Trevor Wittman Interview

Though the name Trevor Wittman may not ring a bell for the average fight fan, even the most casual of MMA fans will recognize his work. Trevor is the operator of the Grudge Training Center in Colorado and he is the mastermind behind some biggest names in the UFC today. Trevor started out primarily as a boxing coach before making the leap to mixed martial arts and he hasn’t missed a beat, demonstrating the same success in the boxing ring as well as the Octagon. Trevor has had a hand in the success of such notable fighters as Rashad Evans, Shane Carwin, Nate Marquardt, Brendan Schaub, Gerald Harris, Duane Ludwig, and many other rising stars in the sport. Profighting-fans.com’s Curt Heinrichs caught up with Trevor before he left for Germany for UFC 122, and they discussed several of the hot topics of mixed martial arts today.

First off, tell the readers where your gym is located and how you got into training some of the best fighters in mixed martial arts.

My gym is located in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. 4298 Kipling Street and you can find us at www.GrudgeTrainingCenter.com. It’s a sweet website, make sure you check it out. I got into training elite fighters when I started out in boxing training. My first pro fight was with Verno Phillips against Kassim Ouma and we fought on ESPN. I had been working with amateur fighters for a long period of time, but my first professional corner was on ESPN with Verno. We went on to win 3 World Titles and it’s been an uphill pedal since then.

You are in a unique partnership with Greg Jackson and Jackson’s Submission Fighting. Talk a little bit about that partnership and how it came about.

The partnership is something we just hit it off from the first time we met. Greg is an MMA star trainer and for me to be able to be around that was great because I was coming from strictly a striking background. For me to be able to watch what he did was great and to see our styles mix is great. We’re always having fun outside of the cage and enjoying ourselves, but when that ring bell rings, we get very serious. We’re kind of similar in the corner, we try to uptalk our fighters instead of talking them down and we just became like brothers from that point on. I give my hand to him and thank him for allowing me to be a part of his team and bring me up in the rankings. You know, I met Greg Jackson through Nate Marquardt, I was training Nate at the time, and Nate was keeping Greg as his MMA coach at the time and it has just worked out great.

The last time we saw you outside of the cage was when Brendan Schaub defeated Gabriel Gonzaga. What was your gameplan for Brendan going into the fight and did you expect Gonzaga, who is a jiu-jitsu ace to stand and bang like he did?

You know, the thing is, I actually thought he (Gonzaga) was going to try and shoot in the first round. The reason I thought that is that he tried to shoot against Dos Santos and his last few knockouts have from KO’s, so for him to stand there and want to bang with Brendan, I don’t think it was his choice. I really thought it was because of Brendan’s feetwork. If you remember Brendan before the Gonzaga fight, I don’t think his feetwork was his best attribute, it was his jab. In this last camp, all we did was spend time circling to the right. Gonzaga kind of walks with his feet and keeps them in position. The whole gameplan was to make him walk at us, so when he’d walk at us we’d feint hard so he’d settle with his feet square and we’d take that hard angle to the left, and that worked out to a t. It kept Gonzaga off-balance and making him feel like “Hey, man. I can’t even punch him from this range. How am I going to shoot in?”

Where do you think the win puts Brendan in the heavyweight division and who would you like to see him fight next?

You know, Dana had that talk about having him fight a top 5 contender. For me, I don’t want to see him fight a top 5 contender. I think Brendan is very green and I think he’s got a long way to go. I don’t mean that he can’t compete with those guys, but in the contract that he’s in, he’s not making the amount of money he should be to be taking on a top 5 contender. Also, with his experience, he’s been training in MMA for just over 3 years now. For how much he’s excelled in this sport in that amount of time, he’s got a long time before he peaks. I don’t want him jumping in there too early, it was something that happened because of the show, but when he was in there against Nelson on really his 4 th pro fight, not including the TUF fights, because those aren’t included on his record. But being in there, under the lights, in really his 4 th pro fight was his 4 th round of fighting, since all of his other fights were first round stoppages. He had a lack of experience and he turned his head away and made a mistake that cost him the fight against Nelson. I just feel that if we take our time with Brendan, he can really make some noise in the heavyweight division.

With Brendan moving up the ranks in the division and Shane Carwin already at the top of the heavyweight division in the UFC, what are your thoughts on teammates fighting inside the Octagon?

You know, that’s one of those things, back in the boxing days, I had Verno Phillips and J.C. Candelo supposed to fight for #1 for the IBF. They were supposed to fight and HBO and they actually did a special on me on HBO, and one of the fighters ended up getting injured and they cancelled the fight. The thing is, I was going to work both guys and show them how to beat each other, and then ask them who they wanted to work their corner and I was going to sit ringside and hope there wasn’t a knockout. You know, I’m not super against it, but the only way I’d like to see the guys fight is if it is for the title. I seriously doubt, though, that Shane and Brendan would fight each other. They are too close of buddies, and if I had to see it in the perfect way, I’d like to see Shane get the World Title, defend it one or two times, and say “I’m retiring.” Shane’s getting a little older, so that would be a perfect way for me to see it out, where he hands it down and lets the next 2 guys fight for the vacant belt. You never know, we may have to deal with that situation if it comes up.

Speaking of Shane Carwin, he recently had major surgery. How is he recovering, and do you have a timetable for his return to the cage?

The doctor’s talking about 8-12 weeks before he can have any contact, and that is a pretty fast recovery from a neck surgery. The surgery went perfectly, he’s already feeling no numbness like he was in his hands. His last 3 training camps for his last 3 fights, Gonzaga, Frank Mir, and Brock Lesnar, every training camp we had, he missed at least a week and a half because he was in pain. I’m glad to see he had this surgery, because he really needed it.

In your next event, Nate Marquardt takes on Yushin Okami in a #1 Contender match. You obviously aren’t going to give out your gameplan, but what are you expecting to see out of Okami?

You know, it’s funny. These guys are so similar. I don’t mean stylistically, Nate’s a right-hander and Yushin’s a left-hander. The thing is, they are both very conservative fighters, they are both very good at finding some way of shutting a fighter down, finding their weaknesses, and then attacking off of their weaknesses. You know, I see the first part of the fight as probably being somewhat boring and very strategic on both sides. Both guys pick up momentum as the fight goes on, so I can see the 2 nd round being better and the 3 rd round being spectacular if it goes that far.

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On the same card, you have Duane Ludwig fighting against Nick Osipczak. How do you manage to keep focused with multiple fighters on a card in a given night?

That’s where the team really comes together. We’ve got Greg out there, and he’s got Kyle (Noke vs Rob Kimmons) on the card and I’m going to be helping him in that corner. We’ve got a small corner because the fight’s in Germany and you can’t really bring a lot of cornermen out there because it costs so much. We are going to have Greg helping out with all 3 fights and I’m going to be helping in his corner and he’ll be helping with my 2 guys. It’s going to come down to finding out what order the bouts are and coming up with a strategic plan to keep all of the fighters warm and make sure they’re mentally focused and not losing their focused while we’re out working another corner. We’ve had a lot of experience with that, so I’m sure we’ll be able to come up with a good gameplan for that.

You were an assistant coach with Rashad Evans on the 10 th season of The Ultimate Fighter. Talk a little bit about your experience on the show, and The Ultimate Fighter as a showcase for young fighters

My experience with the show was great. When I had first been asked to go on the show by Rashad, I was only thinking I was going to go out there one or two times for one or two days at a time, because it was hard for me to leave my family for 6 weeks. It was also hard to imagine leaving the guys that I train to go work with other guys. When I got out there and was able to see how passionate the guys were that we chose and how hard they worked and were willing to learn, I was inspired to stay and take the job. I had my coaches back at the gym take over for me. I’m glad I didn’t turn the experience down. I met some great guys and it was one of the best experiences I’ve had in the fight game. As for how the UFC uses it as a stepping-stone, I think it’s great for the fighters. When you have guys that are fighting on the undercard, it is hard to market those guys until they make it to the main card level. When you’re bringing guys like that in, if you have an undercard guy that was from the show and if they make it to the main card because of a knockout on the show, people know who that guy is. It is a very good building process and farming system that the UFC has put together and it shows a lot of the drama and what goes on in the training and the toughness of cutting weight and fighting your friends. It really give an in-depth look at what fighting is all about.

Speaking of young fighters, do you have any up-and-comers that we should keep an eye on for the future?

I’ve got a kid name Justin Salas, who is just amazing. He was just a complete wrestler when he came to us, and he was taking every fight that came to him, so he’s got a record of 7-3. Those 3 losses that he had were in fights that he shouldn’t have taken at the time. This kid, he is so amazing in the gym. Justin Salas: make sure you watch out for him. Another kid is named Chaun Sims. This kid, I really feel, will be a middleweight champion some day. He is so strong, so big, with long limbs. He’s kind of built like Anderson Silva, but his strength is incredible. He has power in his punches, his movement, his ability to learn. He is a blackbelt in jiu-jitsu. He will be big before too long. There’s another kid named Tyler Toner, who is fighting Leonard Garcia, which is the first time on our team that we’ve had to have someone fight, but they’ve just merged the WEC with UFC and they put us in a real tough spot because they are looking to cut some guys. Tyler Toner is fighting Leonard Garcia from Jackson’s down in New Mexico. It’s tough situation for me and Greg, but we’ve just got to do it because we don’t want our guys to get cut if they don’t accept a fight. We’re going to deal with that fight, but then we’ve got a guy named Christian Allen, who is just unbelieveable. Alvin Robinson is making a nice run on his way back. He hurt his shoulder, but he’s on a 2 fight win streak and he actually fought in the UFC before. He came to our gym and he worked on a lot of things that he was missing and I really feel that he’s making a strong comeback.

You briefly mentioned the WEC-UFC merger. Do you have any thought on that merger from your perspective?

From my end, I love it. It’s one of the best things that could have happened because now these guys fighting for WEC and getting some good exposure on Versus are going to be getting better exposure. The nice thing about it is the global move. When we start opening up those lighter divisions, it’s really going to start opening up the competition over in the Orient, over in China, down in Mexico, and I think they’re really doing that global thing where the UFC is going world-wide and those lighter weight classes in China and the different countries are really going to be explosive. I love the lighter weights, man. Those little guys really put on spectacular fights. I’ve never had Versus on my tv so I missed out on a lot of WEC fights, but I always went back to watch them on the computer. I really do think that these lighter weight classes are going to put on great fights for the UFC.

Thanks for your time, Trevor. Is there anyone you’d like to say thanks to?

I’d like to thank Alchemist Management. They picked me up as a management crew and I’ve been in the boxing game for a long time and now MMA and they are doing things that I’ve never seen done by a management company. They have a great clothing line that’s out and they have some hot products. If people are really looking for the right managers that are going to treat you right, not just manage your money that you make in the UFC, they set you up and manage your career. They set you up opportunities in your career, not only in the cage, but so many other opportunities outside of the cage. Alchemist Management is the way to go.

By Curt Heinrich
ProFighting-fans.com MMA Staff Writer