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interview with serra's kickboxing coach, ray longo
interview with serra's kickboxing coach, ray longo |
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themmadigest
MMA Regular
Career record: 8-1
Season: 0-0 (#-)
Location:
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Are you all in Montreal right now?
Matt’s leaving tonight (Tuesday night) and I’ll be getting there early Friday morning at like 9 o’clock.
This time around is there anything different you did with Matt in preparation for St. Pierre?
I basically kept it the same, with the exception of what corrections I think he’s going to try to make, and what we’ll try and do to move on from there. Basically the same type of training, just a couple things changed because I think he’s going to tighten up a couple of things if he’s smart.
In the past you said Matt needed to let his hands go more, and he did that in the first fight with St. Pierre….
He’s going to let them go I can guarantee you that. He did work a lot of wrestling because we’re really anticipating St. Pierre trying to take it to the floor also. He’s well prepared for that.
From interviews St. Pierre has done, it does kind of sound like he might be looking to take this fight to the ground.
I think you’re right. He didn’t want to stand up with Koscheck, the guy’s a wrestler for God’s sake. I think the biggest thing in this fight is Matt goes in with such a huge psychological advantage. They’ve basically done everything they can to give St. Pierre some sort of edge in this fight–even fighting in Montreal. Listen, I’m prepared to see his mother, his father and his sister as the three judges when in get there. I really think it’s horrendous. But for us, we’re thriving on it, because we think he’ll have so much pressure that we’ll crack him early. I think he’d be better off fighting this fight somewhere else.
Matt really seems to enjoy being a huge underdog, and fighting in Montreal appears to have him more amped up right?
He don’t give a s___, believe me. The guy really doesn’t give a s___. We don’t give a s___, but why they’re doing it we care. (laughs) But we’re loving it because I’d rather fight him in Canada, I really would. I guy like him I’d rather fight right in front of his own people. Matt’s got the power that if he makes a mistake he’ll pay for it again, he really will.
Matt’s striking has been underrated in the past, but he dropped Karo Parisyan and almost scored the KO, and then finishing St. Pierre with strikes…
And he dropped BJ Penn and nobody has done that.
Last time around you said you worked on a lot of power punching. Is power a big thing this time around in training?
He’s powerful. (laughs) All of the same on all of that. He’s had awesome sparring, looks good, he’s ready, I think he wants to prove to everybody it wasn’t a fluke. Either way I think it’s a great fight. If St. Pierre comes to fight it’s a really great fight.
In the last year how has Matt improved?
It’s not so much that he’s improved but he’s gotten the confidence, and that in itself is a huge improvement. It’s not like technically he’s improved but when you believe you can do something, that’s where he starts to shine now. I’ve gotten him such good sparring in, he’ll ask me, “Is that guy really suppose to be good?”, and I’ll say, “Yeah, he’s good.” He actually knocked out one of St. Pierre’s old sparring partners when he use to come to New York, but he thinks the guy’s being nice to him. “No, he’s not. You freaking hit hard.”
Was that confidence not always present in the past in the striking game?
I think that’s the key. He turned the bend on that maybe 3 or 4 weeks before that last fight. I don’t think he was confident before St. Pierre got injured (and delayed the fight a few months), and then that extra time allowed him to. You don’t know when it’s going to click, everybody’s different. He use to think I was bulls___g him. He’d be like, “You want me to do anything different?” “No, you’re doing awesome.” He didn’t want to film any of the sparring, but we filmed the last sparring (before the first St. Pierre fight) and he looked it and goes, “Man, I’m actually not that bad.” Then he started really believing in it and that’s really the difference.
Who has Matt been sparring with?
We brought in a couple of Thai guys from the city. Obviously we had (George) Sotiropoulous, Drago (Pete Sell). I use Drago, he matches up pretty close in strength because he walks around at like 200 pounds, and Drago really hits hard man. They’ve had a lot of good gym wars and we brought in the Thai guys more for the movement and more the way St. Pierre trained when he was in New York. I brought in a couple of little guys for speed, although they don’t possess the power, if you blink they’re going to hit you. So you get your reflexes ready. And that’s pretty much it, he’s probably done about a hundred rounds of sparring for the fight. He’s ready to start banging, I can assure you.
http://www.themmadigest.com/2008/04/interview-serras-kickboxing-coach-ray-longo/
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Post #1 4/17/08 11:05:16PM
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WarWagon Never Die!
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Career record: 173-125
Season: 34-36 (#3376)
Location: talkin trash to the garbage around me
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Awesome man, thanks. This guy could well be the key to this fight.
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There can be ONLY 1 WarWagon
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Post #2 4/18/08 4:41:05PM
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