MISSOURI CITY, TX, September 13, 2011 – If you’re reading, then you’re probably fully aware of this already but it’s fight week here in Houston! We’ll have our comprehensive guide to Legacy Fighting Championship 8 coming up soon but before we get to that, we’d like to present our readers with one last pre-fight interview with yet another dynamic fighter set to compete on Friday night’s card in Rashon Lewis, otherwise known to his fans as “Sho-Nuff!”
A former collegiate quarterback and All-American track athlete for Abilene’s McMurry University, Rashon chose to make the jump to mixed martial arts after his junior year despite his status as a starter on the team. Making his MMA debut in October 2010, Rashon won his first bout before being slowed by a decision loss to a much more experienced fighter this past April. Realizing that he has to focus on adding technique to capitalize on his God-given natural athletic ability, Rashon has thrown himself into training as of late – treating this sport as his job because that’s exactly what he wants to be.
He’ll be facing his greatest professional test yet against fellow collegiate athlete Ricardo Talavera (West Virginia University, Baseball) this Friday night at the Arena Theater. Read on and see what Rashon has to say prior to his next bout.
Sho-Nuff, thanks for taking the interview before your fight this Friday at Legacy FC 8. What’s life like for you nowadays heading into the fight? Anything else going on besides training?
Man, everything is going good. I’ve got my dogs that I do protection training with but other than that, my whole life has really turned into training, to tell you the truth. I feel like I’m behind the learning curve when you’ve got guys that have been doing this (MMA) all their lives or since they were kids. I’m really training all the time because I feel like I’m so far behind but I’m slowly catching up. Training is really my job now.
I see you’re originally from Missouri City. Do you still have a lot of supporters out in that area coming to see you fight?
Oh yeah man. I stay in Missouri City right now. I have a house over here in Mo’City and I’m born and bred here man. I love staying over here. We have some of the Legacy fight posters up at some of our local convenience stores and when I go in there, the guys that are loitering outside (they not supposed to be but you know how that go…), they ask me about the fighting and the training and wear my t-shirts. There’s a lot of love and support out here man. A lot of my sponsors are from out here in this area as well. I get a lot of love out here.
If we were to ask one of your closest friends or your family out there to describe you as a person, what would they say about you?
I’m crazy man. They’d tell you I was crazy since the day I was born, you know what I mean. I love to laugh and I love to make light of any type of situation no matter how serious it may be. I love to laugh and I love to live life and like I said, I’m a very crazy, very animated person.
Speaking of crazy, MMA is a pretty demanding sport man. Why’d you decide to go this route instead of something like an average 9-5 office job?
Well that’s not me. That’s never been me. It was either going to be the NFL or something like this. I’ve decided I’m going to be a professional athlete one way or another. The only reason football didn’t work out for me was that I got tired of the coaches man. The coaches in college football are really so involved that they become kind of luck a puppetmaster to your future. When I came out of my junior year, I kind of just got fed up with it. I was starting and everything like that so there was no problem there in that department but the politics and understanding that this guy (coaches) was the only real link between you and the next level, I became very disenchanted with that. I wanted to move on to something where I was in total control. I’m a control freak… Eventually I ended up on YouTube and looking up all these techniques and had one of my friends holding pads for me. Seriously, it was like the blind leading the blind during my senior year before I graduated and came home but that’s what I decided to do – I wanted to choose the MMA route.
As a pro in MMA, I know you say you’re still catching up skill wise but one of the things people have raved about is your athleticism. Is that something you really on? What else are you working on?
Well I stepped back and looked at the video after my last fight (IXFA, Justin Muray) and I was like, “Damn, I’m three or four times the athlete that guy was…” but strength and quickness can only do for you so much without actual technique behind it. Athleticism in this sport can go a long way but without the proper guidance, you’re kind of just there in the boat without a battle, you know what I’m saying? That’s kind of how I felt and I know I needed to get better. Moving forward, I’m trying to focus on doing the critical things I have to do, that way my athleticism works for me and not against me.
Now I’ve seen you mention the term 1% a lot online after your training sessions. What does that mean to you?
It goes back to getting better. I mean, some days I’ll go in and my sparring will be shitty and other days I’ll train and my sparring will be great… The thing about it is that no matter happens, even if I feel like I took a step back that day, just the fact that I went in and worked that day, I feel like I’m getting better. After it’s all said and done, when I get back to the crib, whether I feel good or bad about a certain day I still got 1% done. That’s the goal, to get 1% better than the day before every day.
At this point, what do you feel your biggest strengths are as a fighter? What aspect of your game do you need or want to improve most?
To be honest with you and this is going to sound cliché but I really feel like I need to work on my whole game. I don’t want to just say that I want to be a great striker or that I want to be a great ground guy. I’m looking to be an overall athlete in this sport where my opponent don’t know what the hell I’m going to do in that cage. I might double leg somebody or explode striking or something else. I don’t want to really on any one thing. I want to be able to fight anywhere it goes because I love to fight. That’s why I think this next fight is going to be a great one too…
Speaking of which, you’ll be fighting Ricardo Talavera at Legacy FC 8 in just a few days. I’m sure you’ve seen his fight with Jeff Rexroad by now since he’s your teammate and all. What are your thoughts on your own matchup with him?
I know he’s a guy that’s going to fight. That why when Mick told me about this fight, I got immediately excited. I wasn’t excited because of the fact that my teammate beat him or anything regarding that fight… This is the fight game and on any given night, anybody can win or lose. That’s just the way this game goes. But with Ricardo, I know he’ll fight me. The last time I fought, the guy across from just me just wanted to sit back and counter off what I was doing. But with this guy right here, man he’s going to be a great test for me because this guy pushes forward. He WANTS to fight. That ought to make fireworks.
Any specific thoughts on how you guys match up or strategy or anything like that?
Man I’m just going to go in there and work. Like I said, since I’m so new to this, I can’t really give you what I’m going to do so I can be successful. It’s not just because I don’t want to say anything… but more so because I just don’t know. This is mixed martial arts. There might be one move that I do that works best so of course I’m going to try and exploit that but I don’t really know what move that is at the moment. I’m going to have to get in the cage and figure that out. Then when I know what I can be successful with, I can going back to the well and we’ll see what happens from there.
Whenever we come to the end of our interviews, I always like to give fighters the opportunity to address their opponents with a message or anything else they want to get across. When I gave Ricardo that opportunity, he reflected on the fact that you were a quarterback and said, “Watch out for the Blitz.” Any thoughts in response to that?
Yeah, tell him I’m all All-American track athlete and I rushed for almost a thousand yards in my last year playing football. The blitz has never affected me. <laughs> Again, I’m an athlete, man! You ever watch Michael Vick play? He gets blitzed all the time and he gets sacked a lot but I guarantee you this – he knows how to win. Have you shit he gets out and how he makes guys pay when they blitz him? …That’s all I have to say to that.
What’s next for you after this fight? Any specific plans for the near future?
Just to keep fighting and keep working on my game, that’s the goal. I’m not one of those guys that’s going to jump back in right away since I like to have full training camps and need to continue to improve but maybe you guys will see me again in December or January. Whenever it is, I’m just going to continue my emphasis on growing and getting better as a fighter.
Sounds like a plan. Thanks for taking the time to speak with us during fight week. Anybody you want to thank before we go?
First of all, I want to thank Paradigm and my family. Of course thanks to my sponsors like Joseph Addai, FryDays Sports Grill, Hardcore Pilates, Bogie’s Pub & Grill, Smokey J’s BBQ, Enigma Fotos, Breakaway Speed, Dai-Ichi Shotokan Karate-Do in Missouri City, Doctor Wells Orthodontics in Pearland… There’s a few guys in there that I might be forgetting but since I’m doing this off the top of the dome but just thanks to everybody that’s been supporting me.
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