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Posted by Mika Frankl
At the Jackson’s MMA series IX weigh-ins we had a chance to talk with headliner Frank Gomez about his upcoming battle.
You have a last minute replacement opponent in Aaron Cerda, what’s that like?
“I’m not going to lie, it’s a little tough. You train your whole camp getting ready for a certain person and if you can see he’s the exact opposite of Mikey, who is a short wrestler and he is a tall striker. So what I have to do is just adjust my game plan and deal with it.”
How long of notice did you have of the change of opponent?
“Just a few days. I didn’t get to get any training time to prepare for him so, yeah pretty short notice.”
Have you had time to look at any tape or anything to prepare?
“He doesn’t have to much stuff online but from we could find, me and my coaches watched and broke down.”
Is there anything that you were doing for Mikey that you think translates well over to facing Aaron, or is it just throws the book out the window and just go fight?
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it, you know. I couldn’t find anyone who fights like Mikey every round so I, been sparring with different guys, getting different looks in the gym. That game plan is out the window and I’ll make a new won.”
Dose having the big show experience help in a situation like this?
“Two of my fights in the WEC it seemed like they were changing my opponent every week, so I been through this before, just never in like a couples days’ notice, but I have worked with switching opponents at the last minute before.”
When you got the call about the switching of opponents was that an okay and right back to the gym, that moment I need to train again, I need to start looking up stuff, what did you do?
“I couldn’t do anything because the last week of camp is burning out your lungs and making weight, where not allowed to spar or have any contract. I really couldn’t get in the gym and train. Pretty much it was just study hid tapes and watch what he does.”
Click video below to see entire interview.
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