Brian Ebersole talks to us about TUF: The Smashes, 155, bath salts and soccer kicks

The White Anderson Silva scoffs at your weight classes. TWAS doesn’t even believe in ‘moneyweight’ – like guillotine’s, it’s a myth he simply refuses to accept. To Brian Ebersole, every weight is TWAS weight, and he’s coming for you 155’ers and has the Hairrow to back him up like a Robin to a Batman, a Short Round to an Indy…Or dare I say an Alex Winters to a Keanu?

After four wins in a row at welterweight, Brian Ebersole has gone on a mini media tour letting the world know a few important things: he’s ready to move to 155 for a title run and he really wants to coach on the Aussie version of TUF. I followed up with The White Anderson Siva in a thought-provoking and soul searching interview that spanned the entire distance from the United States Post Office where Brian first took the call, to his ‘permanent address’ where he had a pool in the back yard with dogs running around and stuff. It sounded like a really fun time.

You’ve fought at 155 before, correct? Yeah I fought at 155 before around ’08, ’09, I fought Hector Lombard when I was losing all that weight and getting smaller. I was eating very clean, a vegetarian diet, close to vegan and I was waking up at like 170 every day. So 155 wasn’t that far off. I fought at 170 then, won a welterweight title belt and I didn’t even have to cut for that weigh-in and the next wight after that was like 157.

 

Wow. Yeah I stayed pretty light for over a year.

 

You’ve been on a bit of a post fight media tour lately, talking about going down to 155, but clarify for us: you would fight at 170 or 155? It’s up to the UFC really, if they offered me a fight at either weight class and said I’m nowhere near a title shot then there is no reason to rush and freak out. I would like to get to 155 as soon as I can and make a title run and that’s how I could finish up the final few years of my career.

 

You’ve thrown out a few names, Ben Henderson, Nate Diaz… (TWAS cuts me off, shouting) I WILL DESTROY THEM ALL. I’ll kill em. All of them.

 

You’ve always been a confident fighter, but what is it, the size advantage, the experience, are you just overall peaking right now? Yeah, I mean, I’m pretty talented at what I do. They’re going to be faster than me, but I’ve never been knocked out. They’re going to be smaller than me, and some of them have incredible wrestling credentials like Gray Maynard, but I’ve grappled on the ground with the best in the world and I’ve had to put it to the test in an MMA setting, where I don’t think his grappling is a challenge when you can be punching the guy. I don’t know how great his ground and pound is but I don’t plan on being on the bottom anyway. The better wrestlers at 170 can hold me down without punching me, but I don’t think that can happen at 155. I can make 170 and still be a little out of shape. I can’t make 155 without being at my utmost fitness. So it’s a bit of a personal challenge and I want the best Brian Ebersole that can be in the cage and I want to make the title run, so it’s a bit of a three-pronged deal there.

 

Your Hairrow looked pretty thick on FX… Yeah normally I trim it down but this time I left it really bushy. I enjoy having the Hairrow around. I feel like a different man when I have him with me. Sometimes I long for him, and I’ll pull up my shirt. To be fair I walked down the Jersey shore the day after the fight, and I don’t think many recognized me as a fighter, but many recognized me as a goofy guy.

 

How did the Jersey shore go? It was fine, lots of the accents you know what I mean? I ran into some Jersey boy guys come up and congratulate me and they just had really, how should I say…Straight line thinking? It was all ‘good fight bro good fight’. That’s all they had to say, there was nothing past that. It was all ‘cool story bro, tell it again, bro’ and it took me six or seven minutes to get away from this group of guys that just kept saying the same thing over and over. And I was just saying ‘Alright guys, I think the extent of our conversation has run it’s course’ and I went to get another beer.

 

You have to watch out with those carbs in the beer man, it’ll kill your cut to 155. I’m only up to 189, so I’m doing OK. I’ll manage.

 

We are firmly behind you as a coach on TUF: The Smashes. You may be an Australian transplant but you rep the country well. Fill our readers in on why we should campaign and Twitterbomb Dana White to get you in as the coach. I’m starting to think there’s not a good reason. I’m thinking the filming starts too soon for them to not have made a decision already. All of this information has just come to me in the last few days since in the days leading up to the fight I wasn’t doing much online research, and then after the fight I jumped right on it. But I think the filming starts in two and a half weeks, so if I was the coach I think they would tell me by now. So I think I may be putting a stop to all the Twitterbombing. It was nice to have the support quickly. To throw it out there to Dana: I do have a little bit of fanfare. It’s not as much as some guys, but when I ask for something I get a decent response on Twitter by my estimation. I think they already made their decision though. I do think I would be their best choice for coach just for entertainment and the fight option at the end of the season because not all the Aussies would come off wins. And I’m on the hot streak at the moment and not all the Aussie’s are coaches either.

 

There is always season 2. That could be true, that could be true, but you never know, I could win a few more fights and then maybe I would be on TUF no matter where it takes place.

 

Bath salt zombies. What are your thoughts? You know, that is the freakiest thing. And I saw a report on MSNBC today that the only thing they found in his system was marijuana. Now, I don’t know if that’s because they can’t test for bath salts, but they did find out he was a bit of a pothead that fellow, maybe schizophrenic, but that is a freaky, freaky thing.

 

Do you think the government is telling us it’s bath salts to keep us calm about a zombie outbreak? Possibly. While they evacuated, they would tell us there are only a few crazy people out there…That’s our government. Then again I don’t have the most faith in our elected officials.

 

You’re in the States right now? I am at my father’s house which is my permanent address. I have many addresses but only one permanent address. Fortunately I’m there now.

 

How does it feel to be home? It feels like there is a swimming pool in the back yard, dogs running amok in the house, and a nice couch. I’m very comfortable right now.

 

Sounds nice, it’s so hot out. Yeah it’s only a hundred degrees out.

 

Another hot topic was Roger Huerta taking the soccer kick last weekend. Ouch.

 

You’ve seen it all, done it all, what’s your opinion on soccer kicks and that situation? I felt sad for Roger, I met him once at Tiger Muay Thai, it was his last day there and my first day there. He’s good friends with the general manager as a coach out there. So very soon we will be teammates and coworkers over there, so that made me very sad. On top of that he’s on a tough streak anyway, so that didn’t make anything better. I’m looking forward to meeting him and seeing what he’s going to do with his career, and as someone who has seen it all and done it all, I hope to have an intregal part in his future, and to help him and ensure his success. Brutal soccer kick. It was like Brad Kohler getting kicked by Babalu. I actually just said this in another interview – Brad Kohler is one of the few promoters that still owes me money, so watching him get soccer kicked wasn’t so bad.

 

What are your feelings on the ruleset specifically? Oh, Pride rules are fun. Pride rules are fun! I’m not mad about Pride rules if that’s the true question. I would enjoy fighting under them.

 

You throw some nasty elbows, would you rather fight under Pride rules without elbows or? No! I don’t want any of my weapons taken away at all, no. I don’t see why it’s totally necessary. You can kind of choose how to lose a fight, if that’s your goal. You can go for that ankle, or if you just say ‘hey, I would rather have my back taken and get choked out.’ So you can go, and see what he does, if you have awareness and you know the end of the fight is imminent, you can choose to lose the fight in a safer way. Same as an armbar from mount, some guys choose to stick their arm up and out so they can get armbarred rather than getting beat up from there.Those kind of awareness situations come from the ruleset and I don’t think we should be limiting the ruleset. So…I would be more than happy to kick someone in the head, or allow them to try to kick me in the head.
Published on June 28, 2012 at 10:21 pm
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