So, fortunately, the plastic surgeon was able to remedy that by filing it down and making it smooth like someone that doesn’t cut. I think that’s the difference.
Nick is a really tough guy. I think, without getting cut up, you’re going to see Nick is really hard to stop.
Q. KJ, how prepared are you if Yves wants to make this fight more on the ground?
Noons: Like I said before, just because I don’t show it in a lot of my fights — my ground work or maybe my wrestling or submitting somebody — it doesn’t mean I don’t work on it. I’m consistently in the gym trying to improve and get better on the ground. You know, doing submissions or defending submissions. All I can do is practice every day in the gym and get better.
Q. Do you want to keep this primarily a stand‑up fight? How do you see this fight going?
Noons: I feel comfortable anywhere. I trained to be on my back. I trained to be on top. I train to be standing, train to even take down to have great takedowns. It’s an MMA fight. It’s not boxing, so I’m prepared for everything: Knees, elbows, kicks, strikes, submissions, chokes. We’ll see what happens.
Q. Yves, what you expect and are you going to want to make this more grappling?
Edwards: I go into every fight, just looking to have a good time first of all. I’m not uncomfortable anywhere in a fight, especially not now. I’ve got so many good guys helping me train. I’ve got good guys standing in front of me, great strikers. These guys stand in front of me.
I’ve got good wrestlers working with me. So I’m really comfortable anywhere.
In this particular fight, I’m just going to take it as it comes. Wherever I feel comfortable, I feel I’m going to be strong. That’s where I’m going to make the fight happen. I’ll just let it play itself out from there.
Q. Yves, do you think the ground game is a particular weakness of his?
Edwards: I wouldn’t say it’s a weakness. Take Nick Diaz, for example. Nick’s ground game is legit. He is for real on the ground. (There was a time) we trained in the same training room sometimes. I watched him with his brother, and his brother had nothing but good things to say about him. His whole ground game didn’t even come into play with KJ
KJ’s got some strengths that can help keep you away from parts of his game that you think he’s weak at. But you really don’t know. You don’t want to go out there and get surprised. I’ve been surprised before, and I’m not going to let that happen again. So I’m not looking at him being weak at any particular part of the game. I’ve trained like he’s the best guy in every aspect of the game.
Q. Do either of you want to make a prediction for this fight?
Edwards: You’ll probably get the same prediction from both of us. It’s just at the end, my hand’s going to be raised and the gold’s going to be around my waist. I’m sure he feels the same way.
Noons: Same thing, but the cup’s going to be around my waist.
Q. Jeremy, what was EliteXC/ProElite’s reaction to the reaction you guys got for the May 31 show?
Jeremy Lappen: We were obviously thrilled. We were very, very excited. The news of how it did was terrific. CBS was very excited, which is obviously important. We’re scheduling our next event now.
I think there was some negative press from I’d call it more the hard‑core community. Honestly, we expected that somewhat. I didn’t expect it to be so severe. But the fight card that we put together, we stood behind. We were excited about it. We thought they were going to be terrific, entertaining fights.
It was a fight card aimed to hit more of the mainstream audience. I think he we did that. Everybody I talked to outside of the hard‑core world thought the fights were terrific.
There were some controversial things that happened, but those are things we can’t control. We put the fights together, and the fighters fight them, and the Athletic Commission and referees make their decisions and the doctors make their decisions.
So with what happened, if we could choose for them to be different, yeah, I think we’d choose them to be different. But it sets up good things for the future. So we were all very, very pleased around the office.
Q. In terms of the hard‑core fan base being negative about the show; do you think it was unjustified in terms of the stuff you couldn’t control? But the things that were under control ‑ people’s comments that the card was not a particularly strong card, especially in the main event ‑ what are your thoughts on that?
Jeremy Lappen: I think everybody has different thoughts. But I’d personally disagree. I think that main event fight was a very exciting fight. Kimbo gets a lot of criticism because he’s got a lot of exposure. People are just interested in him. People were tuning in to watch him fight. They were buying tickets to watch him fight.
For a guy that’s only had three professional fights, I thought he did an amazing job. He fought a very, very tough veteran in James Thompson, A guy that fought all over the world, fought very tough people and has had over 20 fights. .
I think people were tougher on the card than needed to be. Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith put on an amazing fight. That was one of the best fights that I’ve seen. Unfortunately, it ended the way that it did. But those two will go at it again, which is terrific. From top to bottom, I think the card was really solid.
All of the fight that’s we put on are always great. We’re always 100 percent behind the cards we put on. The one this Saturday is another terrific card. Our fights are exciting. Our fighters are exciting. I think they’re top‑level fighters.
Q. Yves and KJ, what are your thoughts and reaction to how the general public reacted to the May 31 card?
Edwards: Well, Saturday is another fight and I’m excited. On the May 31 card, they were promoting our fight. I think that helped a bit. Some of the fans that enjoyed the fight and probably hadn’t watched fights before or knew that we were going to fight on SHOWTIME will check it out Saturday. We’ll get a few more viewers for it. A few more people will get to see some good fights.
Other than that, it’s the next fight. That’s what I’m prepared for. As far as the event on CBS, it is great to see fights on regular television. You know, everybody has access to it. I was excited about that.
Just like everybody else, I was disappointed with some of the calls and some of the things that happened, but I also enjoyed the fights. I especially enjoyed the girl fight between Gina Carano and Kaitlin Young. Those girls put on a show.
Noons: I’d like to say I enjoyed the fights also. I thought it is what it is as far as referee callings. They got their numbers. They hit the numbers, CBS. It got out there to the audience.
I don’t know why there is so much negativity. Maybe I’m a hard‑core (with) what you want to call underground. If they want to be so negative, why don’t everybody that has something negative to say go train for eight weeks and try to get in a cage in front of 10,000-20,000 people. And then fight in front of five or six million people. That’s not as easy.
I would say give these guys some credit. They all trained really hard. They’re all great athletes. I thought it was good. Some of the calls — maybe the calls weren’t the greatest. But give the fighters some credit.
I’m super excited for this card Saturday. There are a lot of great fighters. I do think EliteXC puts on a lot of great fights. I think there are going to be some really exciting fights June 14.
Q. Go back to the training you guys did nine years ago. Were you regular training partners? Were you friends to a point where there’s a friendship that extends until now?
Noons: Let me start. I don’t even remember sparring Yves. It was so long ago. What was it, nine years ago, Yves?
Edwards: Yeah, it had to be.
Noons: I can’t even remember. But I can say we were good friends. We’ve stayed in contact ever since. I’ve watched his career. He’s watched my career. And I think it’s a great opportunity for both of us.
Edwards: Actually, I’m doing the math in my head. It was a little bit less than nine years ago. KJ had probably just graduated high school. He was coming in to help me get ready. There were not a lot of guys in Houston, especially back then.
When the kid graduated from high school, he had good stand‑up. So he came in, helped me out. He got in a few hours. But it’s kind of hard to go back and think about oh, what did he do here? How did he react to these things? Mostly he was there to just help me out. He hadn’t even fought a martial arts fight yet.
But he was there to help me out. And yeah, it extended to a friendship. So much so that I was glad to be there at his first open‑hand mixed martial arts fight. I was glad to see him in there. He looked really good.
I remember talking to him afterwards. We’ve seen each other in different places throughout the years. We’ve kept in touch through MySpace, etc.
So, yeah, we’re friends. But at the same time we will punch each other in the face come Saturday night.
Q. KJ, This card is billed as “Return to the King,’’ obviously, in reference to you returning home. What is your background on when you lived in Hawaii?
Noons: My mom, all my family on my mom’s side are from there. Born and raised there until I was about 16 years old in Kailua‑Kona, Hawaii. That’s where my father had his professional kickboxing career in the late ’70s.
Blaisdell is here I had my first MMA fight. Now I’m coming back with the title. I’m going to be defending it in front of my family and my friends, and it’s going to be a blast.
Q. When your dad fought at Blaisdell Arena, were you there?
Noons: No, I wasn’t even thought of yet.
Q. Cesar, can you provide more detail about the surgery that Nick had. How long did the actual procedure take? Whether it was in‑patient or out‑patient? How long did Nick have to stay out of the gym and recover, etc.?
Gracie: It took a few hours. Over his career he’s built up a lot of scar tissue, so it keeps cutting over and over on his ocular bone. It was out‑patient. He came out of it and he stayed a couple of days in Las Vegas.
He was out of the gym a couple weeks. He couldn’t do anything. Then he started to roll a little bit. He couldn’t box or anything like that. He’s now 100 percent and training with really top‑level guys.
His main boxing partner is Andre Ward. For those who aren’t familiar with him, he was the only American to win a gold medal at the 2004 Olympic Games. He looked pretty sharp in his last fight because of it.
Before, Nick was constantly getting cut, even when he was rolling. I mean, it was weird. But it’s been a complete success and we’re really pleased with it. It’s going to really add to the longevity of his career.
Q. Is there anything that you guys avoid because of that, or does he go full‑out and gets hit in the face, etc., in the gym?
Gracie: Sometimes just rolling in jiu-jitsu you take a knee or something like that, just in the course of it, you get your bumps every once in a while. It’s kind of frustrating when someone might get a bump and it’s just that. Someone else, you’ll get it and get cut like Nick. It’s kind of weird.
But he was getting cut off silly stuff. So we’re just thrilled that we can put that behind him. Now when he loses, it can be because he got stopped, he got knocked out or something. Look at the Gomi fight, his face was a bloody mess, and he still came back and won because fortunately that doctor didn’t stop the fight. He let it go.
But it’s always like throwing the dice out there with Nick, you don’t know what’s going to happen. But we’re excited that now he’s going to have to be submitted or knocked out to lose the fight?
Q. What is the status of Nick’s relationship with the California State Athletic Commission? Is that all behind you as well?
Gracie: We’re still looking at legal options and everything. It’s just we’ve been so busy with so many fights. Nick fought last month; he’s fighting this month. We’ll see what happens and how many fights he’s going to do in the upcoming months. We’re still negotiating with some things.
We’re talking to EliteXC about it. It’s kind of been the main thing on the plate as far as Nick is concerned.
We’ll see what happens. What is behind us is behind us. We’ll keep our eye out to make sure that there’s no bias against us, against our fighters or something.
You know, Nick is the kind of guy that he stands up against the powers‑to‑be‑type thing. He doesn’t like to be bullied. He doesn’t like to be told what to do. So, that’s where we’re at.
Closing Comments:
Corbbrey: I want to thank everyone for having me here. I want to thank EliteXC for the opportunity to get out there and show what I can do. I think it’s going to be a great fight. Nick Diaz is a great competitor, a hard‑nosed guy. It should be a fun fight for the fans. That’s what I want to do. I want to give the fans something fun to watch. So tune in on Saturday, and hopefully you’ll see something special. Thanks a lot.
Edwards: I’m just like the guys. I’m really excited about this weekend. And really looking forward to it. I’ve been preparing for it for a while. I wish all of these guys, everybody on the card, the best of luck — KJ included. I just want to go out there and put on a show, man.
KJ, just bring it, because we definitely have to put on a show, man. So bring it, and I’ll give back as good as I get. So let’s go out there and do it.
Noons: Just want to say thanks for the opportunity. Saturday it’s on. I’m excited. It’s going to be fun.
Gracie: Just talking to Nick, and he wanted to thank the fans, foremost, because they make it happen. And he wants to thank EliteXC and hopes that everybody is in Hawaii to check it out. And those people that can’t, tune in for it on SHOWTIME. It’s going to be a great fight. He’s happy he’s fighting a tough opponent.
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Posted June 10th, 2008 l 393 Views
