When Brent Weedman steps into the cage this Friday night (April 20, 2012) for Bellator 66 against Brazilian striker Thiago Michel, he'll be fighting for more than one.
There's a very special someone who's due to arrive just two days after his bout in the Bellator season six lightweight semifinals, someone he "can't mate to wheat!"
That special someone is his son, Will. His wife, Emily, has been about to burst for about two weeks now and according to Weedman, she's been handling the pregnancy like a trooper.
Now more motivated than ever, the Carl Sagan and Neil DeGrasse Tyson fanatic is gearing up to do some serious damage in the semifinals of this Bellator lightweight tournament. Besides, there's no better way to prepare for a child's college education than bringing home that prestigious $100,000 grand prize.
Weedman spoke about his upcoming fight and his upcoming baby during a guest appearance on Bloody Elbow Radio last week and much, much more.
Check it out:
Matt Bishop: First thing I've got to ask you is, how's your wife?
Brent Weedman: She is incredibly pregnant. Yeah, my wife is 5'1 and we had an ultrasound a week and a half ago and the baby was 8 pounds 11 ounces so for those of you that have had kids or know anything with two weeks to go, that's pretty massive. He's going to be pushing 10 pounds so she's kind of miserable.
Matt Bishop: What's that been like for you juggling what she's going through and what you're going through preparing for a big fight?
Brent Weedman: Well we had the fight 3 1/2 weeks ago and as soon as we got back, the whole mantra of the whole house was, "Alright buddy, you can arrive any time now. It would be great if you can show up early," and then these last couple days, we've crossed over and we're back to, "Stay in, stay in buddy." His due date is Sunday, so two days after the fight so I'm really, really hoping he decides to stay in and will give me a chance to see him be born because that would be pretty rough. She's gonna go full term which is scary for her for any number of reasons. I don't if you guys know this but at the later stages, the baby grows anywhere from a half pound to a pound a week. He was already a large baby so now we're working on gargantuan.
Matt Bishop: So I'm sure you "Can't mate to wheat your son," right?
Brent Weedman: Absolutely in fact we just had a new batch of Weedman nation shirts which on the back say, "I can't mate to wheat you." I'm just throwing that out there in case anyone wants any Weedman Nation swag, we can hook you up. I get punched in the head a lot and as you guys saw in the last fight, I was pretty emotional afterwards. It's a big deal, my son coming and he's the sole motivator for everything I do now. I wanted to say, and in fact I said it correctly the first time but I made the mistake of saying it twice. I meant to say, "I can't wait to meet you," and the second time I said, "I can't mate to wheat you," and of course the internet message boards started heating up and I started getting text messages. It was a bit of dyslexia I suppose so everyone said it was a cute moment. I'm putting it on the shirt to be a good sport about it.
Brian Hemminger (MMAmania.com): Can you tell me Brent, now that you've had the experience, how comfortable did you feel fighting at 155 for the first time?
Brent Weedman: Oh man, I felt great. I felt really, really good. I felt light on my feet, no pun intended because I actually was lighter. I felt spry. I felt quick. I almost wish I would have had a chance to kickbox more just so everyone gets a chance to see the improvements I've been making but trust me, the guys at the gym see it, my sparring partners see it. I feel really good. My cardio is through the roof. What's kind of scary is, I feel my cardio has improved since the J.J. Ambrose fight. I know that sounds ridiculous but my speed and conditioning is really, really great because I got to step right back in to a full camp and it was like I never left. I feel really great about this new weight and I'd be lying if I said the extra motivation from my son didn't help. In the last semifinals when I was rolling in to fight Jay Hieron, I was really starting to get banged up from constant training for months and months and months. It was really starting to drain on me but I don't feel like that this time. I didn't get hurt at all in that last fight at all which was a big bonus.
Brian Hemminger (MMAmania.com): You pulled off a pretty rare submission. Now you've said you've done the Von Flue choke many times in practice. How long has that been one of your go-to moves for you in that position on the ground?
Brent Weedman: It's a little technical, but long story short, I do use the Von Flue quite a bit. The Von Flue and a few other moves from that position you could say that I end up in all the time. A lot of it is the style of side control that I like to play. Bloody Elbow's breakdown of that was the best that I've seen so far. There was a quote in there that I was forcing him to make bad decisions. Do you want to get kneed in the body or do you want to give up submissions and I though that hit the nail on the head. That's my philosophy.
The Von Flue, I may have shocked the commentators there and the people in the crowd but everyone was laughing about it at the gym back home. They'd seen me catch people with it 100 times. I set it up differently and use it in situations where people aren't used to seeing it.
Matt Bishop: What steps are you going to take when your Von Flue choke or your other techniques aren't a surprise anymore. What are you going to do then?
Brent Weedman: I don't want to make it sound like my game is built around the Von Flue choke because that would be ridiculous. The funny thing is I hit it about four times in sparring the week after the fight and every time it would happen, my jiu-jitsu coach would make fun of the other guy, "Didn't you watch his fight? It's the ultimate cliff notes. He did that on TV. How are you going to let him get that?" That's just one of the options that I have. The Von Flue choke is typically taught as a counter if someone is trying to guillotine choke you and you move to side control and he continues to try to guillotine choke you.
The reason you don't see it very often is because any grappler, even with a few stripes on his white belt is not going to keep holding on to your head when you're in side control but the thing is, I don't use it that way. I bait that hand to be in a bad position and then I trap it and then I move to side control. So yeah, it's a bad idea to hold on to my head when I'm on his side be didn't make that decision. I made that decision for him. I made him make that decision. I'm not worried about people seeing that trick. I've got a half dozen other moves that are unorthodox. The people that grapple with me quite a bit know that I'm certainly not one of these Aoki-style out of left field grapplers but I'm a little bit off the main line. I've got a few more tricks up my sleeve.
Brian Hemminger (MMAmania.com): Now tell me about Thiago Michel, your upcoming opponent. He had an interesting first fight against Rene Nazare. He was able to avoid takedowns and use his kickboxing in the first two rounds but then he kind of coasted. What did you think of his performance?
Brent Weedman: He did a good job against a tough opponent. Yeah, it was a close fight. It bugs me that was there was a little bit of controversy. The idea that one of the judges thought Rene won the fight was absurd to me. I thought Michel clearly won the fight. He's got good footwork. He's been kickboxing for a long, long time. He's very comfortable and confident and carries a nice calm energy on his feet. His footwork is better than mine but I've been working really, really, really hard to make up the difference. I feel like I just offer too many problems for him which is why I'm so excited about the match-up.
I feel that standing, I've got too much power for him if he decided to stand and go toe-to-toe so I feel like for him to win, he needs to use his footwork and just potshot me, make me chase him around. I don't think he can beat me in the clinch. I don't think he can beat me on the ground. I've been training really hard for him. I've got a lot of respect for the guy and I give him all the respect in the world. I feel he's a great kickboxer and there's a few things he does well, I feel like there's a whole bunch of things that I do well and that's gonna make the difference in this fight.
Matt Bishop: For the males listening in, give us some advice. What's the best way to deal with a pregnant wife?
Brent Weedman: I've been really lucky. My wife is a really good pregnant woman. Everybody said, all my buddies would pull me aside away from their wives and away from my wife and say, "LIsten man, the hormones go crazy. It's gonna be a battlefield at your house. Just duck, take cover and protect your neck," and all these other horror stories that I've heard. My wife, considering that she's dragging around my elephant child inside of her, she's been fantastic. I would say the biggest thing you can do to appease a pregnant wife is talk glowingly about her while weeping on national television. They seem to really like that and that made her really happy. If you get that opportunity, I suggest you take it.
You can follow Brent on twitter @Brent_Weedman.
So what do you think, Maniacs?
Will Weedman advance to the finals this Friday night when he takes on Thiago Michel? Would you weep on national television for your wives/girlfriends?
Sound off!