Ran into Mark Kerr at Circle K here in Phoenix, the one on Miller and Camelback road. Seemed like a cool guy and I was wearing one of my UFC T-shirts, a nice coincidence. We talked for awhile and here were the main points:
He said he KO'd himself in his recent Pride fight because he got into a car wreck two weeks earlier and had a severe concussion. Said he couldn't cancel the fight that late and that even barely tapping him in the forehead would have KO'd him due to the injury.
Said he's training now but is training students rather than preparing for a fight. Training baseball too, a surprise, and he talked more about how good a young kid with a 91 mph pitch was than he talked about fighting (I'm not a baseball fan but I listened since it was Kerr).
I told him I'm picking Tito in a close fight and he said "I'll bet you $1000 Vitor wins". He claimed that because Tito is training with Vargas that he "only learned how to cover up his face with both fists adn not how to box". He said this hurt Tito's boxing and that Vitor "only needs one punch like Chuck Liddell to KO Tito."
Oh, and as many people who saw The Smashing Machine will be happy to hear, right now he's going through a divorce with the woman in the film.
"1. He said he KO'd himself in his recent Pride fight because he got into a car wreck two weeks earlier and had a severe concussion. Said he couldn't get cancel the fight and that even barely tapping him in the forehead would have KO'd him."
Man thats the dumbest thing I heard. Does he relaize how badly he could of got hurt going into a fight with a concussion. It sucks that Kerr tried to pull out and for whatever reason they wouldnt let him. He could have seriosly killed himself fighting under those conditions. Hes lucky he only got away with a KO.
He looked shorter and thicker than I remembered when I met him briefly at a RITC show a few years back. But he had long sleeves and pants on so I couldn't really see his physique and assess his condition.
He acted like he didn't have any fights set up in the future, and as I mentioned above, said he was focused more on training others. The baseball thing was surprising.
I was about to ask him about Mark Coleman and Kevin Randleman but we ran out of time before I had the chance.
Random shit like this is one of the reasons why love the UG. This would be like running into Joe Montana at a super market and talking about the upcoming Super Bowl.
"Random shit like this is one of the reasons why love the UG. This would be like running into Joe Montana at a super market and talking about the upcoming Super Bowl"
Exactly! Plus with the sport still fairly unknown in the States relative to football or basketball, even the champions are approachable and willing to talk in common settings like this.
Useless - I agree. He kind of slowly moved a palm strike toward my forehead and said "even tapping me that hard would have KO'd me." The first thing I thought was he could have been seriously injuried fighting in that state.
"You should have asked him "What ever happened to that bitch of a girlfriend you had in your DVD?"
I did ask him that, which is how I found out he was getting divorced. But I referred to her as "your girlfriend from the film" in case they were still together :-) He then pulled out a picture of his 1 year old son and said "I know everyone forces people to look at pictures of their kids, but I've got to show you mine". Seemed proud of his kid and a nice guy in general.
I'll be offline for a couple hours. Enjoy. Here's one more comment: He claimed Tito's wrestling was way overrated and that he wouldn't be able to get Vitor down because of Vitor's sprawl. He didn't seem impressed with Tito at all.
Ricco wasnt GREEN GREEN...I believe he was a machado purple at the time, and did have standup. He was an awesome training partner for anyone. But he wasnt at world status either...he was perfect for training partner, and up and coming awesome fighter.