Frank Trigg Talks Dream, Hughes, GSP and More

Fight Like A Champion - What You Should Know About Training and Competing

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

This is part 2 of a 2 part interview.

MMAyou.com: Speaking of Matt Hughes, would you like to fight him or GSP again?

Trigg: I'd like to fight GSP again. When I fought GSP... Really this is what happened in my career. I spent all my time and energy trying to get ready to finally win the title in the UFC, to finally get my gold medal. I spent so much time in wrestling trying to win and it just didn't pan out and MMA became my Olympics. It became my world-championship. I failed the first time I fought Matt at UFC 45. I said let's go back and let's rehash, let's look at the tapes, let's do the right training camp, let's see a sports psychologist, let's eat right, let's train right, so I get everything properly and I still lost. Since I lost I can train as hard as I want and lose or I can not train at all and lose so I might as well not train at all.

The St. Pierre fight I didn't train at all. I really, I honestly didn't train at all. I was on crutches with an air-boot on two weeks before the fight. I had blown my ankle years before and it had finally the torn the last little piece. I had a partial ligament holding my ankle together. I said well I'm going to fight St. Pierre anyway. He's an up and coming kid, he's really not that good, I can kind of make this thing happen. I went and shot on him and he ran me over and blew my ankle completely out and that was the end of it. I had no motion and no mobility. And I get rear naked choked and St. Pierre goes on and now is a two time champ. He's obviously a lot better then we had thought at that time. It just hadn't developed all the way yet to the way he is now.

I fought him and really hadn't trained and was severely injured. Really you look back at all the fights you could possibly fight and nothing against St. Pierre, he did his job, he did his work. He went out there and beat my ass soundly. Whether I came in one hundred percent or came in at ten percent, it makes no difference, he beat me up pretty good. I just don't feel that I was the best Trigg I could have been. I didn't train. I was injured. Whatever you want to say doesn't make a difference because you don't want to make excuses but I would like to fight him again because I think I could be a better competitor. I think I could give him a better match. I think that he with his style, with as good he is, how tough he trains, he deserves a better fight from me then what I gave him. He deserves to have a shot, to really (inaudible). And he didn't really get that shot. It was almost like he went out there and he ran a clinic on an amateur, on a junior high school kid. He really deserved to have a pro athlete and he didn't get a pro athlete that night and he deserved it. Especially with the career he's built in front of him right now.

The problem is, one, Dana White for whatever reason doesn't like me and doesn't want me back in the UFC. Number two, he's the champ. Even if I come back to the UFC they are not going to put me in right away against the champ. I have to work my way back in. Even if I got into the UFC, and Dana White decided to let me come back in I would still be four or five fights away from even fighting St. Pierre. It's the situation of a fight that will probably never happen again.

I do however believe that he is the next Matt Hughes. He's the guy that is going to have ten title fights in a row. Twelve title fights in a row.

MMAyou.com: Would you like to fight in the UFC again?

Trigg: Yeah, obviously everybody wants to fight in the UFC again. But I think now with the way the market is going. Bodog just closed so you got fifty fighters out there that are free and clear and looking for jobs.

But you know fights are on CBS. You have Pro Elite going on CBS. You have Kimbo Slice, Robbie Lawler, Phil Baroni, are about to be the new superstars of MMA because they're on CBS. I don't care how big Spike is. I don't care how big your pay per view numbers are, CBS beats it. All of a sudden now you have a deal where it's going to be a huge deal. It's going to be a big deal to have these guys on Pro Elite. They're going to be big.

Mark Cuban over at HD Net Fights. If you don't have HD Fights as a station, if you're not paying that extra little bit for the high definition, then you're an idiot. Every fight that's not the UFC is on HD Net Fights. That's the way it works except for the Pro Elite gig that's on CBS. Everybody else; IFL, I don't care who it is, they're on HD Net. It's becoming a situation now where you're going to be seeing just as much on other stations. You're going to be seeing just as much being at other organizations and the pay is starting to increase from these other people.

We saw the Strikeforce card with Cung Le versus Frank Shamrock. Frank got one seventy-five I think and Cung Le got two fifty, two hundred. That's pretty much what the guys are getting paid at the UFC level for the main events. Now some of these other main events are paying just as well. You want to be back in the UFC because it is the biggest name but eh, you take what you got. You take what you can get. Right now it's enough for me not to be in the UFC because they're not letting me in. It's just the way it works.

MMAyou.com: Speaking of Pro Elite, some people have a love/hate feel for Gary Shaw. Do you think he is good for the sport of MMA?

Trigg: He's good for the sport of MMA in the sense that he's bringing something to the table that most people can't do is the boxing background where you're going to slow grow a guy. He's taken Kimbo Slice, a guy who hasn't had much experience yet, hasn't had very many fights, he's stepping forward and making it happen. He's definitely slow growing him, taking his time. I think he's good for the sport. It's a different idea as opposed to the UFC style idea where you just throw a guy at the wall and see if he's fit.

He's really doing a good job over there, he really is. You kind of have to give him his credit because he is putting it together so well.

MMAyou.com: If you were president of the UFC what changes would you make?

Trigg: What changes would I make? I would try to be a little bit more inclusive as opposed to exclusive. The UFC right now is trying to seem like they're very exclusive. It's them or nobody. That's how they operate. I'd be a little more inclusive. I'd try to work deals with smaller organizations "hey let's work together and try build some of you guys up so you can come over here and fight for us". Let's cross-promote. Let's let a Rampage Jackson do a personal appearance. A UFC superstar do a personal appearance without giving him any kind of flack about going over there and helping out that smaller promotion. I would help these smaller promotions get some airtime on Spike. I would help them come in and get a vested interest in them you know as far as "Hey look, I am going to get you this deal on Spike. Spike is going to pay you a million dollars but the UFC is going to take 10% of that because we helped broker the deal". Okay, what is this little smaller organization going to do? I would try to be a little more understanding and forgiving of fighters that come in and have bad fights and bad matches. I get releasing them, I get cutting them, I get sending them out but don't bash them on the way out the door. Don't kick them in the ass as they're being thrown down the stairs. Just let them go. Let them go learn and try to find that desire, heart and desire to maybe come back at a later time. Don't close the door permanently forever like they're doing basically with me and Matt Lindland. That's a real biased opinion I have on that situation.

They need to be a little more inclusive. They're kind of exclusive about everything in how they deal with people and how they deal with the industry. That is my true belief on why the HBO deal didn't happen for them. Why the CBS deal didn't happen for them. Maybe I am speaking out of term, maybe it wasn't CBS they weren't talking to but whoever it was they were talking to. They weren't really inclusive of allowing them to come in and listening to their ideas. They kind of got pushed out a little bit. I think they could grow even bigger if they were a little more inclusive in what they are doing in listening to people's ideas.

MMAyou.com: Why did you move to Vegas from Los Angeles?

Trigg: My wife. We were dating and she was like "Look it's time to make the next step. We're going to move in together and find out if this relationship is going to work or we're gonna have to breakup". I was spending half a week in Vegas and half a week in LA and I was looking for a perfect place to train and I found Couture's. I was training with John Lewis on my Jiu Jitsu and working towards my purple belt. I talked to Fox Sports Net and said "Look I'm moving to Vegas. Is that going to be a problem?" and they said no and at the time I was still working for Pride flying over to do the pay-per-views and I said "is that going to be a problem?" and they said no and I said I am going to go ahead and try and make this thing work then.

MMAyou.com: Is there anything you would like to say to your fans?

Trigg: Yeah, you know, it's been a tough road. It's had all these ups and downs and I really appreciate all the guys that kind of stuck out and stuck around. And even more so I appreciate the new fans. The guys that hated me four years ago, three years ago, hell even a week ago. All of a sudden now coming on board the Trigg bandwagon. I hate to use bandwagon but that's pretty much what it is. You kind of get on board and kind of follow along. And thanks to all the guys that listen to Tagg Radio every day. We're now the number two MMA radio show in the world. Whether it's terrestrial, satellite or internet, we're number two right now behind Sherdog. We do more MMA then anybody else does and we do MMA every day. It's a big deal and thanks everybody that helps Triggonomics my clothing brand build and grow and get bigger all the time because we're definitely pushing it together and making it happen.

MMAyou.com: For more information on Tagg Radio please visit http://taggradio.com/. For more information on Frank Trigg and his Triggonomics clothing brand please visit http://www.triggonomics.com/.

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