MIKE WINKELJOHN
Do you think Holm has beaten
the toughest competitor in the
division now that she has beaten
Ronda Rousey?
No. It was the hardest in that she was
up against this legendary status and
the pressure was incredible that way —
although, being the underdog takes a lot
off pressure of you. But there’s different
styles out there.
Miesha Tate is gonna scramble all
day long, whereas Ronda was gonna
try to get quick submissions. There’s
a difference how that plays out. So
in many ways, Miesha Tate is more
dangerous than Ronda Rousey. There’s a
lot of girls in the division that have a lot
of things.
Sara McMann hits so hard. You
know, Amanda Nunes is incredible,
and Julianna Pena’s good. There’s a lot
of girls out there that can really fight,
and styles make fights. It’s one of those
things where we have to kind of be
prepared for the person we’re fighting.
So do you think stylistically there
is a tougher matchup for Holly
Holm than Ronda Rousey?
No, not for overall fighting, but for
different parts of the fight there
are women out there that can be
tougher than Ronda Rousey. In
the scramble I think Miesha Tate
is better than Ronda Rousey.
Can Holm fight in March and still be
ready in time to fight on UFC 200?
I hope so. You know, that’s Holly. She
has fought five times in one year, so
she’s active. She has that Cowboy
Cerrone mentality where she just wants
to fight and get through this thing.
She likes to fight. So in a perfect
world, that’d be fantastic. Let’s have her
fight, go fight whoever they give us.
Show the world that it’s not one-and-
done with Holly Holm, that she can
destroy the next person. And then, if
Ronda has the guts to do it again, let’s
do it again for some big money. And
that’s great for those girls.
Why do you think Carlos Condit
won the much-debated third
round against Robbie Lawler?
Oh, definitely with the number of
strikes, the number of times he’s kicking
him. Carlos was getting a lot of damage
done with his front kicks and his leg
kicks and his straight-type of kicks to
the legs, and those were taking a toll
on Robbie. They were hurting Robbie
throughout the fight. So I thought it
was definitely the volume thing that
was making a big difference in the fight.Do you feel Condit deserves a
rematch against Lawler?
No doubt about it. It was one of the best
fights of all time and I think everybody
wants to see it. I think that’s it. I have not
spoken to Carlos about what he wants
to do, I just gave him a little bit of time
off. I’m just checking to make sure he’s
feeling ok, but I definitely think Carlos
deserves a rematch. Who wouldn’t want
them to rematch? It’d be incredible.Did Condit talk to you
about retirement before
going into UFC 195?
You know what, Carlos is very, very
smart about the game and about taking
damage to your head especially, as well
as your whole body, and living a good
life afterwards. We’ve always had that
conversation that we want to...we’d like
to not get hit as much in our fights. We
don’t want to win ‘fight of the night’.
That happened to be fight of the
night, which totally sucks, because there
is a lot of brain damage going on, and
it’s definitely not worth $50 thousand
for that individual. Fans love it,
everybody else loves it, but you pay for
it. Hopefully you don’t, but you might
be paying for that later in life.
But we’ve had that conversation
many times before, where Carlos has
thought, you know, ‘I’d like to get
out of this and go forward in my lifeand be there for my family,’ He’s real
smart that way. He understands there’s
more important things in life than just
punching other people in the face.Do you believe he would have
retired on top even if he’d won the
title, instead of sticking around?
I think he would consider retiring soon
after, and for good reason. Again, like
I said, he’s one of the smart guys that,
after winning the title — we haven’t
had that exact conversation — I can
guarantee you that he was the guy that
was gonna win some fights and leave at
the top.He was smart enough to do that,
versus almost everybody else, who had
the tendency to lose the title, never get it
back, keep fighting, keep getting hurt, win
a fight here and there, you know, lose a
whole bunch of fights, take damage when
it’s over. I think Carlos is smart enough
that he would just stop at the top.UFC Light Heavyweight Champion
Jon ‘Bones’ Jones poses for a photo
with his trainers Greg Jackson
(L) and Mike Winklejohn (R)You know, that’s
Holly. She has
fought five times
in one year, so
she’s active.
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