We are here with “Razor” Rob McCullough, the former WEC lightweight champion. Rob how’s your training going?OTM: We are here with “Razor” Rob McCullough, the former WEC lightweight champion. Rob how’s your training going?
Razor Rob: The training is going awesome, just getting back into the gym after my last fight and just going through the motions and get everything back going.
OTM: Your last fight was with Kenneth Alexander, I believe you fought him earlier in your career. We all know it’s kind of hard coming in after a loss, how was it just getting back into the cage?
Razor Rob: Honestly getting back into that ring I had to get my head straight. I had fought Kenneth before and he was trying to just take me down the whole time, he was real one dimensional in just going for takedowns. He went for some submissions and so did I and every time he did that he gave me space to get up and that was back in the day when I fought him like five years ago. So I was pretty confident and I wasn’t worried about his ground and pound, I just wanted to shut down his game. Coming off the last fight with Jaime Varner I kind of wanted to get my head straight. I got in there and by the time I figured it out I was like alright and I started to try and attempt a jump knee to hit him in the face like the last fight. Then I was like alright I started thinking to myself don’t take any stupid risk to lose this fight. It was good to get a W in the bag so now I’m hungry and ready to get back in there.
OTM: Are you looking for an immediate rematch with Varner or are you thinking about getting another fight before you challenge for the title?
Razor Rob: It looks like I’m going to fighting someone else before I fight Varner if he retains the title after his next fight.
OTM: In the fight with Varner, it seemed like after the first round you were kind of hurt. Was there anything wrong?
Razor Rob: Ya I punctured my eardrum; I think he hit me with a hook or something. He hit me with it and I though something was off, I could hear myself breathing in my head and it was really annoying. When I first started boxing I punctured my eardrum so I was pretty sure I did it again, so when I walked back my corner that was the first thing I said. I told my corner “Dude I think I broke my eardrum” and then I heard the shouting “hey he can’t take you down, he cant take you down you are going to kill him”. My whole game plan in that fight was to shut down his takedowns and hit with a big right hand and put him asleep and walk away. When I did catch him with the right hand he called time out and mazzagatti got in the way and messed up my whole program. After that though he got on it and he got me, I’m not going to say “waaa waaa waaa and whatever” all I’m going to say is lets get back in there and do it again.
OTM: You have always been known since your King of the Cage days for your low leg Thai kicks; now looking at the Varner fight you pretty much stonewalled his takedowns. For that fight who were you training with to work on your takedown defense? Was it just with Team Punishment or did you bring in someone else?
Razor Rob: Yeah, I mean when I first started everyone was looking to me on Team Punishment to learn the stand up. So what ended up happening was I was showing up to practice and everyone was listening to me and I was just running the stand up portion. After that I would roll with everyone and they would all roll me up in a ball and I’d go home feeling like an idiot, then after a while I started to realize alright either I have to get really good at Jiu-jitsu or stay on my feet and learn how to wrestle. So once I started to learn how to wrestle better I started to get Zach light and Brady fink and Tiki and Tito coming in there and throwing in pointers. All that stuff just being surrounded by it, it just defiantly helped my game.
OTM: As far as your Jiu-jitsu and submission game, looking at your fights you are pretty good at avoiding submissions. Who do you work with to get better at that?
Razor Rob: Umm, I do have a blue belt from Juliano Prado that I got in 2002, I did a lot of Gi stuff with him and then I kind of ventured off and we started the HB Ultimate Training Center. Here we started to do our own thing and we had Woldormiro Perez so I did a little work with him also with Junior Gazze. Then I picked up Brady Fink, we used to train back in the day with Team Oyama and now I have him as my submission guy now. He is a great guy, he has fought and he does have battle experience. He has fought in pride and he is also a wrestling coach, he has experience in submissions and has his brown belt I believe. He is really keen on moves and very good at explaining as well as breaking it down, so I really have to thank him.
OTM: Not looking past your next fight but if you were able to get back in the cage with Varner do you think you would try a different game plan?
Razor Rob: The next time we fight I’m going to get in there and impose my will, if it’s for the belt or not or if it’s at Denny’s. I mean he is a nice guy but I mean it’s on; I want to fight the guy again. The only game plan I kind of went in there with was I was kind of toying with him then I got clipped and then the broken eardrum then I was like F&%k and I was like alright he is going to run into something hard. When he did then it was like what ever happen, happen so I think next time I’m just going to impose my will when we fight. It’s not a matter of dancing around him smiling at him going you can’t take me down.
OTM: After the fight both you guys were very respectful you can definitely see that, you know it’s a sport and may the best man win and on that day he was the best man. Looking past fighting I know you do some coaching, you do u have fighters out their in the circuit so tell us a little bit about Rob Mccullough the trainer.
Razor Rob: Ya well that’s how I kind of got started, my whole career started on being a kid that came to the gym all the time and was the first one in and the last one out at a gym that I had no interest in but just training. The guys hired me to teach the classes and I kind of got stuck doing that and it was fun, I was like wow I get paid 20 bucks to teach a class and I have all these people in there. I was hoping to reap the benefits and then it was like your just a cardio instructor but I was like no way I am a fighter and then I got in their and started to kickbox professionally as did really well at it and had fun. After that I realized hey its not paying what I wanted and Tito was my best friend and he was like “hey bro do Ultimate Fighting””. Me being so big headed I was thinking hey I will just cross kickboxing to Ultimate Fighting not thinking about the whole grappling game. After that I did a few King of the Cage fights and WEC fights and realized I need to learn how to wrestle and grapple better so it’s turn into a life passion of mine. Its fun and I have a lot of guys who train under me a lot of police officers and younger kids and a lot of new guys from the WCL, the Chuck Norris League. So its cool to kind of see the grandfather of my sport, showing a guy one thing and showing another guy who is now teaching another guy its really cool you know? S*%t I would have done it for free.
OTM: I got an opportunity to see one of your fighters at the last Fist Series MMA show Travis McRoberts, now he showed a lot of MMA skill in the ring. That has to be one of the best fights I have ever seen in MMA, both him and his opponent brawled and gave a show. Tell us about the guys you have up and coming?
Razor Rob: Yeah, I have Travis McRoberts, Sebastian Lopez, Randy Bowers, and other guys who are coming up and kind of doing their thing in the WCL and in Mixed Martial Arts. Travis started as one of my sparring partners and I was like wow your not bad dude and he told me he came from Chuck Liddell’s school. He was just kind of hanging out and decided he wanted to be a fireman and his parents totally supported him and then he realized fighting was his passion. From there he wanted to go forward full swing and decided to do so and I told him I’ll help him as much as I can. The fight that he had at the Fist Series was one of the craziest fights I have seen in a while, it got fight of the night before the fights were even over with which blew my mind I’ve never seen that before.
OTM: Now anybody that wants to come down and train under you I know you guys have the HB ultimate Training Center. What can people find there, what do you offer?
Razor Rob: Yeah, here at the HB Ultimate Training Center we got a whole array of stuff, we teach Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, Submission Wrestling and we have Mauy Thai classes, sparing classes and cardio classes which basically entail Mauy Thai on the bags. Right now that’s kind of like our biggest thing, everyone is trying to get in shape through fighting and wanting to be in fighting shape per say. I do teach all the 9am classes and stand up sparring classes and sometimes I do participate in the sparring classes to jump in there with some of the guys and see how they do. We have a full weight room and showers and have classes that start at 7am, so some people come in before work and then they take a shower and go to work. We also have afternoon classes 1215pm; we have kid’s classes at 4pm. With the kid’s classes we have kids kickboxing and kids jujitsu, we also have 515, 630 and 745pm classes. You have to come down and check it out if you are down in the neighborhood, some people come in with their camera and just take pictures. The address for our location is 19400 Beach Blvd in Huntington Beach, you can’t miss it its right on the corner of Beach and Yorktown.
OTM: Looking back we all know you have been around for a very long time, I remember first seeing you fight at the King of the Cage and I just said dam that guy has some Hard leg kicks. Now fast forward to 2008 with the explosion of the sport and how it’s grown, where do you see yourself in 5 years.
Razor Rob: Well my girlfriend is currently pregnant so I will be a Dad and hopefully just tearing it up, having fun doing what I do. I do enjoy my career that I got to pick “do what you love and you will love what you do”. I never got into fighting in general just to make money or be rich or do anything like that, I just did it because I had a lot of aggression as a kid. You know I came from a broken home, my parents split up and we had a big family and I thought I could do this on my own and I just never looked back. A lot of people told me hey you are not going to make it, you’re a white kid and you live in orange county and no one going to take you serious. After everything though I turned all those haters into believers and now they are getting front row tickets for my fights and saying hey I say you on VS channel the other night. So you know what it’s cool I see the future pretty bright for myself, getting in there and getting my belt back in the WEC and just doing my thing.
OTM: Congratulations first off on the baby coming, are you hoping for a boy or girl?
Razor Rob: You know I’m just hoping for a healthy baby, you know I’d love a boy but I’m sure I’m going to get a girl (laughs), healthy is good for me.
OTM: Any thing you want to say to your Razor Rob fans out there?
Razor Rob: Yeah, I got RazorRob.TV, if you go to that website I do a tip of the month and you can check out past tips and I break it down on a video format so you can see on the website. I also sell my clothing on that website or if you go to Razorclothing.tv I got a whole line of clothing about to blow up as well. I have girl stuff, guy stuff like hoodies and tank tops just cool stuff you would wear training and just cool stuff you would were out just in general.
OTM: Well, thank you very much Rob for the interview .
Razor Rob: Thanks brother.