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Posted by Mika Frankl
Knuxx was granted the special opportunity to see Leonard “Bad Boy” Garcia train at Jackson’s/Winkeljohn’s gym and then head out to the TapouT gym and interview Leonard about his upcoming UFC 155 bout with Cody Mckenzie on December 29, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Thank you Leonard for the time it’s an honor to meet and interview you.
UFC 155 coming up- Cody Mckenzie- you got about 4 weeks of training and 1 week of weight cutting so we got 5 weeks left, how you feeling and how has everything been leading up?
I feel good man. I feel like everything falling into place. I’m healthy; I’m actually doing a lot more training than what I used too. I’m excited for this fight you know against a guy like Mckenzie. He’s a dangerous guy, he’s scrappy, and he’s got a really good guillotine. So it’s a scary fight and at the end of the day that’s what you want is to be scared of the guy that way you bring your best.
What does that do having that move- the guillotine there and knowing that the opponent has that one weapon that he will looking for?
It’s one thing, I’ve seen a lot of his fights, I know he’s good at other things, but I know he’s great at that one thing so, just being aware of the guillotine has helped me out a lot my defenses have come around. The good thing about having a coach like Greg Jackson is he show you what offense the guy has when he’s going for the guillotine not just the guillotine but ok, this guy might know that you know about the guillotine like everybody dose. He might go for it a couple of times and then he might try to trick you. We’re looking for different types of offenses that could come up and also offense for me. What can I do when he’s trying to guillotine me? We got a few trick up our sleeve, so Cody better watch out.
Everyone knows you for 1st being in the 1st Featherweight fight in the UFC and as one of the most exciting fighters in the UFC and WEC, wherever you’ve been, does that label as an exciting fighter play into how you’ve fought so far in the UFC?
It made me fight a different type of fight. It’s like I came into the UFC I was a submission guy and now everybody like this dude is crazy and is going to go out there and throw down. It’s a good trade off, I’m a fan favorite, but at the end of the game that’s what it is, is a game there’s a winner and a loser. I got to focus on winning fights; I need to focus on what I need to do to become a champion. At 145 I think I have the right skills to challenge a guy like Jose Aldo. I have a hell of a chin and I can take leg kicks like crazy and nobody’s really tested his chin and I’d like to be the first guy to do it.
From what you been doing talking about the re-dedication to training, getting back to doing more Jiu Jitsu, would you call this an evolution or a rebirth?
I would say it’s the beginning of both a rebirth but also like you know it was always been there all these things I been doing have always been there because of my own laziness, because of my own thoughts of being this big star or whatever that I killed it myself you know what I mean if you stop watering a plant it stops growing and that’s what I did. I stopped watering the plants that were doing such good things for me and tried to become this exciting guy, tried to wear my heart on my sleeve all the time, which I’ll always do. I just got to be smarter about it.
With all the stuff you’re doing again for training have you found a renewed love for the training?
Yeah 100, I feel like training is fun again. It’s not a job anymore. I think that the minute it became a job was when I realize I was doing something wrong, when my buddy Cowboy (Donald Cerrone) my brother he’s winning all his fights and he’s in the gym training hard when it’s time to train and I’m doing the same thing he’s doing, but slacking off a little here and slacking off a little there. When I learned to identify those things and swallowed my pride and realized; hey maybe I’m not good enough to be slacking off like that. It made me start to rethink a lot of things. That and the people around me, the great coaching staff , my family and everybody got behind me when I started losing these fights and most people run away from you when you start losing; my family and coaching staff got behind me. I credit that to god and I think it’s going to be a big difference in this fight.
Folllow Mika Frankl on twitter @cagedmindsmma
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