(We looked and looked, but all we could find was this photo of Jim Belushi. Pic: The Fab Life)
At this rate, we’ll never be rid of this goddamn vampire. We’d hoped for a quick and quiet departure from MMA for Steven Seagal – kind of a one-off creep-and-lurk session at UFC 126 – but now that his second straight appearance in the corner of a Black House fighter has ended in a second straight front kick knockout, we don’t see that happening. While it is still totally unclear if Lyoto Machida and Anderson Silva are just fucking with us (and by extension, with him) by professing their allegiances to Seagal, this week Out for Justice himself stopped by Sherdog Radio to assure us all that this shit is deadly serious.
As part of a nearly 20-minute interview, Seagal broke down Lyoto Machida’s jumping KO of Randy Couture at last weekend’s UFC 129. You know, as much as he could without giving away all the secrets of his deadly arts. He also promised to keep working with Black House fighters on new, top-secret techniques. Worst of all, it appears he’s begun referring to Machida and Silva as “his guys.” The quotes are after the jump.
“With Lyoto, I came in probably five days before the fight, something like that,” Seagal said. “Started working on different kinds of elbows, different kinds of punching, different kinds of feetwork … but particularly the kick. I think against a lot of the guys who have spent a lot of their energy on wrestling, they’re not exactly what I would call great strikers. The kick can be very effective.”
Yeah, that’s right, he said “feetwork.” Anyway, he goes on …
“This (Machida) kick, the thing that’s deceptive about it is that (instead of) the normal (front kick) where you lift up your knee and you kick, this one I’m kind of trying to teach the guys to lead with the foot. I don’t want to say too much about it because I don’t want to give it away completely to the world. It’s different and it’s hard to see. It’s very difficult to see coming, and that’s how my guys have been successful with that.”
Seagal also related the story of how he first hooked up with the highly-regarded crew of MMA fighters. Turns out, the UFC middleweight champion sent him a postcard. Of course. Because in 2011 if you want to get in touch with a world-renowned martial arts master and semi-famous actor, the obvious way to do it is to send him a postcard.
“Anderson had originally sent me a little postcard saying, ‘Please teach me your lethal stuff,’ ” Seagal said. “Because a lot of my students know that a lot of the stuff I have is punishing or effective, shall we say. They left a number, and the number was Jorge Guimaraes, the manager of those guys in Black House. He said, ‘Yeah, man, the guys all want to learn from you.’ I went over there and began.”
Indeed, and so it began. Oh, and just in case you think it didn’t get even more preposterous from there, we’ll leave you with this quote, wherein Seagal promises he’s got even more tricks up the sleeve of his leather child molester jacket …
“There are some other things that I don’t want to talk about that you guys just haven’t seen at all yet,” Above the Law said. “You haven’t seen it, but it’s legal.”
Good Christ. Why do we get the feeling there’s an instructional video in here somewhere?