GAMMA Previews RFL Relentless:
An Interview with Stephen Ledbetter

May 17, 2008 – Macon Coliseum, -- The Revolution Fight League’s “Relentless” MMA show charges into the Macon Coliseum on Saturday May 17th. GeorgiaMMA’s Michael Lynn and Jim Terwoord traveled to the Hard Core Gym in Athens to visit briefly with Rory Singer, one of the promoters, and to interview Hard Core fighter Stephen Ledbetter, who headlines the main event against Charles Wilson of Chicago in an eagerly awaited 145 pound match up that looms large for both men.

UFC veteran Singer stepped away from his training, wiped the sweat off his face and told GAMMA that the RFL is a Midwestern fight league that has held several events and is trying to get established with a tight list of events from Kentucky to Georgia. They have assembled a fight card of 8 to 10 events, both amateur and professional that is sure to be a crowd pleaser. The Macon Coliseum seats over 6,000 and there are still great seats left. Singer then returned to his training, but not before introducing GAMMA to prized pupil Ledbetter to discuss his upcoming main event clash at Relentless.

JT: Stephen when was your last fight? The last date that I found was August 5, 2007.

SL: Yeah – that’s correct. It was in the WEC against Jeff Curran.

JT: Why has it been so long? Because you couldn’t find another fight?

SL: No, actually that is kind of a weird story. When I was out in Vegas Curran broke my nose in the first minute. The shot broke my nose and when the fight was over they took me to the hospital. Just to get everything checked you know. While I was there, they said they found a birth defect in my neck from the CAT scans and other records. I was made aware of this two years ago at HardCore when I got dropped on my neck. I got an X-ray and they said something was not right. They brought it to my attention and then never said another word about it. But, when I was out there they saw it and concluded I have an abnormality, just a birth defect, in my very top vertebrae. They said it shouldn’t be a big deal, but until then just as a safety precaution you are suspended with the Las Vegas athletic commission until you get this cleared by a neuro surgeon. Plus, I also had to get my nose cleared.

JT: Sure. I just had my nose cleared last summer.

SL: So I got the nose cleared. They made it sound like it wasn’t going to be a big deal at the first neurosurgeon, but he didn’t want to hear anything about it. I think he was kind of against fighting from the get go.

JT: Yeah. So them what happened?

SL: Well, I went to get another opinion.

JT: Sure.

SL: So I went to see another neurosurgeon and they said well you probably can fight again, but we don’t want the legal liability just in case something happens to you. That was great but didn’t get me anywhere. So then a doctor friend of ours in Atlanta, Dr. King, called one of his colleagues who was a neurosurgeon, Harvard degree and everything. He saw me and said I think that you are fine to fight but I would like to get a couple of other opinions so that I am not solely liable for it. So I had to go to the Atlanta Falcons spinal doctor. He showed it to a bunch of his colleagues and I finally got the clearance to fight. That took almost 5 months. It is not easy to get into a neurosurgeon’s office. So I just got cleared a month and a half or two months ago.

JT: So do you think that rust is going to be a factor in Macon?

SL: I am a little worried about it. You know I was fighting as an amateur and when I first became a pro I was fighting like 6 times a year. I averaged about 5 times per year overall. I liked that you know. It loses it aura with experience - you are not so blown away when you first walk out there. So I am a little worried about it - but I have done it 13 times before.

JT: Yeah so you are a vet. What did you think of the WEC experience?

SL: I thought it was a pretty cool experience. I am still on contract with them and I would like to fulfill my contract and fight the rest of my fights.

JT: How many fights do you have left?

SL: I still have 3 fights on the contract, but it is kind of like a one sided contract - they can drop you at any time. But I did them a favor. You know they were bringing Curran in as the next guy to fight for the belt - to challenge Faber. He has been around the game for a long time. They were bringing me in as a stepping stone for Curran. You know a guy with a good record - someone that Curran could beat up on and make him look good so that there is a lot of hype around him when he enters that Faber fight. We had a pretty good fight. You know my wrestling was much better than his, but I ate a shot, got caught in a choke and you know he won the fight. But it was a much closer fight than he and the WEC had anticipated.

ML: Can you tell us who you are fighting in the RFL event coming up? What do you know about your opponent and how do you feel about your opportunity with the RFL in this fight?

SL: Absolutely. I am fighting May 17th for the RFL for their featherweight title. I am fighting a guy named Charles Wilson out of Illinois.

JT: Charlie Wilson’s war huh?

SL: Yeah! I know that he has a traditional karate or kung fu background. He started fighting about the same time that I did. We both came up as amateurs. The ISCF had me ranked as the number one amateur for a while. You know I was like 5 - 0 or 6 - 0 as an amateur. He got on the message boards a little bit. He was like 8-0 and commented “so why am I not ranked?” So there was a little bit of a dispute there for a while. I saw some old Combat League video but I can’t tell if it is him or not. It is kind of grainy. I remember when my buddy Jeff Bedard was training for his fight with Miguel Torres I saw some grainy video of Charles Wilson and Torres fighting. I feel privileged to be able to fight for the RFL title. I believe that they are a great upcoming promotion. They have put together a good show. They have good fighters on their roster. With their business plan they are just going to keep getting bigger and bigger. You know I feel blessed to be able to get with them early on as they are building the promotion and just getting better. I would love to be able to represent them as their featherweight champion. I’ve just got to go in there and stop Charlie Wilson.

JT: I was out on the web trying to find out about him. Is he really 38 years old?

SL: Yeah.

JT: But he has only been fighting as long as you have been fighting?

SL: Yeah.

JT: Another thing that I saw out there was that he was self trained. He doesn’t have a team.

SL: That can create problems for you because some guys are so unorthodox that they are hard to do stuff with. They get into crazy positions and some time it can be a blessing because a lot of guys have no clue about what they are doing. But he has amassed wins. He beat a couple of good people. It makes me nervous, but then again I know the training partners that I have and the structure here and I don’t feel like that he is going to be on my level. Not training by himself and I am training with Raphael and Junior and Jacao and all of them on a weekly basis. I don’t feel like he is throwing anything at me that I haven’t seen. I think he will be unorthodox and I think that it may take a round to get adjusted to.

JT: To me the point you are trying to make was brought home when we watched Dany Lauzon at Wild Bill’s. You now Montanez is a good fighter.

SL: Yeah he is a solid dude.

JT: You could just tell from the opening bell that Dany was at a higher level and I think that it comes down who you train with. It sounds like you have a pretty good group of guys.

SL: Yeah you know, you’ve got people around pushing you on a daily basis. You are just going to get better and faster. I just know if you are training by yourself you aren’t being pushed to the limits on a daily basis, especially training for a fight.

JT: How did you get hooked up with the RFL? Through your manager?

SL: Yeah I am managed by Mammoth Sports and Entertainment.

ML: Frank Bishop, Andy Beach and Rory Singer?

SL: They represent me. They have been working with the RFL. The Georgia Bout Company is putting on this show in conjunction with the RFL. They have a big hand in that. My buddy Charles Nutt just fought in the RFL show in Louisville and did real well. They want me as the 145 pound champion and I would love to step up and be their champion.

JT: What are your other plans? You’ve had this long layoff and you have to be chomping at the bit to get back in the ring or the cage. What are you thinking about how many times you would like to fight over the course of the year and that sort of thing?

SL: Well I would love to win this RFL belt May 17th. Hopefully I would like to get on the August show with the WEC. I would love for the RFL to be my home away from the WEC. I would love to defend that belt as many times as I can because one of the draw backs to fighting in the WEC is that they have so many fighters on roster that you are only going to fight once or twice a year and you can’t honestly stay sharp fighting only once or twice a year. One time I fought 3 times in a month and a half. I liked that. Every time you go out there you are more and more comfortable. You know I fought twice in one night and the second time out I was like “I just want to get this over with” but it wasn’t a big adrenaline dump or anything.

JT: I remember when we interviewed Dany Lauzon. I was getting prepared for his interview much the same as I was yours and I was out there researching and found that he was fighting two weeks to the night after he was fighting at Wild Bill’s. I asked: “what are you going to do if someone breaks your nose?” Then he had another fight like two weeks after that again.

SL: You know I have buddies that do that. Ideally I would like two and a half months or three months between fights. That way it is all about peaking and you train, train and train and try to peak at the right time. Well you know a lot of stuff gets put on hold because all of your time is devoted to the fight and you need a week or two just to go back and deal with the rest of your life. Get things back in order. Go see family and do all of the things that you neglected to do when you were training. You know I like to take a week or two off. Not completely, but just take care of some stuff. Rebuild a little bit. By the time the fight comes you are just like - man I just want to make that dude pay for all of the punishment that I have endured for the last 5 or 6 weeks. I like to take a week or two off and jump right back in and start training hard for the next fight.

JT: What about the mental side of it? I can understand the physical side. Even though I’m an old guy I still work out and know what a hard workout does to me what an easy workout does and that sort of thing, but I see the emotion of fighters in the ring. Win or lose it is very emotional. You have these guys that run across the cage, leap up and wave their arms and then you have the other guy who lost who may be laying flat on his back in the middle of the ring. You have a wide range of emotions. What do you do to get yourself mentally ready?

SL: The mental part of training is as big a part as the physical. If you are not mentally ready going into a fight you are not going to perform at your best. But I mean different things drive people. Like people fight for different reasons. You have guys that just love to hurt people - just want to go out there and punch someone in the face and get paid for it. With me, I am just competitive. When I got done with wrestling in high school I had an opportunity to take a scholarship to wrestle in college. I didn’t really want to take it because I was just through with wrestling. But after a year or two of sitting around, I missed that competitive outlet. I missed going out there and throwing someone around and I missed having my hand raised. I missed working my butt off and having my hand raised to make it all worth it. You know that 5 weeks was worth it. That is what still drives me today. I love to win. I do what it takes to win. But when you train, especially if you lose, you have all of that time that you put your heart and soul into something and then came up short. I know you can’t help what happens in a fight sometimes. You train your ass off for 5 weeks. You go out there, get punched in the face, get flash knocked out in the first 5 seconds and you’re like…

JT: What am I doing this for?

SL: Not only that, but when I lose I feel embarrassed. More embarrassed than anything. Like oh man - my friends, my family – my only loss was on national television. But that was still the fight that most of my friends saw. Most of my friends had never seen me fight. That is what everybody sees. They say “I saw your fight on TV.” Well they didn’t see the 12 other ones that I won you know. You feel like you let your friends, your family and your coaches down. You don’t feel like it was all for nothing, but you know.

JT: Well anybody who knows MMA realizes that it takes a lot just to climb in there.

SL: Not only emotionally – but when you lose you feel like you let people down. You don’t get that paycheck either if you don’t win.

JT: All right, we have established that you have to lose some weight in our previous conversations.

SL: I am doing well with it.

JT: What are you working on improving skill wise or technique wise for the fight? What do you think are your strong points that you spend less time on or what are you working on improving?

SL: Well my strong point is wrestling. But you can’t say you’re already a good wrestler and neglect the wrestling. You know what I mean. You know we spent an hour wrestling last night. I am sure we are going to wrestle tonight again. But you know where the sport is at right now and you have to be so well rounded. As an amateur you get these real one dimensional guys. Now guys are so well rounded you just have got to be good at everything. I probably spend an equal amount of time in boxing, wrestling and Jiu Jitsu because it all comes in handy.

ML: Let’s go back for a second. You mentioned your coaches. I feel like Adam Singer is one of the biggest unsung heroes in this industry. How did you find Adam and the Hardcore gym?

SL: Ha - ha. I’ll talk about Adam. You know inside MMA circles Adam and Rory are very well respected. They are known for, and the Hardcore gym is known for, putting out very well conditioned guys. Guys who have a very strong clinch and are just very well rounded fighters. Especially in this part of the country. You are starting to read about them in Fight Magazine. Starting to read articles about Forrest and stuff like that. You know we have had a number of different fighters from this gym get on the Ultimate Fighter reality show. Adam and Rory just have a head for MMA. They know the ins and outs. You can tell the difference between them and other coaches when they are in your corner because they are not just sitting there telling you to do….

(Rory Singer from the background yells “Don’t talk about the Hardcore gym or yourself. You’re nobody, you only fought Jeff Curran to a decision!)

SL: Ha ha. You know when you hear them in a fighter’s corner they know their strengths and weaknesses. You know what you like to do and what you don’t like to do. They just know the ins and outs of everyone that fights. They have seen them come up and let them develop their own style. You know I just feel blessed to be with the people I am with. I have no desire to ever change gyms or affiliation. I am with the people that I want to be with. These are my best friends; these are the guys that I look up to. I know these are guys I can count on day in and day out to be there for me.

JT: Let me change the subject for a minute. What did you think of the Curran vs Faber fight?

SL: I think that Curran looked good in the first round; it’s just that Faber is relentless. I mean he’s got top cardio, he is explosive. I don’t know. Curran dominated the first round, but he got cut in the second round and just got caught - so it was over.

ML: Who do you think is the strongest 145 pounder in the world right now? Do you think that it is Faber?

SL: Well I mean Faber is a bit small for that weight class. You know if Kid Yamamoto is fighting at 145 again, he will be tough to beat. But then he has been fighting 155 and he’s been fighting all over the place. Plus he has been fighting in Japan and hasn’t been fighting in America.

ML: I think he was training for the Olympics for a while.

SL: Yeah he was. You know right now, Faber is the man to beat. As far as in America he is the man to beat. I mean pretty much in the world as far as 145 pounders he is strong, fast, explosive, and technical.

JT: What do you think about his next fight?

SL: Pulver can give him some definite problems. Pulver is a bigger 145 like I am. Faber is not that big and it’s one of the things giving him problems. That is one of the things I see giving him problems - all of the 155’ers dropping to 145. You know Pulver has good wrestling, good hands the whole deal.

JT: He sure surprised me against Cub Swanson. I never in a million years expected that.

SL: I mean he has never been beat at 145 and he is a bigger dude. I definitely think that he can give Faber some problems. The thing is I give Faber the edge when he goes into that 3rd, 4th and 5th round.

JT: I saw the last WEC event and they were interviewing Faber, who was on one side of the ring, and Pulver, who was on the other side of the ring and they were talking. Faber was saying how he was watching Pulver when he was growing up. I laughed when I heard that.

ML: Let me ask you this. You mentioned in previous conversations with me that some of you fighters get together in Atlanta and train. Is that something that you can discuss with us?

SL: Oh yeah. We have a good group of guys that train in Atlanta. Actually I was there training today. Junior and Raphael Assuancao. Diego Saraiva, Douglas Lima, Roberto Traven.

ML: Sounds like an all star group of fighters.

SL: Yeah there is Jeff Bedard, Jacou Carnero, Rory Singer, and a couple of guys that train here, like Dave Mewborn.

ML: Does Brian Bowles train with you guys?

SL: Yeah me and Brian.

JT: Where do you train?

SL: We train at Body Plex on Buford Highway. We get together twice a week. All of us have something to offer. We just help each other out, we train hard and I just feel very thankful having that caliber of people to train with. You help each other out, push each other and support each other. We corner for each other and we are definitely thankful to have the support.

ML: How do you feel about Raphael’s standing in the 145 pound division?

SL: He is one of the best in the world. He may not get the recognition that Curran and all of these guys have. But he has fought some of the best dudes in the world. He beat Joe Lauzon, He beat Jorge Masvidal. He really beat Jeff Curran, but just didn’t come away with the decision. He is probably unsigned - well he is signed with the AFL - but he is one of the best fighters not signed with the UFC or the WEC. Everybody is going to find out about him soon enough. I mean you have started to see him creep up into the top 10 ranking and he deserves it. I just feel lucky to be able to train with a guy of that caliber. He is the man you know.

JT: You train here. Do you also live right here in this area?

SL: Yes sir. You know not only do we come in here and beat on each other every night. We are sitting around talking to each other. You know we go and watch fights together, we hang out. These are the guys that I hang out with when I am not in the gym anyway. I am very blessed to be under their tutelage.

JT: How much time are you spending training a week now?

SL: Probably 25 to 30 hours per week. You know I work a full time job also.

JT: So you basically don’t have a life?

SL: Ha ha, yeah I mean between this, work, my girlfriend - you know I kind of don’t have time for much. I am even going to miss my brother’s high school graduation on May 16th because I am going to be weighing in for this RFL fight. Which I am pretty upset about, but hopefully I will make it up to him. Probably get him some back stage passes and stuff. Kiss his butt a little bit. Ha ha.

JT: How come you don’t have a nickname?

SL: ummm….

JT: Oh so you do have a nickname, do we need to go out here and ask some of the guys?

SL: Man if you go out there and ask these guys you will get 10 different nicknames. They call me “ringworm,” “staph,” they call me “super gonzo.” Not necessarily anything I want to be called walking out onto the stage or anything.

JT: Any special message you would like to send to the fans who might be planning to attend this fight in Macon?

to see me bring that belt back home to Athens.

ML: Do you have any sponsors or anyone else that you would like to thank?

SL: I just want to thank the Hard Core Gym, MammothSE and the RFL. And my mom, ha ha.