An in-depth conversation with one of the most entertaining fighters in the UFC
True story: I’ve interviewed Matt Mitrione more times than he’s fought in the UFC.
We first spoke when he was a former NFL’er ready to steal some of Roy Nelson and Kimbo Slice’s thunder on Season 10 of The Ultimate Fighter. As engaging as he was, it was hard to know where Mitrione would end up when all the heavyweight season’s cards were dealt. After all, he was walking into a house with a cast of veterans and intriguing prospects with little more than his athleticism and a willingness to learn.
Nearly two years later, Mitrione is riding a four-fight winning streak into Sunday night’s meeting with Christian Morecraft. We talked again on Wednesday morning. Here’s the first part of that conversation, completely unfiltered because, well, I can’t write better Mitrione stories than the ones he tells.
Caution: Interview contains adult language and vast amounts of awesomeness. Consider yourself warned.
HeavyMMA: Here we are again, talking before another fight like we have for all of them so far. Two years ago you weren’t even in this sport, now here you are : undefeated, on another televised event, making your way up the rankings. I’m enjoying the progress and I want to know how you feel about things?
Mitrione: I’ve been pretty lucky really, to be honest. I don’t know how many other fighters are fortunate enough to say that all of their fights have been televised. The UFC has been really good to me. I try to give them the best show possible, and I always come prepared. I make sure I do my homework, I think pretty freely, and I speak pretty freely, so like I said, I try to put on the best performance possible, and they’ve done me well.
HeavyMMA: You speak pretty freely and you’re pretty honest about your own self-assessment in terms of what you’ve done and what you can potentially do. How important is that to you? Some people have the need to pump themselves up, but you seem to a sense of honesty with yourself and a self-deprecating way about you in terms of what you’ve accomplished and how much more there is for you to do.
Mitrione: I think it’s just who I am. Maybe it’s from the NFL, where I’ve been around $50 million athletes, so I can’t really lie to myself and say, “I’m more valuable than this person, I’m more valuable than that person.” I’ve been fortunate in that aspect, that I’ve been taught that humility is a great dish to eat all the time. I think I figured that out at a pretty early age, so I don’t need to talk myself up. I don’t need to brag about how good I think I can be at times, but if you have all the potential and talent in the world and don’t produce, than you’re a waste of everybody’s time and talent.
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HeavyMMA: I wouldn’t necessarily say you talk yourself down, but is there a little bit of gamesmanship to the self-deprecation and playing up the “Meathead” from The Ultimate Fighter angle to keep opponents and potential future opponents not quite sure of where you’re coming from and take the focus away from the skills you’re building?
Mitrione: If somebody’s going to sell me short or not give me the credit due for my athleticism and the hard work I put in, that’s their responsibility; that’s their fault. But no, it’s not really intention on that aspect.
What it is intentional for is that I want to make sure that people understand — it’s real easy to see through and get tired of people who take themselves way too seriously and can never really enjoy where they’re at at the moment in time, and I do. I really do. Maybe it’s because I’m a burnout, maybe it’s because I listen to The Dead, but I really do understand that it’s been a long, strange trip, and I do take the time out to smell the flowers and enjoy the moment that I’m in. I feel that a lot of times, I really do enjoy the moment that I’m in and I absorb it; I breathe it in and take it in and say, “No shit — look what I’m doing right now. Look where I am right now. What a trip.”
I’ve got some many people that, honestly, if I didn’t play football, I probably wouldn’t have gone to college. I probably would have been working construction, so everything that has happened in my life has been because of sport and because of my work ethic, and I guess my ability at the same time (laughs), so I get to these points where I think… I’ve got so many great friends of mine who are still home, doing construction, framing in winter time. Who wants to do that shit? I was just fortunate enough that I’ve had enough hurdles and setbacks in my way that made me really appreciate when good things happen.
Matt Mitrione
HeavyMMA: You spoke on MMAthletics about athletes having a certain number of snaps, fighters having a certain number of rounds, and when they’re up, they’re up. You had your snaps in the NFL, but how many rounds do you think you have left? Do you think about that at all? Do you blueprint it at all? Or do you just keep enjoying it until the UFC says, “Okay Matt, we’re done with you” and you move on?
Mitrione: I think that, to be honest with you, I’ve thought about it. I have a number in my head like, “This is pretty realistic. Anything more than this is gravy, but this is the least that I want to get to.” So I have that number, but honestly man, if my body has enough and says, “Your time’s up, Chucko” than my times up; there’s not really much I can do about it. I can tell you that at this moment, I feel really good. I feel very healthy and my body treats me well during camp.
I really have to govern myself. I really do enjoy training, and practicing, and learning, especially because I change it up so much; I’m in this camp and that camp, I’m training with this person and that person – I change it up so much it’s always new to me. I train too much, and I over-train easily because I’ll go three-and-a-half, four weeks in a camp without taking more than a half a day off. That’s not a really good decision, but it’s easy for me to do stuff like that.
So it kind of all depends. As long as my body is happy with what I’m doing, and as long as I respect the effort that everybody puts forth for me and to help me out, allowing me to be in the limelight while they kind of grind in anonymity, as long as I let them know that I appreciate what they do and pay it forward, I think my body will treat me well.
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HeavyMMA: You mentioned how you’re an itinerant guy when it comes to training. Where are all the places and who are all the people you’ve worked with in preparation for this fight? How many air miles did you pile up?
Mitrione: I spent my entire camp at Randy’s (Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas), so I spent five-and-a-half, six weeks there. I stopped through Gary, Indiana a lot actually. Miguel Torres’ gym has a fella named Anthony Gomez, so I ended up going up there and working out with him quite a bit. I worked out with Pat Barry up in Milwaukee a couple different times, Andrei Arlovski in Chicago. I went to California and worked over at Tiki Ghosn’s gym. Tried to get some time with Josh Barnett; couldn’t get some time with him. I went out and worked with Eddie Bravo. I’ve been around.
Really, I travel a lot, and really, it’s just because I want to be like a foodie.
A foodie goes around and tries everybody’s food; “I really love this about this, that about that” and they create their own dishes. That’s what I want to be about fighting. I really want to be a guy that never turned down an opportunity. Even if I get my ass kicked in a gym, I still want to be able to be like, `Yeah, I rolled with Eddie Bravo. Yeah, I grappled with Josh Barnett and he put me in this one spine lock, oh my gosh.’ You know?
I want to have those references, I want to be able to have done that, like coach Neal Melanson does. He trains with everybody, every name in the book I’ve ever heard of as far as catch wrestling and jiu-jitsu goes, and now Coach has made his own cookbook. That dude’s got stuff that nobody else does in the world, and he’s phenomenal at it, and I want to learn that too.
I think I’ve got a little inkling of that, a little portion of that with my stand-up. I’m right-handed, but I fight southie because I’m more natural at it, give me more angles. I’m pretty quick, I throw punches from strange, strange, awkward places, and I’m not afraid to throw my shins anywhere against anybody. I see that and I think it gives people trouble.
We’ll see. If my ground game and my grappling comes along like my stand-up, I could be pretty damn tough. I’m much stronger, much quicker, much more explosive, and my cardio is much better than I think a lot of people give me credit for. Tim Hague for example. I was talking to Tim after we fought and it was the same kind of comment. “I had no idea your leg kicks landed so hard. I had no idea, you were in and out, making space so well, I just didn’t know which way was up after a second.”
I feel that as long as people take me a little bit lightly or think that they’re fighting “Meathead” off of TUF 10 or think that I’m an easy scrap – and I am; I have a shit-ton of hype behind me, a ton of hype — but if you don’t think that I’ve earned that hype and I deserve it, and you come in there all “I’m gonna beat the piss out of this boy” like Christian Morecraft already said, well than it’s gonna be rough for you brother because I’m a nasty cuss. I can throw’em and I’m not afraid to let’em go.
Come back tomorrow for Part 2 of HeavyMMA’s interview with Matt Mitrione where he breaks down Sunday’s fight with Morecraft, more of his thoughts on training, and a special message for fellow UFC Live competitor Pat Barry.
