Tommy Speer interview
So Tommy, what have you been up to?
I took some time off and I wound up getting bit by a brown recluse spider. I am kind of freaked out by it because the brown recluse is a southern spider and they aren’t supposed to be in Minnesota. That’s what the doctors told me and it wound up getting infected. My leg swelled up then my nose swelled up too. It’s been crazy. I’ve had some bad luck here lately.
Those things can be deadly.
Yeah mine I don’t think was too bad. My right calf swelled up twice the size of the other one. I honestly thought it was a mosquito bite or a zit or something. So I decided to leave it alone and it got real hard. Then the skin started burning and swelling more. I couldn’t take the pain of my pantsleg rubbing against it working on the farm here. About five days after I noticed it I went to the doctor and got it looked at. I don’t know if I had waited any longer if it would’ve got worse or what. They put me on an antibiotic. It actually created a hole in my leg. I could put my pinky finger inside it. I thought it might have been Staph.
Before all that were you training with the H.I.T. Squad?
I don’t really go down there too much. I usually don’t go down there until I’m a month out from a fight. I usually train here in Minnesota and work on farming with my family.
Do you have any fights in the works?
If all this hadn’t happened and I had time to prepare my manager probably would have had me on the August 3rd card at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas. It’s too risky to throw me in right now. I’d like to fight in September sometime.
How much have you learned from him?
Well, on the show a ton. Once I got on the show. I was very happy to be picked by him. I didn’t think Matt Serra would’ve picked me during the evaluations. He asked me what I did back home and I told him I was a farmer. That pretty much said it all right there. That time on the show was the first time as being a full time fighter. Since then before and after, I’ve been a full time farmer. Fighting is a part time thing for me. I try my best to make it a full time thing. But it’s hard to do with family and the placewhere I am at in life. My family needs my help on the farm and that’s my job.
You were with the WEC before you went on the Ultimate Fighter weren’t you?
I was with the WEC and and that point the fight in the WEC was the biggest fight in my career. I was real pumped up. I got to go to Vegas. It was the first time I ever went to Vegas. I ended up having a big win. I had a big knock out against Sydney Silva. It was a fight everyone picked Silva to win. Including Frank Mir if you listen to the commentary during the fight.
I didn’t know this until after the recording of the show was done but the producers were sitting front row of my WEC fight. They were going through the evaluation and interview process for there show. They were still trying to select fighters for the show and since I had a legitimate amount of time before the recording started and a fight in the WEC they let me on the show. They said once they saw me slam Silva and drop some elbows on his head and ended up getting the knockout they really wanted me on the show. It wasn’t my idea to apply for the show. It was my managers. I didn’t really want to go that route. I wanted to get my feet wet in Vegas in the WEC and eventually go to the UFC. My manager called one day and said he had given my name to the Ultimate Fighter. I’m not sure if he called them or they called him. When I got that call I thought, Oh Man, no TV, no radio, no cell phones, no magazines for six weeks. But when the opportunity is there you have to take it.
Yeah that is a big opportunity.
I couldn’t ask for more. I came from a town of 826 people. It was a way to get famous really fast.
What weight do you usually walk around at?
195 is about what I walk around at. Sometimes it’s up to 200 pounds. I try to stay around 192 if possible. No matter where I am it’s a good ways away from 170. I don’t have a problem doing it. Marc Fiore, who was with me on the reality show taught me how to do it. I enjoy doing it because it’s something not just anybody can do. I enjoy doing stuff like that.
So you don’t get mad at your buddies when they eat pizza in front of you when you are trying to cut weight?
No, I’m pretty laid back. I handle it well. I don’t get upset over too many things. The only thing that can get me going is if something goes wrong around here on the farm. No matter how my day is going I don’t let it interfere with anyone else’s day.
Coming into the house who was your pick to win the show?
We were all fooled. We all thought Mac Danzig but there was another guy, Dan Barrera. He had a muscular build. He had a hyper attitude. I didn’t know much about him. I hadn’t seen him fight but I thought his name sounded familiar. He was Hughes’s first pick so I thought he was going to win the whole thing but as time went on I started to realize he wasn’t.
He got put out in his first fight. Who put him out?
It was Ben Saunders.
Did you have a preference as to which team you were on?
It was Hughes. When I was fighting locally everyone kept telling I fought like him. I was getting sick of it honestly. I didn’t even know the guy. His style was a good fit for me. If Matt Serra would’ve picked me I wouldn’t have complained. I was brought up to be respectful and that kind of stuff. I’m grateful for how it turned out. I’m thankful fot my relationship with Matt and those other coaches.
It seemed like they built Georges up to be a monster. How big was that to get the victory over him?
It can’t be recoded as a fight but it is my biggest win. As I went on and I look at the tape Georges isn’t that good of a fighter. He’s very technical and cut to 155 he’d be better off. I wasn’t the best fighter in the house. I’d probably say I was about 8th. I’d have to say I was probably the best athlete in the house. I went in there and pushed Georges around. He had fought completely different I fought him downhill and he backed up. He ran away from me the whole time. I tried to pull his head down. If I can get in there against someone I’m stronger than I’m going to get in and get them in a clinch I can throw a knee. I did it to Ben Saunders and he’s 6′2 and I’m not even 5′11. I didn’t want to take Georges down in the middle of the cage. His grappling was probably better than mine. If I wanted to take him down I wanted to do it against the cage. Everytime I tied up with him he kept his arms close together. I could’ve easily taken him down in the middle of the cage but I didn’t want that. He just ran away. He can say whatever he wants about me poking him in the eye. Actually his lawyer came up to me and asked for a rematch. I’d take that fight in a heartbeat.
I had heard that he was upset about the eye poke.
He tried to say that he didn’t know that he got five minutes to recover.You know, if he wasn’t running away that wouldn’t have happened. Had I had a closed fist I wouldn’t have poked him in the eye I would’ve knocked him out. He didn’t have his hands up at all. It was frustrating for me because he ran away. I’m sure he was frustrated because I was fighting him downhill. He’s a counterpuncher, it doesn’t get really hard. At one point I threw a right hand and missed and he threw a right hand and hit me. I gained a lot of confidence beause I thought if that is as hard as you can hit you aren’t going to win the fight. His left uppercut is probably his best punch. That’s what used to knockout JRock with.
Which of your three fights on the show do you think was the hardest?
Ben Saunders definitely. I think if I hadn’t beaten him he would’ve won the whole show. He would’ve won in the semis and probably would’ve been thrown to Mac and could’ve beaten him. It’s a bad matchup for Mac. Mac’s technique beat me but Ben is a techinical fighter and would be a bad matchup for Mac.
He always was smiling on the show.
Ben is a great guy. I could easily go hang out with him and War Machine. I got to know Ben really well after we fought. He’ a goofy guy and he smiles all the time. He would smile at me before we fought. Our boxing coach kept teling me it was a nervous smile and so I used that in my preperation. I saw it as a scared smile. It migh not have been I never asked him.
Looking back on your fight with Mac what are your thoughts?
I look back at it and I’m not going to make excuses. Mac is the better fighter. If I could do it again with me being used to that atmosphere I’d be a lot more prepared for it. That whole week out there I had never had to deal with that stuff. He had dealt with that stuff when he was in Pride. Going out there a week before and doing interviews and after being on the show my phone rang off the hook. I dealt with it a little in the WEC but I wasn’t known yet. I can barely remember walking to the cage and I don’t even recall much. I got nervous. It hit me like a ton of bricks. What I was doing was I wasn’t let myself get nervous. With Mac I threw it over my shoulder I ignored it I didn’t want to be nervous. Then it hit me. It was like Wow, I’m here.
Mac did some things I didn’t expect. I thought he’d sit back and counter. I should’ve went in there and went for a takedown and beat the crap out of him. But I tried to be a gameplan kind of fighter which I’m not really that kind of guy. Then he took me down. I never thought he’d do that because he’s not known as a wrestler. When he did that it suprised me. He’s a better grappler than me and I’m not that good off of my back. I’ve gotten better but I still have a ways to go. He just dominated me. He’s a smart guy. He probably thought I wouldn’t be expecting it and he worked on it and good for him.
How disappointed where you with the Anthony Johnson fight?
I feel like I got a bad scouting report on him. I didn’t know he fought Rich Clementi on a weeks notice. Against Rich he lookd ugly. He got tired. He wasn’t throwing straight punches. He looked clueless on the ground. When I saw that down at the H.I.T squad I thought all I had to do was take him deep into the first. There was a ton of opporutnities there. I was training to throw some quick five or six punch combinations on him to get inside to take him down. He’s got a dominaiting reach and he’s a junior college national champion wrestler. He’s got everything it takes to be a champion. I shouldn’t have went after him as fast as I did. I should have got him to chase me. I should’ve stalled. With his reach he had an advantage. He had seven inch reach against me. If I had made him chase me it it would’ve opened up a little more. I think he’s a bigger guy than me. He’s not as heavy but he’s got a 6′3 frame. If he would’ve chased me it would’ve worn onme because the cut would’ve got to him.
What are your plans for the future? I know you are with the WEC now but could you go back to the UFC one day?
Well all of this was out of nowhere. It wasn’t the UFC. My manager called me and said that he had talked to Joe Silva and he said that there was potential here with Tommy. I had only been fighting for a year. Everyone on the show has been fighting for a lot longer than me. My manager said “Things happened fast for Tommy and I would like to send him to the WEC for a year and maybe he could come back up.” Joe Silva said great. The WEC loved him there. The WEC and UFC are owned by the same company but are run seperateIy so I asked my manager if there was a possibilty that my name got too big to ever leave the WEC. Chances are you’ll never see Carols Condit in the UFC. They can’t afford to move him. He said it would be a good problem to have. If I’m contending I’ll make decent paychecks. So that’s what I’m going to do and take it as it comes.
What did you think about the Hughes-Alves fight?
I really was suprised. I hadn’t seen too many of Thiago’s fights. He didn’t fight like he had a sprained ankle. Who knows? It’s easy to say that I can’t make weight so I’m going to tape my ankle. But the good Lord says I can’t call anyone a liar so I’m going to believe him. On the show Matt told us that he hadn’t taken the sport serious like he once had and he accepted that his career was winding down. Once you do that I don’t think you can perform the same. It took a lot out of him. I see where he’s coming from. He comes from the same background as me. He’s a father and he wants to be with his kids more.
He doesn’t fight the same way he used to. I don’t agree with him switching to a southpaw stance this late in his career. I know it helps his wrestling stance because if you are right handed you lead with your left leg and you lead with your left leg in a wrestling stance. I know he wants to make his takedowsn more powerful but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Do you think the fight with Serra will happen now?
Yeah, probably late fall. Wherever the UFC can market it the best. He has one fight left and hopefully he can go out with a win and end his career the right way.
What did you think when Serra got hurt and Matt decided to fight GSP?
I was down there around Thanksgiving and it was a shock because all the hype around it and trash talking. I was around Matt when he had to decide what he was going to do. Jon Fitch was an option, GSP too. GSP was a tough fight. If it was me I would win the belt then take the tough fight. Tim Sylvia was around too and he was saying the same thing. He said don’t fight St. Pierre just win the belt. But Matt being the way he is he wanted to fight GSP. To be the best you gotta beat the best. It was GSP’s night that night.
Tell us something about Matt Hughes that most people don’t know.
The first two years of my career I had no one training me. I was completely by myself. I was really fresh. One day Matt was beating up on me. He was slapping me in the face and yelling at me because he thought I wasn’t trying. I actually was just going with what I knew.
When I was getting ready for the War Machine fight. It was our 6th loss in a row. Matt was really bummed because he was losing to Serra. All the coaches came back there and Matt had his head down. He told me the reason he was hard on me was because he really wanted me to succeed. He told me he saw so much of me in him. That’s why he was harder on me.
Are there any younger fighters at the H.I.T. squad that you see as having a lot of potential?
They are full of Division 1 wrestlers. It’s a great place to work out. Matt Veach, he’s just begining his career. He’s hard to take down and is a great athlete. Another good fighter you’ll never see in the UFC is Clay French. He has one eye. He’s a dang good fighter. He beat Mac Danzig and took his belt at the King of the Cage. Just think if he had two eyes. It’s a shame he can’t be in the UFC. He deserves it.
Isn’t Jeremiah Riggs up there too?
He was up there when I was getting ready for Anthony Johnson. He’s a good guy and a hard worker. He was on the Ultimate Fighter. Just like Rampage said if he would’ve know anything he would’ve won that fight. He’s got potential.
Is there anything else you’d like to say to the fans?
I’d like to thank the fans. I am going to be working hard to get into shape for my fights in the WEC. I appreciate all the support and all the emails and fan mails. I try to get back to everybody. Everyone has been real kind. I want to thank the H.I.T. squad and mostly my family for giving me the opportunity to leave here and there to achieve my goal to be a professional athlete. They let me take the time to do that.
