(Whether or not said anxiety attack was related to these tattoos remains unknown.)
As if it wasn’t troubling enough when we learned that Paulo Filho was forced to withdraw from Fatality Arena 7* due to an apparent seizure last week, today’s development brings an even more depressing insight into the absolute car wreck that is Filho’s life.
As it turns out, there was no seizure (hooray!), but rather, Filho suffered a last minute anxiety attack as a result of antidepressant withdrawal (JackDonaghycryingintoapillow.gif).
Filho opened up about his ongoing troubles with MMAFighting.
I’m not an epileptic. I never had a seizure.
I was a mess. I decided not to use antidepressants, so it wouldn’t kill my reflexes, but I had a terrible day at home. My house looked like a party the day of the fight, lots of people going there. Nobody respected me. It was like Paulo Filho was going to bungee jump instead of getting into a fight, get punched and kicked in the face. I couldn’t focus. My house was like hell that day.
I didn’t want to take medication, so I had a panic attack. I lay down in my bedroom, thinking what I would do. I just froze. I couldn’t move. And for the first time in my life, I respected myself. When things like that happened before, I kept going and fought, and it didn’t end well. People watched me fight like crap and had no idea what had happened. So I decided to respect myself this time.
I agreed to fight because I needed the money. That’s the truth. But I was depressed, I was feeling low. I’ve been trying to find a way to get better, so I gave myself another opportunity. I’m not taking anything away from Amilcar, he’s a great athlete, and a fight is a fight, but inside my head I always think I’m going to win.
(Whether or not said anxiety attack was related to these tattoos remains unknown.)
As if it wasn’t troubling enough when we learned that Paulo Filho was forced to withdraw from Fatality Arena 7* due to an apparent seizure last week, today’s development brings an even more depressing insight into the absolute car wreck that is Filho’s life.
As it turns out, there was no seizure (hooray!), but rather, Filho suffered a last minute anxiety attack as a result of antidepressant withdrawal (JackDonaghycryingintoapillow.gif).
Filho opened up about his ongoing troubles with MMAFighting.
I’m not an epileptic. I never had a seizure.
I was a mess. I decided not to use antidepressants, so it wouldn’t kill my reflexes, but I had a terrible day at home. My house looked like a party the day of the fight, lots of people going there. Nobody respected me. It was like Paulo Filho was going to bungee jump instead of getting into a fight, get punched and kicked in the face. I couldn’t focus. My house was like hell that day.
I didn’t want to take medication, so I had a panic attack. I lay down in my bedroom, thinking what I would do. I just froze. I couldn’t move. And for the first time in my life, I respected myself. When things like that happened before, I kept going and fought, and it didn’t end well. People watched me fight like crap and had no idea what had happened. So I decided to respect myself this time.
I agreed to fight because I needed the money. That’s the truth. But I was depressed, I was feeling low. I’ve been trying to find a way to get better, so I gave myself another opportunity. I’m not taking anything away from Amilcar, he’s a great athlete, and a fight is a fight, but inside my head I always think I’m going to win.
Filho went on to lob harsh allegations at promoter Mestre Branco, who he claimed was making an unfair amount of money off of his name in the lead-up to the Fatality event, whereas he was expected to make a measly $3,000 had he fought. While the allegations certainly aren’t coming from the most reliable of source, it wouldn’t be the first time we heard of a fighter getting royally screwed over by a low level promotion or commission.
Branco attempted to defend himself via his Facebook page:
Paulo didn’t suffer any seizure, he didn’t faint either. I was there. He had an attack, he froze, and didn’t want to fight anymore. I did everything I could to convince him (to fight), remembering him everything we’ve been through to get to that day. … He never mentioned his fight purse or any money at all. That was clear on the contract he had signed. Actually, he apologized the whole time, declining to fight.
“I have to admit that Paulo needs special treatment. With all this, I learned that you can only help those who want to be helped.
There isn’t really much more to say about Filho’s personal troubles that we haven’t said before (or can’t be said by his choice of tattoos), so let’s just list some facts. Filho is 2-4 with 2 draws since 2010, and was most recently decisioned by Andre Muniz at Bitetti Combat 19. Despite this, he says that he has no plans to retire, and honestly, it’s likely because fighting is the only way he knows how to make a living. Other than starring in an Odd Couple-esque reality show opposite Mayhem Miller, which I be willing to personally fund if they were both interested.
(“The great majority of people who are fighting are not doing this for money and glory. There’s something else that drives them to the cage.” / Photo via kingdom.directv.com)
Though mixed martial arts has inspired its share of movies — both decent and dreadful — Kingdom is the first TV drama to be set in the world of MMA. The series, which premieres next Wednesday, October 8th, on DIRECTV’s Audience channel, focuses on ex-fighter Alvey Kulina (played by Frank Grillo), his two sons, and their daily battles inside and outside of the cage.
Providing some of the show’s necessary tension is Jonathan Tucker, who plays the troubled black sheep of the Kulina clan. Jonathan took some time last week to chat with CagePotato.com about his preparations for the role, and the lengths that the cast and crew went to in order to ensure authenticity. Read our interview with Jonathan below, follow him on Twitter @jonathanmtucker, and visit Kingdom’s official site to learn more.
CAGEPOTATO.COM: Kingdom takes place in the setting of a mixed martial arts gym and professional fighting, but it really seems to be about a father’s relationship with his sons. Tell me a little bit about the character you play, Jay.
JONATHAN TUCKER: Jay’s kind of this high-wire act, who’s part warrior, part jester. There’s a lot of characters in MMA gyms, and everybody’s being driven to fight for some different reason. Everyone’s finding a sort of healing in the training or the fighting or the camaraderie of being in a gym like that. And for Jay, there’s a sense of distance that he gets from the training and fighting that keeps him out of the other addictions in his life. And when he loses that ability to train, he succumbs to a lack of self-confidence and turns to alcohol and drugs and sex — which is certainly something that I got to see among people in different gyms around Los Angeles.
How much physical preparation was required for a role like this, where you’re portraying a fighter? What was that process like?
We did a two-week boot camp with Joe “Daddy” [Stevenson] and his team, and Greg Jackson, out in Pomona and Victorville, and I did a lot of individual coaching at different places around LA. I was already generally walking around at the weight I was on the show, but when you give a person a few months to really step it up and focus on the diet and the workouts, that extra 5% difference really shows.
I was dragging my ass to the gym every single minute I wasn’t working, and then fight training; we rolled in the morning, got in conditioning right afterwards, then we’d have time for lunch, we’d go box, and usually do some kind of kickboxing in the evening. Of course, we had the luxury of time. All we’re really trying to do on the show is honor the fighters who are trying to pay their rent, who are always working a second job, who are supporting families. The luxury that we had to just train without worrying about paying our mortgage, that was something we never took for granted.
(“The great majority of people who are fighting are not doing this for money and glory. There’s something else that drives them to the cage.” / Photo via kingdom.directv.com)
Though mixed martial arts has inspired its share of movies — both decent and dreadful — Kingdom is the first TV drama to be set in the world of MMA. The series, which premieres next Wednesday, October 8th, on DIRECTV’s Audience channel, focuses on ex-fighter Alvey Kulina (played by Frank Grillo), his two sons, and their daily battles inside and outside of the cage.
Providing some of the show’s necessary tension is Jonathan Tucker, who plays the troubled black sheep of the Kulina clan. Jonathan took some time last week to chat with CagePotato.com about his preparations for the role, and the lengths that the cast and crew went to in order to ensure authenticity. Read our interview with Jonathan below, follow him on Twitter @jonathanmtucker, and visit Kingdom’s official site to learn more.
CAGEPOTATO.COM: Kingdom takes place in the setting of a mixed martial arts gym and professional fighting, but it really seems to be about a father’s relationship with his sons. Tell me a little bit about the character you play, Jay.
JONATHAN TUCKER: Jay’s kind of this high-wire act, who’s part warrior, part jester. There’s a lot of characters in MMA gyms, and everybody’s being driven to fight for some different reason. Everyone’s finding a sort of healing in the training or the fighting or the camaraderie of being in a gym like that. And for Jay, there’s a sense of distance that he gets from the training and fighting that keeps him out of the other addictions in his life. And when he loses that ability to train, he succumbs to a lack of self-confidence and turns to alcohol and drugs and sex — which is certainly something that I got to see among people in different gyms around Los Angeles.
How much physical preparation was required for a role like this, where you’re portraying a fighter? What was that process like?
We did a two-week boot camp with Joe “Daddy” [Stevenson] and his team, and Greg Jackson, out in Pomona and Victorville, and I did a lot of individual coaching at different places around LA. I was already generally walking around at the weight I was on the show, but when you give a person a few months to really step it up and focus on the diet and the workouts, that extra 5% difference really shows.
I was dragging my ass to the gym every single minute I wasn’t working, and then fight training; we rolled in the morning, got in conditioning right afterwards, then we’d have time for lunch, we’d go box, and usually do some kind of kickboxing in the evening. Of course, we had the luxury of time. All we’re really trying to do on the show is honor the fighters who are trying to pay their rent, who are always working a second job, who are supporting families. The luxury that we had to just train without worrying about paying our mortgage, that was something we never took for granted.
The great majority of people who are fighting are not doing this for money and glory. There’s something else that drives them to the cage, and you see that because they are sleeping on somebody’s couch. One of the fight doubles on our show, I gave him a ride to and from sets, because he didn’t have a car. And the guy is training at an invitation-only gym in LA. It was very eye-opening.
Like any subculture, MMA fans can be unforgiving when it comes to details. Were there technical advisers on the set to make sure that everything looked right at the gym setting and during the fight sequences?
Yeah, that’s the basis of the whole show. You can only play around as an actor if the integrity of the environment is strong. Joe Daddy was basically on set every single day; there wasn’t a moment he wasn’t there. Everybody in the gym was a fighter except the four of us actors on the show. And then all the people we fight on the show are fighters. We had Damacio Page, Jay Hieron, Cub Swanson, and some of the younger guys coming up like Cody Bollinger — just some amazing, extraordinary guys. And the thing that made our production designer, wardrobe folks, and construction guys on set feel great, is when all these fighters came in, took a minute to look around, and were like, “Wow, this looks fantastic!”
The announcers are real, the refs we had are real, we had a number of California State Athletic Commissioners who were there. And it can be an intimidating thing if you’ve never been on a film set before, so we wanted to empower all these guys to speak up, and say, “Well, hold on a second, when you’re wrapping the gloves the tape goes this way, and nobody touches the fighter after he’s cleared to enter the cage.” So we wanted all those guys to be very clear about the details, because it’s important to anybody who cares about the sport — and now I do. I’m like stopping at red lights and reading about this Daniel Cormier/Jon Jones verdict. Once you get into it, you get into it, and I’m into it.
At this point, who would win a real-life MMA tournament that included your co-stars Matt Lauria, Frank Grillo, and Nick Jonas? Who was the toughest guy on the set?
Me. Dude, there’s no fucking question it’s me. Hands down. I’m an animal, I’ll take all three of them at the same time.
Wow. I respect that confidence. It sounds like you could actually sell a fight.
Hey, you gotta go with yourself. [laughs] It’s too bad you couldn’t have come out and visited us on the set, because we sparred with each other all the time. And if you train, you know it’s very hard to walk by any bag and not hit it. When you’re spending all day on a set where you’re basically in a gym, they might say “cut,” but you’re looking at that bag like a hungry dog at a chunk of meat. And when you’ve got all those fighters there, who are really thrilled — they’re not making great money as background guys on the show, but they get to have Greg Jackson come on the set, they’re getting to spend their days training with some of the best fighters and coaches in the world. Everybody’s fighting all the time whether the cameras are rolling or not. And when the cameras do come on, it just feels like an extension of what we’re doing all day.
How do you think the MMA fanbase is going to react to Kingdom?
Promoting this show is a funny thing. There’s an expression on the set: You can’t push a string. The MMA audience and the audience that is going to find this show, they can’t be forced into finding it. They have to kind of find it on their own. I know that a lot of people will be skeptical about this, but I think they’re going to be rewarded with the diligence was taken every single day, every single scene, and all the pre-production to make this show truthful to the fighters that spend their lives dedicated to this sport. But this is not a network procedural, this is not a half-hour comedy, and people will have to find this show organically. It will be rewarding whether you like fighting or you don’t.
The 2014 Potato Award for “Most Awkward Interview” has been clinched, folks. An aspiring (read: totally untrained and unqualified) MMA journalist named Paulie G interviewed Cat Zingano at the UFC 178 media day yesterday, and came away with the anti-masterpiece of cringeyness you see above. My God, it is so awful. Some highlights.
– “Are you nice and relaxed? You seem relaxed.” — Already, it’s feeling like a BangBros scene. And the title of the video places it squarely in fanboy territory to begin with.
– “You had a long layoff. You had a little taste of it, right, with the Miesha Tate fight. And now you’re back. Right? And uh, do you think Amanda Nunes’s opponents were tough, that she faced, her first two opponents, in UFC?” LMFAO!!
– Zingano officially checks out of the interview at the 0:51 mark.
The 2014 Potato Award for “Most Awkward Interview” has been clinched, folks. An aspiring (read: totally untrained and unqualified) MMA journalist named Paulie G interviewed Cat Zingano at the UFC 178 media day yesterday, and came away with the anti-masterpiece of cringeyness you see above. My God, it is so awful. Some highlights.
– “Are you nice and relaxed? You seem relaxed.” — Already, it’s feeling like a BangBros scene. And the title of the video places it squarely in fanboy territory to begin with.
– “You had a long layoff. You had a little taste of it, right, with the Miesha Tate fight. And now you’re back. Right? And uh, do you think Amanda Nunes’s opponents were tough, that she faced, her first two opponents, in UFC?” LMFAO!!
– Zingano officially checks out of the interview at the 0:51 mark.
– Paulie G. on Ronda Rousey vs. Alexis Davis: “It was so fast, right? I was there live, at UFC 175? And I was just like ‘holy…’ you know. If it woulda went 30 seconds, I thought Alexis Davis would have really been hurt, you know? So.” WHAT IS YOUR QUESTION, SIR. Meanwhile, Zingano is just sitting there staring at this dummy. Excuse me, this credentialed dummy.
– Paulie G. thanks Zingano for the interview, and a wave of relief washes over her face. Then, he asks if she saw the Amanda Nunes vs. Sarah D’Alelio fight from Invicta FC 4. Zingano says no — she never watches tape on her opponents, and trusts her coaches to tell her what she needs to work on. Paulie is disappointed: “Okay, well. I saw the fight. I thought there might be some things you could take from that, to beat Amanda Nunes.” Zingano thanks him, showing remarkable restraint. Paulie G. hits the stop button on his iPhone video recorder, and walks away thinking that yes, this needs to be shared with the world. Journalism in the year 2014, everybody.
ONE FC welterweight champion Ben Askren feels AXS TV Fights’ Inside MMA program showed him an obvious bias towards the UFC—and a network executive doesn’t seem to disagree. The “Funky” one appeared on Friday’s edition of the program, and his interview via satellite began to head south after he was aggressively questioned by co-host Kenny Rice […]
ONE FC welterweight champion Ben Askren feels AXS TV Fights’ Inside MMA program showed him an obvious bias towards the UFC—and a network executive doesn’t seem to disagree. The “Funky” one appeared on Friday’s edition of the program, and his interview via satellite began to head south after he was aggressively questioned by co-host Kenny Rice […]
It has been nearly two weeks since Michael Brown was shot dead by Ferguson, Missouri police, and the general public still knows next to nothing about the circumstances surrounding his death. No police report has been released, journalists have been detained, and clashes between police and protesters continue to erupt as the eyes of the world look on. Making things all the worse is the fact that some members of the community, whether out of outrage or plain selfishness, have taken to looting and destroying local stores in a misguided response to the overbearing incompetence being displayed by their police force.
The chaos in Missouri has weighed especially heavy on welterweight contender Tyron Woodley, a Ferguson native who has been forced to watch the destruction of his hometown from afar while preparing for his co-main event matchup against Dong Hyun Kim at this weekend’s Fight Night 48: Bisping vs. Le card in Macau. In an attempt to keep the distractions at a minimum, Woodley’s coach has banned him from accessing social media of any kind. Still, the turmoil is all too real for Woodley, who compared Ferguson to Iraq when speaking with FoxSports:
Woodley was in town last week and drove through his neighborhood one morning after an ugly night of unrest. He couldn’t believe what he saw: auto-parts stores, Walmarts, meat markets and beauty salons, all torn apart by looting.
“If I put this video on the Internet, you wouldn’t even believe it,” Woodley said. “It’s so horrible.
“It’s almost like they’re at war. It’s like Iraq. … The best thing I can do from this far away is support the positive. There’s nothing wrong with protesting, to peacefully assemble, but also be sure it’s peaceful.”
(Photo via Getty.)
It has been nearly two weeks since Michael Brown was shot dead by Ferguson, Missouri police, and the general public still knows next to nothing about the circumstances surrounding his death. No police report has been released, journalists have been detained, and clashes between police and protesters continue to erupt as the eyes of the world look on. Making things all the worse is the fact that some members of the community, whether out of outrage or plain selfishness, have taken to looting and destroying local stores in a misguided response to the overbearing incompetence being displayed by their police force.
The chaos in Missouri has weighed especially heavy on welterweight contender Tyron Woodley, a Ferguson native who has been forced to watch the destruction of his hometown from afar while preparing for his co-main event matchup against Dong Hyun Kim at this weekend’s Fight Night 48: Bisping vs. Le card in Macau. In an attempt to keep the distractions at a minimum, Woodley’s coach has banned him from accessing social media of any kind. Still, the turmoil is all too real for Woodley, who compared Ferguson to Iraq when speaking with FoxSports:
Woodley was in town last week and drove through his neighborhood one morning after an ugly night of unrest. He couldn’t believe what he saw: auto-parts stores, Walmarts, meat markets and beauty salons, all torn apart by looting.
“If I put this video on the Internet, you wouldn’t even believe it,” Woodley said. “It’s so horrible.
“It’s almost like they’re at war. It’s like Iraq. … The best thing I can do from this far away is support the positive. There’s nothing wrong with protesting, to peacefully assemble, but also be sure it’s peaceful.”
Days out from one of the biggest fights of his career, Woodley knows that there is little he can do to help the neighbors, friends, and family members involved in the protests. Rather than devote too much of his attention to the plight of his hometown and risk losing focus on Kim in doing so, Woodley says that all he can do is try to serve as a role model to the people of Ferguson in these unstable times:
The best thing I can do for my city this far away is go out and show that someone who’s from that environment is doing something with their life — has a college education, is a pro athlete, a stunt actor, a gym owner, an entrepreneur. I am all of those things, and I’m from Ferguson.
There’s no denying that the events transpiring in Ferguson have reached far beyond the city’s limits, which hasn’t exactly made it easy for Woodley to avoid reading up on the situation. As he told BloodyElbow:
I was all in to it, reading and following up. A lot of the people involved were people I’ve seen, are in my high school, my friends, or family members. I went to that gas station many times to fill up and my house is literally two minutes from there, so it hits very near at home.
Our world in general is pretty f-ed up right now, but you have to be able to put that away and be focused thinking of the task at hand.”
None of these missteps have had any impact on Silva himself, mind you. While we are *still* awaiting word as to the length of Silva’s suspension for said skipped drug test, “The Axe Murderer” has continued to call out guys like Luke Rockhold as if nothing has happened at all. But with Rockhold too busy tearing down Michael Bisping and Vitor Belfort* at every possible opportunity, Wanderlei has been forced to shift his sights elsewhere. More specifically, to Dan Henderson, whom Silva split a pair of contests with in his PRIDE heyday:
It’s not news that I want to face Vitor Belfort or Chael Sonnen. But Dan Henderson is another guy that I want to fight, it’s a viable possibility. We’re 1-1 tied and it would be nice to have a tiebreaker of our score. In my last fight at PRIDE, I lost my belt to him and I couldn’t have a rematch because we left. If this fight happens, I’ll ask him to bring the belt so the winner can have it after the fight.
(On second thought, we could probably watch this again.)
None of these missteps have had any impact on Silva himself, mind you. While we are *still* awaiting word as to the length of Silva’s suspension for said skipped drug test, “The Axe Murderer” has continued to call out guys like Luke Rockhold as if nothing has happened at all. But with Rockhold too busy tearing down Michael Bisping and Vitor Belfort* at every possible opportunity, Wanderlei has been forced to shift his sights elsewhere. More specifically, to Dan Henderson, whom Silva split a pair of contests with in his PRIDE heyday:
It’s not news that I want to face Vitor Belfort or Chael Sonnen. But Dan Henderson is another guy that I want to fight, it’s a viable possibility. We’re 1-1 tied and it would be nice to have a tiebreaker of our score. In my last fight at PRIDE, I lost my belt to him and I couldn’t have a rematch because we left. If this fight happens, I’ll ask him to bring the belt so the winner can have it after the fight.
“It’s not news that I want to face Vitor Belfort or Chael Sonnen.” That’s true, Wandy, but only because one is challenging for the title and the other is, you know, retired. Also, you refused to fight Sonnen on no less than three occasions, which removes some of the credence from that statement. I do like the idea of holding a fight in the UFC for a PRIDE belt, though, and can’t tell you how excited I am at the prospect of Nick Diaz vs. Paul Daley II for the UFC Strikeforce Welterweight One-Round Championship.
Not that it matters, because again, Silva is likely facing an incredibly lengthy suspension whenever the NSAC gets its shit together, but Hendo is open to the idea of a trilogy fight:
So Nation, anyone interested in seeing Silva vs. Hendo III when the former returns from his stay on Planet Crazypants Bananas?
