Frank Trigg Talks Dream, Hughes, GSP and More

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Frank Trigg Talks Dream, Hughes, GSP and More - Part 1 of 2

The following is part 1 of 2 of a two part interview. Check out what Frank has to say about the rumors of him fighting in Dream, his thoughts on Matt Hughes, and much more.

MMAYOU.com: How are you doing?

Trigg: Good, can't complain.

MMAYOU.com: What's new?

Trigg: Nothing really new. I'm in Washington DC right now getting ready for the Ultimate Warrior Challenge. I'm commentating for the event with John Lewis as the promoter of the event and Marcelo Pereira is the mind and brain power behind the whole deal out here. It has actually been going on for a long time. It's just time for the show to make the next level. Make the next step up and to do that they brought John Lewis in and some of the guys to kind of make that push.

Andrei Arlovski is here and Brandon Vera and Rampage Jackson are all here cornering Hermes Franca and cornering different guys. It is actually a pretty all-star event out there. It is actually the largest event that's been going on in DC. It's at the George Washington University, at the Patriot Center, so it's the largest MMA event in the nation's capital so it is actually a pretty cool thing.

MMAYOU.com: I want to get something that everyone has been talking about. Are you going to be fighting in Dream? There were rumors that you were fighting then you pulled out, then you were fighting, what happened exactly?

Trigg: Nothing happened (laughs). That is the flaw of the Japanese. Actually it's been brought to my attention that they have been badmouthing me across the pond. They were talking to my manager about doing the fight. We never got agreed on the money. They were given an ultimatum that we have to have the contracts to us, we got to have it looked at by my attorney, they need to have it by Wednesday at 5:00, and Wednesday 5:00 comes and goes. Thursday comes and goes, Friday comes and goes and on Saturday they are calling us up wondering how come when they announced my fight on that Friday that I said it's not going to happen. We told them two days before that I had to have the contract.

We still haven't seen a contract. There was no verbal commitment with me, at all, ever! We don't ever verbally commit to anything until we see a contract. They said I verbally committed and then backed out, but I never verbally commit to anything without seeing a contract. There is no verbal commitment in MMA until I see a contract. We don't do that and we still haven't seen one at all.

They made the announcement that I was going to fight Jacare. Actually I was getting Jacare ready for the fight while he was at Xtreme Couture and my manager Ricco Chiporelli actually helped his manager do the contract negotiations. It was kind of weird that they were announcing that I was going to fight Jacare when we were helping him get ready to get in the tournament. It was just a secondary thought about me going into it.

Literally a week away whenever they made that announcement, so a week ago Friday that they said I was going to fight in the tournament and we hadnâ€™t seen a contract. We had already told them, look I gotta know". The reason I had to know by that Wednesday is because I had to work this weekend here in DC. For me to let Marcelo or John Lewis know that I'm not going to be here because I am going to be in Japan, I had to let them know by last week Wednesday 5:00 west coast time. They didn't tell us. They didn't say anything. I had to move on. I had a commitment to be here and that's the way it worked. We gave them enough time to get it worked together but they didn't do it.

MMAYOU.com: That all sounds pretty standard. That doesn't sound like anything out of the ordinary.

Trigg: No, not at all. It's typical Japanese. They always wait until the last minute and they think that you have to wait on them to come with a contract and when they talk to you you are going to go ahead and do it. That's not how it works with me. I have other commitments as well. I have Triggonomics and also with my broadcasting career and sometimes I have gigs. When your fight involves with a gig!. Well I signed to do this broadcasting thing six weeks ago and you're coming at me a week away. I'm trying to get a contract, I want to see what's going on.

MMAYOU.com: Also physically, would you have had time to get ready for a fight that close?

Trigg: Depending on the opponent. I've been training. It's not like I've been sitting on my ass. I've been training. I've been working out. As soon as I get done with this interview I'm actually going downstairs here at the hotel to get a workout in before this event starts tonight.

I don't understand why a lot of fighters don't do anything in between fights. Until they sign to do a fight they aren't working out at all. I work out all the time. I'm just not at a high level. I'm not at a super intense level. But I am working on my technique with John Lewis actually, trying to get my Jiu Jitsu better. Working with Ron Frazier on my boxing skills trying to get my head motion better for boxing so I don't get hit as much. I go into Xtreme Couture twice a week and do all around full MMA sparring, trying to get my timing down a little. Definitely not a high rate, a high level. But if they told me two or three weeks ago that I'm going to fight I could have stepped it up and depending on the opponent I think I would have been ready. Like I said, the Japanese just didn't get it together and they wanted to blame me for their lack of putting it together. I don't know what they are doing over there at Dream. Plus they had a lot of people pull out, a lot of injuries, so they could keep their tournament together.

MMAYOU.com: I want to talk for a second about probably your least favorite person Matt Hughes (laughing by both). He had some very choice words for you in his book which I'm not going to repeat again. Were you surprised at how much energy he focused on you and is there anything you would like to say in return?

Trigg: Yeah, I would. I am kind of surprised by how much he said. It was two fights. To me it was business, I was selling a fight. Trying to get a fight moved on and moved forward. I'm one of those guys that I try to not to let my opinion of somebody convolute your opinion of that same person. How many people do we know that say, "hey why do you hang out with that guy? That guy's an asshole." Well, because I like him. He is good to me. Just because I don't like somebody doesn't mean that somebody else doesn't like somebody so I try to stay out of it and not mention too much about it.

It's kind of a weird thing that he spent that much time in his book. Really, actually the book itself is kind of a debacle. It's a good book in the sense of you get to see a little more of Matt and what he's like and what he does. Throwing pig n trails, and beating up your father, and beating up your in-laws at your own wedding. I think it kind of lessens his mystique. It kind of lessens who he is as a person. If he had walked away before the book had come out, if he had walked away after he lost to St. Pierre and just kind of went away and said I did my time, I'm retiring and I'm going to start coaching and start my gym in St. Louis and that's what I'm going to do.

He would have still been this huge name. He would have been like a Royce Gracie. Like a Royce Gracie kind of mindset. But he didn't do that. He stuck around and kind of ruined himself by being a coach on the comeback show on TUF. People got to see him a little bit. You have great fighters like Marcus Davis are coming out against him. He's bashing on Tim Sylvia. You have Pat Miletich really hush hush and he won't talk about Matt at all or the breakup of him and Matt. He won't talk at all about the breakup of Pat and Matt, how they worked together for so long and they separated and all of a sudden all these things start coming out.

It gets a little weird. The only thing I can say at the end of the day is if you spend that much time on me in a book, against a guy he competed against, against a guy he beat soundly twice. But when you write your book after the fact and you spend so much time, it's almost like he has a man crush on me. It really is.

MMAYOU.com: (laughing) Might be.

Trigg: It really is. It's kind of stalkerish. It's kind of weird a little bit. Really I write it off to him having a man crush and his way of dealing with it is to bash me as much as he can.

We should have part 2 ready for you tomorrow so please check back soon!

We would also like to ask our readers to check out http://www.triggonomics.com/.

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Comments (7) Add Comment

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written by Anym, April 26, 2008

Good read.

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written by BuffaloBlue, April 26, 2008

Trigg is fucking cunt shit. Burn in HELL TRIGG!

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written by Goze, April 26, 2008

i thought you were a trigg fan buff? Whats the beef about?

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written by BuffaloBlue, April 26, 2008

Fuck off Goze, you and your fat ass brother (i know im fat too) can suck my schlong! smilies/shocked.gif

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written by why were there no black people on the flintstones?, April 26, 2008

because they were still monkeys

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written by Buffaloblue2.0, April 26, 2008

Its funny that someone sees the need to get on here and pose as me and talk shit about a bunch of guys I have nothing but respect for. Your acting like an internet persona, congrats whoever you are.

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written by BILLY247, April 28, 2008

HAHAHA! I'm glad that wasn't the real Buffalo Blue. Talking to Goze like that would have only stirred up the GCF. Lol.

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