Spiked

Interview with Brad Picket - 19/03/08

Hi Brad, how’s things with you?

Yeah, everything’s good, basically just been relaxing this week, eating whatever I can, as much rubbish as I can, chilling out and then back training tomorrow, (Thursday).

You’ve just come back from a nasty injury, how did that happen, where, and what exactly did you do?

I ended up breaking my arm while I was out training in the States, for my fight last November, I was training with a stress fracture and basically I had an ache in my arm and I assumed it was muscle pain, but if I stopped you never get any training done so I carried on training. I was training with Mike Brown, a good friend of mine and I tried to block a high kick and ended up breaking my arm. I knew it was broken straight away, it wasn’t a bad break like a compound fracture, it was a clean break so it healed quite well.

How does an injury like that affect your general fitness, do you feel your muscle wasting away?

Yeah it did really, basically it was over Christmas and I couldn’t do any sort of training, I didn’t do any sort of training for 8 weeks while I was in the cast, I suffered really from not being generally fit, you know I couldn’t use any muscles. The time I got back to training I had quite a lot of work to do to get back in shape.

What  sort of training schedule do you keep leading up to a fight like the FX3 fight  last week, (15th March)?

The FX3 fight was in England so I trained over here, normally I like to get to America to train as much as I can, basically I stayed here and worked on my cardio and just all aspects of my game really, twice a day if possible.

Who trains you, and who do you spar with at the gym?

I train out of a gym called Team Titan down in East London with my trainer Micky Papolous, once I’ve trained there I also train with a guy called Ashley Grimshaw, I spar with him as he’s my weight, so basically I end up doing a lot with him before each fight as well.

So you’ve trained hard, it’s the day of the fight, what goes through your head leading up to the fight?

Obviously you’ve trained hard and really you just want to get the fight over and done with, sometimes it’s quite bad you know when your on towards the end of the show, you hang around and it really is dragged out so it’s good to be fighting early, If you fight late, I dunno, I find it a bit more nerve racking.

Do you have any pre fight superstitions?

I used to have some stuff but it  kind of didn’t work, you know, I used to be quite superstitious, like wearing my favourite shorts and stuff, but when your doing different shows you kinda have to wear different stuff, so now I just tend to get on with it and don’t have superstitions.

How do you get yourself in the zone, do you listen to your ipod and stuff?

Yeah I listen to my pod, and I like to sleep before a fight to be honest, but you never get any proper sleep, I just like to shut my eyes and rest, that helps me out. As it gets closer to the fight I end up just pacing to be honest and then obviously warming up.

So you’re at Wembley Arena, a local crowd, lots of your fans, what goes through your mind then?

Basically, I don’t think about my opponent or anything like that, I’m always more worried about the result, you know? Getting beat or anything like that basically. The thought of losing in front of my people, drives me a lot more, I never really want to suffer a loss in anything I do, let alone being in front of your friends.

Can you summarise how the fight at FX3 went on Saturday (16/03/08) for us?

It went well, to me it wasn’t the most exciting fight I’ve ever been in, my opponent sort of slowed the fight down a lot, he ended up trying to take me to the ground a lot, he didn’t really want to stand up and fight, that made it quite annoying in some ways, but end of the day I got the result using a grappler submission hold.

Coming from a boxing background do you find yourself going back into boxing mode, staying on your feet and keeping the opponent at arms length?

Definitely, when I fight I to stay standing that’s how I like to fight, when you in a fight you tend to go back to what you know and I’m a striker, that comes more natural to me, also it’s better for the fans, and I wouldn’t call myself one punch if I didn’t want to stand up and fight.

You must have been stoked when the ref raised your hand in victory, was it good to get back to winning ways?

Yeah definitely, my last fight I won as well, coming back from an injury and beating quite a well known and respected guy, it was a good win and a great feeling.

What’s your plans for the future and when can we see you fight again in the UK?
I’m actually fighting in the next Cage Rage at the Birmingham NEC, fighting a guy called Paul Reed, it’s not a title fight, it’s a high profile fight, he’s ranked really high in the UK and I’m ranked high so it should be a good fight. He’s a bit of a wrestler boxer as well so it should be a bit more of a stand up fight.

Are you off to the States training soon?

Yeah I’m off to the States soon, about the 14th April, I’ll be going to Miami, Florida. I’ll be training with the American Top Team, a massive camp full of top quality fighters. Basically when you go there, you can’t help but get better, the gym is stacked full of fighters, my weight as well which is very handy, some gyms have a lot of big people, there’s a lot of big people out there but there’s a lot of people my weight that help me out a lot and I have some good friends out there, I’ve been back and fourth quite a bit and made some good friends along the way.

Are there advantages to training in the States?

Yeah, it helps my wrestling out a lot, here we don’t really have wrestling but there you have wrestling, it’s a big sport over there, so there’s that part of it. The other part is like training away from home, it helps sometimes because you don’t have your normal day to day distractions, there’s always something to do over here, someone’s birthday or something, but in America you just train. When it’s like that you can’t help but get ready for a fight.

 Thanks Brad, all the best with your training. Look forward to seeing you fight at Cage Rage on May 10th.