Anjew
Wywiad jest z sherdoga, wrzucam do nas, ale troche mi sie nie chce robic tlumaczenia
Dla wytrwalego bedzie sog ode mnie!
March 21, 2004
by Derek Calahan
Over the course of a seven-year career Gary Goodridge offered nothing more than his best. For fans, that was enough, but for a competitor with the intrinsic resilience that Goodridge possessed, it wasn’t nearly sufficient. He brought bombs to the table, and each time in the ring offered the perfect foil to boredom.
For a man who was tagged as an expert in Kuk Sool Won his first go into the Octagon at UFC 8: David vs. Goliath, Goodridge grew with a sport that obviously ate it’s veggies as it got bigger, stronger, and better. Men like the native Canadian have become bridges for the brutality of the past, and the sportsmanship of today. He’s seen the best of both times as well as the worst, and now in his retirement, brings an entirely new way to view him as ‘Big Daddy’ as time marches on and fans globally say a possible farewell to one of the toughest cookies in the jar.
Derek Callahan: Tell me about your martial arts beginnings.
Gary Goodridge: I was a national boxing champion in Canada in 1993, I was just a strong, athletic individual, that’s it.
DC: How’d you first hear of the UFC?
GG: I watched it on TV, actually I think UFC 3 was my first introduction to the UFC.
DC: And you decided to give it a shot?
GG: Yep, I thought that I could do it.
DC: I guess you were right.
GG: Actually my friend’s were the ones that pushed me into it I didn’t want any part of it.
DC: That’s interesting, why not?
GG: It looked a little too dangerous for me.
DC: How’d your feelings of it change from before you saw competed in the UFC to after?
GG: Really when I first saw it I just wanted to win a belt, that was a big thing for me just to win, to win a belt. Now, I’m employed.
DC: What do you mean?
GG: I’m just an employee, it’s my way of making a living.
DC: Was it as dangerous as you thought it would be?
GG: No. It’s not as dangerous as I thought. It was dangerous because you don’t know what you’re doing, but if you know what you’re doing it’s not that dangerous. It’s like a snake catcher, people go in and charm snakes, they grab the snake at the neck, and you would look at them and say, ‘you’re crazy!’
DC: When you started the sport was young and as you grew as a fighter the game did as well. How did it get tougher or easier as time went on?
GG: Everybody got tougher in terms of they started knowing more things, more submissions, more stand up, better ground, so I had to train differently. It didn’t really affect me that much, it’s just evolving, it’s just like driving as you grow old. You’re 16 going for your driver’s license, you start driving, then you start driving with one hand.
It’s different because you have to get better. People that stay stagnant, for instance Tank Abbott and stuff like that, and [ken] shamrock, it’s a shame because they were on top of the game in their time, they left and came back and you can’t really start off where you left off at.
DC: Throughout your career in all you’ve had 19 losses, how does a fighter question himself during the bad times and what kept you believing that you could win after some tough losses?
GG: The thing is, the bulk of my career was in Japan and they don’t really give a shit about the win/loss record they just want to see a good show. As a fighter, I care about the win/loss record, I don’t want to lose I want to win every fight that I’m in.
So I tried as hard as I could and that’s all they can ask from me. I didn’t know what I was gonna do in the ring and how I was gonna do, all I knew was that I could put on a good show, and try to not quit, to keep going.
DC: You did K-1 and PRIDE, something a lot of fighters don’t seem to want to do. What did you find tougher?
GG: Well I’d say I find K-1 tougher because it’s not my base sport. Boxing is my base sport. I suppose if wrestling was my base sport I’d find it really difficult the way Tom Erikson did. What is tougher? I don’t know,
I’ve seen some really weak MMA people and I’ve seen some really weak K-1 people. Personally for me at this point ‘d have to say K-1 is a little tougher. I’ve been training K-1 style fighting hard for the past two years and it’s tough, it’s a very painful sport. MMA seems to be a walk in the park compared to the K-1 stand-up, kicking and punching. K-1 is going MMA now.
DC: How did boxing differ from K-1 for you?
GG: Because of the timing, the distance are totally different for punching [and] for kicking, it’s just totally, totally different. You can use it, it’s still the same skills and almost the same technique you still use. There’s more added, boxers can hold their hands down, for example
Don Frye and myself, my last fight with Don Frye, my whole thing was he was a typical boxer with a great wrestling base. I knew that he was going to come in holding his hands down low. It’s just a boxer’s style. When you’re not expecting the kick, you’re really expecting it to the thigh and then you surprise somebody and throw it up to the head you’ll get somebody ten times out of ten.
It’s a big, big difference. It was hard for me, I learned a big lesson from Gilbert Yvel when I got knocked out the exact same way. Boxers come in and hold their hands low because they can pretty much take a punch to the head full force when you see it. But with a kick when you don’t see it, a kick is a whole new different ballgame. You’re going to sleep. I find it hard.
DC: Looking back on your career you’ve had a whole bunch of fights and honestly I’d be shocked and impressed if you remembered them all, but what would you say has been your best one?
GG: My best fight was my last fight with Don Frye.
DC: Why?
GG: Because it was kind of like the last, final chapter to my career and it was written really well. I couldn’t have asked for a better, tougher opponent to fight and somebody that was been so significant in my MMA life because he had beat me twice before within the first year that I started. It wrote a good book for me.
DC: I know you get asked this a million times and I almost hate to ask it again, but you beat a whole bunch of Japanese people in arm wrestling?
GG: Yeah.
DC: Could you tell me a bit bout that please?
GG: Well I was called over I think in ’94, they wanted the world champion to go over and arm wrestle a hundred Japanese people so I went over and did it and then they called me over the next year to arm wrestle another hundred people and while I was going over in ’95 another company called and asked me to do 1,000 people.
The 1,000 people called, I let them set the price, I went over there and beat 1,000 people in an hour and 47 minutes and it was part of the contract that at 350 I’d have to do five in a row with one finger so I did. They gave me 14,000 for showing up and 14,000 if I beat everybody without a loss, even with the one finger.
DC: Did you?
GG: Oh yeah I did.
DC: Were they giving you pushovers or were these like the best guys?
GG: It doesn’t matter if it was a 1,000 kids, it’s still like curling five pounds 1,000 times it’s hard. Five pounds don’t seem like much but 1,000 times it’s hard.
DC: I know what you mean. When you fought your buddy Tom Erikson how were you able to turn on the killer instinct needed in the ring?
GG: Well at the time Tom and I weren’t such good friends back then. We were, but became really, really good friends after. The thing about it is, it’s all business I don’t have anything personal about any of the fights I’ve ever had. I do have something personal against Mike Bernardo if I was to fight him again, that’s about the only personal issue that I have. Other than that, my corner made Paul Herrerra, my very first match, a personal match, because they told me he was racist and so on and so forth, he belongs to some racial cult.
So it became personal so I wanted to beat him, I wanted to hurt him I wanted to beat the shit out of him. But really it’s a business and it’s like going to work, I’ve got a business to do and I gotta do it. No disrespect intended, no bad feelings, I got a job, I’ve got to do my job and I try to do my job as best I can.
DC: Just another day in the office. What do you like about fighting that you were able to make it your job? How was it that you were able to go through such hard training for the paydays?
GG: Because I love it, I love it, I love the sport. I just love it, right now I really miss it, I watched UFC the last fights, I just saw. It just made me hunger, I was drooling at the mouth to get back in the ring again. The problems that I had that forced me to retire have since subsided, if a good offer came along I’d be right back in the ring.
DC: Money or opponents?
GG: Just an offer, if an offer came along I would take it if I felt it was substantial enough.
DC: So what’s keeping you retired then, what made you retire?
GG: What had made me retire, I have a four-year-old daughter with a girlfriend that I was with for 10 months, and we have shared custody so she’s with me half the week, with her mother half the week. They allowed me to fight and so on and so forth and I was able to keep the shared custody and all of a sudden this past November, they had sent me a thing to go to court saying she wanted full custody because I’m not in the country enough to have shared custody.
So it forced me to retire, it was either my career or my daughter, and I took my daughter instead of my career, and since I retired, they know I’ve retired, her lawyer and all them say, ‘You can fight, we can work out all the details, just keep the money coming in and we’ll work around everything else,’ the greedy bitch.
We’ve since worked out some stuff, they see where I am, they were expecting me to take my career instead of my daughter, and now they realize if this ever came up again I would definitely take my daughter over my career.
DC: How come you didn’t just fight in King of the Cage or a smaller show?
GG: King of the Cage is out of the country I live in Canada.
DC: How about a Canadian promo?
GG: It doesn’t matter, it’s all being worked out now, we went to court now. Things are fine and I’m full force, ready to go. The only thing keeping me retired is me now, I have no reason to be retired I could go back, but I left on such a pretty note it’s just going to be difficult for me to disrupt that order.
DC: Well now that you have been retired what have you been up to?
GG: Working at this, working at that. My wife’s a very successful lawyer, I’ve been helping her out. Doing a little of this, a little of that, looking after my kids.
DC: Throughout your career once you stuck your claim in PRIDE, people saw a game, hard hitting fighter, but where did you see yourself as far as heavyweights in the world?
GG: I saw myself as just a hard-hitting entertainer, a kick ass entertainer and I just wanted to do my best. People paid good money in seats to watch me and I just wanted to make sure they got their money’s worth every time that I got up.
DC: Did you ever feel as if you were constantly having to prove yourself when you got into the ring?
GG: No, I never felt that, I am who I am regardless. There will be many fighters better than me, there will be many fighters that have better submissions that can kick better that can punch better, but not everybody will be able to do what I can do in terms of electrifying the crowd. I thrive on that. The only other person that does it the way I do besides me is Wanderlei Silva, Sakuraba.
DC: How did you feel about your “job’ as the Gatekeeper?
GG: I loved it. People thought, ‘well, it’s an embarrassment.’ Nah, man I was proud. I was proud to be somebody. Regardless of what they named me I knew I was a somebody but I was proud to be whatever they wanted me to be, I was happy.
DC: The list of your opponents is really crazy, Ruas, Vovchanchyn twice, Nogueira, who was your toughest and/or most memorable?
GG: My toughest, I would have to say was, what’s his name…the guy’s name is…Mark Schultz. Mark Schultz is the toughest opponent I’ve ever had.
DC: Why’s that?
GG: Just because at the time when I fought him he was unbeatable because I didn’t know anything about the ground. It was just the timing.
DC: When you finally beat Don Frye in your final match describe to me how it felt to be in the ring there after the two losses and everything.
GG: I didn’t really remember the two losses, what was going over me was, you know, I’m quitting fighting. It was tough for me. Emotionally it was hard because I was being forced to quit. I didn’t want to quit, I wanted to be there I wanted to stay there. I was being forced to quit and it was a very emotional time for me.
DC: Talking a bit about the other side of fighting, one that the public doesn’t see as much. There’s always seemed to be a lot of politics in the fight game, how have those effected you if at all?
GG: Actually they never really effected me until now, I’m being effected by politics now because where I am, but you don’t really see politics there. In Japan there are a lot of politics but it’s all over the place. As a fighter it doesn’t really effect you that much. If you’re fighting for one group and you go off to fight for somebody else, it’s more honor. Loyalty and honor.
DC: If you weren’t a fighter what do you think you would have done?
GG: I probably would have been a gynecologist.
DC: Why’s that?
GG: A lot of openings in that field.
DC: Why did you stay in Japan? As opposed to the US or Brazil or Canada?
GG: They made me a good offer and I stayed. They gave me a three-year contract and I stayed. That’s what I required to fight, a long-term contract rather than a short-ass, one fight contract.
DC: You mentioned tat a good offer would bring you back, is there anything specific you’re looking for, any unfinished business?
GG: No, I’m ready.
Ojciec Dyrektor Dzialu K-1 www.mmaniacs.pl 2003 - 2010
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