20 Questions with SkySkrape of TapouT
Courtesy: TapouT.com
1.When did you fall in love with MMA?
I think the very first time I ever saw it. I had heard about it I was in high school and my brother said, “Yeah, we’re going to watch the UFC fight,” but I thought he said U-S-C as in the Trojans and I said, “Why are you going to watch the football game?!” I thought, “My brother doesn’t watch football. What’s he doing that for?” Then he said, “No, no, The UFC, the ultimate fighting where they fight in the cage and such. So I went with him and watched it and I saw this little Brazilian dude who was submittin’ everybody and I thought, “Okay, just let me check it out.” I saw this guy named Royce Gracie who was pretty much wearing pajamas, or what I thought were, I was like, “Why’s this guy wearing pajamas?” He’s this little, little tiny guy fighting big ol’ muscular guys and he was chokin’ them and hitting them and I thought, “That’s something I can get into because the smallest guy out there is whoopin’ everybody’s ass. So I kind of fell in love with it the first time I saw it. That was in ’94 I think it was.. mid ’94.
2. Badunkadunks, boxers or comando?
Actually, both. Right now I’m comando. I have nothing on. But, I wear my tighty whiteys, my duhduntaduhs, that’s all I have actually.
3. You have a 1966 Chevy Nova Wagon that you plan to drop a LS1 Corvette engine (meaty)...
I just bought a 67 Nova. I just did the interior on the ’66 Nova wagon and then I’m putting the Corvette motor in it.
Would you rather a 1933 Roadster or a 1970 muscle car?
A ‘70s muscle car. I HATE ‘30s roadsters, I hate, hate them. MMA is my passion, my love, but cars –muscle cars- is my second thing. I have 7 or 8 old cars, muscle cars so that’s what I do in my off time if I ever have any.
So would you do a Chevy 454 or a 428 Mustang or do you not care as long as there is horsepower?
I only have Chevys. I have a ’63 Impala, a ’55 Chevy and those others. That’s all I have is Chevys. All small blocks, no big blocks.
4. You guys have so much experience going out to little shows and seeing up-and-comer guys. Name three guys (or girls) that we should all have on our radar.
There’s a kid out of Greg Jackson’s gym named John Dodson . He’s probably the most athletic fighter I’ve ever seen; even more athletic than St-Pierre, St-Pierre trains with them you know[Greg Jackson’s camp]. Dodson is probably 5’2” and fights at 125# and he’s built like, like St-Pierre but in a 5’2” package. Him and also Julie Kedzie out of Greg Jackson’s gym. She fought Gina Carano a couple of years ago, and actually the night she fought Gina Carano was the night she met Greg Jackson. She moved down to Greg Jackson’s right after that to train with him and I would say if Julie and Carano fought again Julie would beat her. She’s just gotten that much better and Greg Jackson’s so great at what he does, he just makes people champions so I’d say those two and the third would be … you know what, I don’t even know. There are just so many up-and-comers that aren’t getting noticed. Like the other night, Shannon Gugerty fought Matt Grice in the UFC. Matt Grice was on The Ultimate Fighter, Shannon Gugerty trains out of San Diego and put Matt Grice to sleep with a guillotine. He’s another great up-and-comer.
5. Now, name three guys that you have a man-crush on (GSP is implied).
I don’t have a man crush on anybody. I have a man-crush on Punkass, I have a man-crush on Mask, and I have a man-crush on myself. Hahaha… let’s do this, let’s do this. I’ll say Greg Jackson, Mark DellaGrotte and Tommy “Trauma” Sauer who is a fighter out of Florida. Three of the best guys you’ll ever meet.
6. Most memorable fight you've seen?
You know I’ve been asked this questions quite a bit lately but I didn’t really answer them, mostly because there have been so many. But one I have wanted to say is BJ Penn and Caol Uno when BJ knocked him out in like 10-11 seconds, something like that. The memorable part wasn’t him [BJ] knocking him [Caol] out, but if you were in the arena you saw BJ knock him out, hop the fence, and sprint back up the ramp-cause back in that day the had the ramp runnin’ down the middle- and he ran. He was so hyped and excited he hopped the fence, ran back up the ramp, and ran back into his locker room, all within 15 seconds. I thought, “Oh my god, that’s the craziest shit I’ve ever seen!” So Dana made him come back out, and the athletic commission made him come back out because they were thinking, “Oh, he might have had something under his gloves like a roll of nickels or something,” because he knocked him out and sprinted out of there. I was thinking, “Oh, please don’t come back, that would be so huge if he didn’t come back.” But they made him come back. For me, that was probably one of the most memorable.
7. Craziest thing you’ve ever done?
We were filming out in Chicago, at Jeff Curran’s gym, and before we went in we had stopped on the way and bought a ton of fireworks and had them in our motorhome. Before we went in-Punkass had no idea what was going on this was Mask and myself- we grabbed these huge bottle rockets, they were probably a foot and a half long and the actually rocket part was a good six inches. It looked like…it was bigger than a roll of quarters the rocket part was. So I hid it up under my sleeve as we were walking in the gym. Everybody was standing around just kind of talking about things while Mask goes to the front of the gym and sets this bottle rocket up, kind of on the ground but on the leg of a chair. It was aimed right at the crowd of people which was probably a good 50-60 feet away. I knew it was coming so I put my back towards Charles [Mask] where the firework was coming from ‘cause I thought, “If it’s going to hit me I’ll just let it hit me in the back.” So we’re talking, talking, talking and it was one of theose bottle rockets that scream, really loud when it was launched. All the sudden I hear that sound and I tought, “Oh shit, here it comes.” It was also one of the bottle rockets that when it blew up, it blew up bright colors. So it shoots right past me, I turn and cover my chin with my shoulder as I turn away and it exploded all these colors were flying in the air. Then, I hear somebody screaming bloody murder, hoping up and down on one foot, and it’s Bart Palaszewski. The bottle rocket hit him in his big toe. The worst part of it was, was Bart had a fight-it was when Bart was fighting in the IFL- it hit him in the toe and he’s screaming and yelling, falling on the mat and rolling around. I just thought, “Oh my god, he’s not going to be able to fight.” So I just start laughing like, okay, let’s just try and laugh this off, laugh our way out of it and Mask is doing the same thing. Yeah, that was the craziest stuff I think we’ve ever done.
8. You’ve now been with TapouT for just over 12 years. What do you see as happening in the future?
Continued growth and trying to help make this sport the biggest sport in the world. Obvioiusly, things are super tough with the passing of Charles [Mask] not only business-wise, but him being my best friend, he was like a big brother to me. He was more than just a partner; he was so many things to me. With that loss, things are obviously tough, I honestly don’t know how I can do it and how I get through it and keep going. I think maybe it’s because I know he would want me to…I think, I don’t know. He said to me numerous times that if anything ever happened to me, he’d say, “God forbid anything ever happen to you, but if it did, bro I’d check out, I’d sell my part of the company.” I keep hearing that in my head but I just think trying to help people, that’s the main objective. To help people, grow the sport, try to help the fighters of the sport –the underdogs-. I see this sport being the biggest sport in the world and I see Tapout-Punkass and myself- being right there with it, along side of it. I think that was shown this past weekend with Charles [Mask] being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Those guys, Dana and Lorenzo, they saw how influential Charles was to everything, to this sport period. That was a great honor that they did that.
9. Can you think of any one fighter that you originally doubted but maybe Mask or Punkass thought they would be great… and they actually turned out to surprise you?
No, honestly, I don’t do that. I don’t look at fighters and doubt them. You can’t look at somebody and think they’re not going to be good. If we’d have thought that when we saw Josh Barnett for the first time he was 330# and he looked like a fat, sloppy, just a big kid. You’d think he was going to get in there and get his ass whooped, flip forward to a year and a half later, Charles and I are walking him down the ramp and he was about to fight Randy Couture for the heavyweight belt and he beat him up and stopped him in the second round. So, over the years you just learn it doesn’t matter what somebody looks like as long as they are training hard and they’re dedicated. You just don’t doubt anybody.
10. What’s the “softer” side of SkySkrape?
I spend every moment I can with my daughter; I have a 13-year-old daughter. As big as a dork you see me acting sometimes, a lot of that comes from her; most of it’s from Mask, but a lot of it’s from her. I told her after Charles past away, I said, “You’re the only one that I can act, the way I acted with Charles, with.” Stealing the little bit of make-up I let her wear, and putting it on and trying to embarrass her in front of her friends…I guess that’s the softer side of me.
11. Ideal vacation destination?
You know, we’ve only had one “vacation” in the last 12 years and we went to Cabo [San Lucas, Mexico]. We all flew down there and hung out in Cabo for about 4-5 days. No cell phones, no body was allowed to bring a cell phone or computers, none of that. We just got to hang out and relax and recharge the batteries.
12. What’s the one thing you can’t leave home without?
There’s three: 1. A little tube of Chapstick…I think from going to Vegas so much my lips get all chapped. Then, I also carry this little dog tag in my pocket, it was something of Charles’ and I wear this necklace. A friend of mine made these necklaces after Charles past, it’s this little urn, it’s got a Tapout logo on it and it says “Mask.” I made a couple.
13. Favorite sport… outside of MMA?
Basketball, basketball in general, I like basketball period. I’ll watch guys basketball, college basketball, I’ll even watch some women’s basketball.
14. Who is the one fighter that you would give your right (or left) nut to see fight? What’s the match up you’d like to see?
I wouldn’t give those up for anything. To say now-a-days there’s not really a match up that’d I’d give up anything for. There’s always going to be great fights; every fight there’s a great fight. There are those monumental fights here and there that are big things...but I definetly wouldn’t give up one of my nuts for anything.
15. There’s a five way figth between: Bruce Lee, Tony Jaa, Jackie Chan, Jean Claude Van Damme, or Chuck Norris… who wins?
Uhhhh…c’mon now!? Chuck Norris would whoop all their asses. Everybody knows Chuck Norris would whoop their asses.
16. Aside from the TapouT gyms, what’s the best MMA gym you’ve seen?
You know what I like, I love to see these big huge gyms popping up. Our gyms a big huge gym, Big John McCarthy has a big huge gym, but I also like to see guys like Mark DellaGrotte out in Boston. He has a small-I can barely walk in there-the roof is so low I have to duck my head to walk in that place. You get in there with these guys and they start working out and the sweat starts building up and the place gets muggy and there’er no windows in the place so you can’t see out. Once you start getting in these nice, big gyms, you get in there and everything’s all laid out for you and there’s showers and a red carpet for ya. Then it gets too easy, too comfortable. But when you’re in these old gyms with the old vibe, that’s where it all originate from. I like those gyms. I like those feels better than the big huge gyms.
17. You’re INCREDIBLY fan-friendly. Does it ever get to be just too much?
No, I’m pretty much a ham, so I love it. It’s something we’ve always wanted. When we first started this company we wanted to be rockstars in our own way. We kind of had to become our own marketing in a way because we couldn’t afford to pay fighters…and we wanted to be rockstars. You’ve just got to deal with it, if you don’t want to deal with it just don’t go out.
18. Finish this sentence… I’m totally not gay but…
…I like guys? Hahaha, just kidding…everytime I get out of the shower I lotion my body and put face lotion on my face. Charles was very metro, I got a lot of things from him.
19. What’s the one thing you could never get enough of?
Free time! I can never get enough free time. I’ll watch T.V. but only certain channels. The Learning Channel, The History Channel, Discovery, Speed. I never watch the news. There’s never anything good on there.
20. What’s this “pilot” about? What networks are shopping it?
With everything that’s happened they want to reshoot more. The format of the show has changed, obviously, the dynamic of the show has changed. Just the different elements, they want to refilm it and try to resell it.
Are you not working with Versus anymore or is it up in the air?
It’s up in the air. I did an interview for Versus the other day and it was kind of weird. We love Versus for taking a chance on us a lot, a lot of other people passed on our show, they took a chance and put us on. Our first season did great. Between the first and second season they replayed the show a billion times, but not once since the second season ended have they replayed a show. So I don’t know what’s going on there. I don’t know if we pissed somebody off or what… we don’t know what’s going on.
Is it going to be basically the same?
Sort of, yeah; acting like a jack ass. Punkass getting irritated; trying to find fighters.
I think the very first time I ever saw it. I had heard about it I was in high school and my brother said, “Yeah, we’re going to watch the UFC fight,” but I thought he said U-S-C as in the Trojans and I said, “Why are you going to watch the football game?!” I thought, “My brother doesn’t watch football. What’s he doing that for?” Then he said, “No, no, The UFC, the ultimate fighting where they fight in the cage and such. So I went with him and watched it and I saw this little Brazilian dude who was submittin’ everybody and I thought, “Okay, just let me check it out.” I saw this guy named Royce Gracie who was pretty much wearing pajamas, or what I thought were, I was like, “Why’s this guy wearing pajamas?” He’s this little, little tiny guy fighting big ol’ muscular guys and he was chokin’ them and hitting them and I thought, “That’s something I can get into because the smallest guy out there is whoopin’ everybody’s ass. So I kind of fell in love with it the first time I saw it. That was in ’94 I think it was.. mid ’94.
2. Badunkadunks, boxers or comando?
Actually, both. Right now I’m comando. I have nothing on. But, I wear my tighty whiteys, my duhduntaduhs, that’s all I have actually.
3. You have a 1966 Chevy Nova Wagon that you plan to drop a LS1 Corvette engine (meaty)...
I just bought a 67 Nova. I just did the interior on the ’66 Nova wagon and then I’m putting the Corvette motor in it.
Would you rather a 1933 Roadster or a 1970 muscle car?
A ‘70s muscle car. I HATE ‘30s roadsters, I hate, hate them. MMA is my passion, my love, but cars –muscle cars- is my second thing. I have 7 or 8 old cars, muscle cars so that’s what I do in my off time if I ever have any.
So would you do a Chevy 454 or a 428 Mustang or do you not care as long as there is horsepower?
I only have Chevys. I have a ’63 Impala, a ’55 Chevy and those others. That’s all I have is Chevys. All small blocks, no big blocks.
4. You guys have so much experience going out to little shows and seeing up-and-comer guys. Name three guys (or girls) that we should all have on our radar.
There’s a kid out of Greg Jackson’s gym named John Dodson . He’s probably the most athletic fighter I’ve ever seen; even more athletic than St-Pierre, St-Pierre trains with them you know[Greg Jackson’s camp]. Dodson is probably 5’2” and fights at 125# and he’s built like, like St-Pierre but in a 5’2” package. Him and also Julie Kedzie out of Greg Jackson’s gym. She fought Gina Carano a couple of years ago, and actually the night she fought Gina Carano was the night she met Greg Jackson. She moved down to Greg Jackson’s right after that to train with him and I would say if Julie and Carano fought again Julie would beat her. She’s just gotten that much better and Greg Jackson’s so great at what he does, he just makes people champions so I’d say those two and the third would be … you know what, I don’t even know. There are just so many up-and-comers that aren’t getting noticed. Like the other night, Shannon Gugerty fought Matt Grice in the UFC. Matt Grice was on The Ultimate Fighter, Shannon Gugerty trains out of San Diego and put Matt Grice to sleep with a guillotine. He’s another great up-and-comer.
5. Now, name three guys that you have a man-crush on (GSP is implied).
I don’t have a man crush on anybody. I have a man-crush on Punkass, I have a man-crush on Mask, and I have a man-crush on myself. Hahaha… let’s do this, let’s do this. I’ll say Greg Jackson, Mark DellaGrotte and Tommy “Trauma” Sauer who is a fighter out of Florida. Three of the best guys you’ll ever meet.
6. Most memorable fight you've seen?
You know I’ve been asked this questions quite a bit lately but I didn’t really answer them, mostly because there have been so many. But one I have wanted to say is BJ Penn and Caol Uno when BJ knocked him out in like 10-11 seconds, something like that. The memorable part wasn’t him [BJ] knocking him [Caol] out, but if you were in the arena you saw BJ knock him out, hop the fence, and sprint back up the ramp-cause back in that day the had the ramp runnin’ down the middle- and he ran. He was so hyped and excited he hopped the fence, ran back up the ramp, and ran back into his locker room, all within 15 seconds. I thought, “Oh my god, that’s the craziest shit I’ve ever seen!” So Dana made him come back out, and the athletic commission made him come back out because they were thinking, “Oh, he might have had something under his gloves like a roll of nickels or something,” because he knocked him out and sprinted out of there. I was thinking, “Oh, please don’t come back, that would be so huge if he didn’t come back.” But they made him come back. For me, that was probably one of the most memorable.
7. Craziest thing you’ve ever done?
We were filming out in Chicago, at Jeff Curran’s gym, and before we went in we had stopped on the way and bought a ton of fireworks and had them in our motorhome. Before we went in-Punkass had no idea what was going on this was Mask and myself- we grabbed these huge bottle rockets, they were probably a foot and a half long and the actually rocket part was a good six inches. It looked like…it was bigger than a roll of quarters the rocket part was. So I hid it up under my sleeve as we were walking in the gym. Everybody was standing around just kind of talking about things while Mask goes to the front of the gym and sets this bottle rocket up, kind of on the ground but on the leg of a chair. It was aimed right at the crowd of people which was probably a good 50-60 feet away. I knew it was coming so I put my back towards Charles [Mask] where the firework was coming from ‘cause I thought, “If it’s going to hit me I’ll just let it hit me in the back.” So we’re talking, talking, talking and it was one of theose bottle rockets that scream, really loud when it was launched. All the sudden I hear that sound and I tought, “Oh shit, here it comes.” It was also one of the bottle rockets that when it blew up, it blew up bright colors. So it shoots right past me, I turn and cover my chin with my shoulder as I turn away and it exploded all these colors were flying in the air. Then, I hear somebody screaming bloody murder, hoping up and down on one foot, and it’s Bart Palaszewski. The bottle rocket hit him in his big toe. The worst part of it was, was Bart had a fight-it was when Bart was fighting in the IFL- it hit him in the toe and he’s screaming and yelling, falling on the mat and rolling around. I just thought, “Oh my god, he’s not going to be able to fight.” So I just start laughing like, okay, let’s just try and laugh this off, laugh our way out of it and Mask is doing the same thing. Yeah, that was the craziest stuff I think we’ve ever done.
8. You’ve now been with TapouT for just over 12 years. What do you see as happening in the future?
Continued growth and trying to help make this sport the biggest sport in the world. Obvioiusly, things are super tough with the passing of Charles [Mask] not only business-wise, but him being my best friend, he was like a big brother to me. He was more than just a partner; he was so many things to me. With that loss, things are obviously tough, I honestly don’t know how I can do it and how I get through it and keep going. I think maybe it’s because I know he would want me to…I think, I don’t know. He said to me numerous times that if anything ever happened to me, he’d say, “God forbid anything ever happen to you, but if it did, bro I’d check out, I’d sell my part of the company.” I keep hearing that in my head but I just think trying to help people, that’s the main objective. To help people, grow the sport, try to help the fighters of the sport –the underdogs-. I see this sport being the biggest sport in the world and I see Tapout-Punkass and myself- being right there with it, along side of it. I think that was shown this past weekend with Charles [Mask] being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Those guys, Dana and Lorenzo, they saw how influential Charles was to everything, to this sport period. That was a great honor that they did that.
9. Can you think of any one fighter that you originally doubted but maybe Mask or Punkass thought they would be great… and they actually turned out to surprise you?
No, honestly, I don’t do that. I don’t look at fighters and doubt them. You can’t look at somebody and think they’re not going to be good. If we’d have thought that when we saw Josh Barnett for the first time he was 330# and he looked like a fat, sloppy, just a big kid. You’d think he was going to get in there and get his ass whooped, flip forward to a year and a half later, Charles and I are walking him down the ramp and he was about to fight Randy Couture for the heavyweight belt and he beat him up and stopped him in the second round. So, over the years you just learn it doesn’t matter what somebody looks like as long as they are training hard and they’re dedicated. You just don’t doubt anybody.
10. What’s the “softer” side of SkySkrape?
I spend every moment I can with my daughter; I have a 13-year-old daughter. As big as a dork you see me acting sometimes, a lot of that comes from her; most of it’s from Mask, but a lot of it’s from her. I told her after Charles past away, I said, “You’re the only one that I can act, the way I acted with Charles, with.” Stealing the little bit of make-up I let her wear, and putting it on and trying to embarrass her in front of her friends…I guess that’s the softer side of me.
11. Ideal vacation destination?
You know, we’ve only had one “vacation” in the last 12 years and we went to Cabo [San Lucas, Mexico]. We all flew down there and hung out in Cabo for about 4-5 days. No cell phones, no body was allowed to bring a cell phone or computers, none of that. We just got to hang out and relax and recharge the batteries.
12. What’s the one thing you can’t leave home without?
There’s three: 1. A little tube of Chapstick…I think from going to Vegas so much my lips get all chapped. Then, I also carry this little dog tag in my pocket, it was something of Charles’ and I wear this necklace. A friend of mine made these necklaces after Charles past, it’s this little urn, it’s got a Tapout logo on it and it says “Mask.” I made a couple.
13. Favorite sport… outside of MMA?
Basketball, basketball in general, I like basketball period. I’ll watch guys basketball, college basketball, I’ll even watch some women’s basketball.
14. Who is the one fighter that you would give your right (or left) nut to see fight? What’s the match up you’d like to see?
I wouldn’t give those up for anything. To say now-a-days there’s not really a match up that’d I’d give up anything for. There’s always going to be great fights; every fight there’s a great fight. There are those monumental fights here and there that are big things...but I definetly wouldn’t give up one of my nuts for anything.
15. There’s a five way figth between: Bruce Lee, Tony Jaa, Jackie Chan, Jean Claude Van Damme, or Chuck Norris… who wins?
Uhhhh…c’mon now!? Chuck Norris would whoop all their asses. Everybody knows Chuck Norris would whoop their asses.
16. Aside from the TapouT gyms, what’s the best MMA gym you’ve seen?
You know what I like, I love to see these big huge gyms popping up. Our gyms a big huge gym, Big John McCarthy has a big huge gym, but I also like to see guys like Mark DellaGrotte out in Boston. He has a small-I can barely walk in there-the roof is so low I have to duck my head to walk in that place. You get in there with these guys and they start working out and the sweat starts building up and the place gets muggy and there’er no windows in the place so you can’t see out. Once you start getting in these nice, big gyms, you get in there and everything’s all laid out for you and there’s showers and a red carpet for ya. Then it gets too easy, too comfortable. But when you’re in these old gyms with the old vibe, that’s where it all originate from. I like those gyms. I like those feels better than the big huge gyms.
17. You’re INCREDIBLY fan-friendly. Does it ever get to be just too much?
No, I’m pretty much a ham, so I love it. It’s something we’ve always wanted. When we first started this company we wanted to be rockstars in our own way. We kind of had to become our own marketing in a way because we couldn’t afford to pay fighters…and we wanted to be rockstars. You’ve just got to deal with it, if you don’t want to deal with it just don’t go out.
18. Finish this sentence… I’m totally not gay but…
…I like guys? Hahaha, just kidding…everytime I get out of the shower I lotion my body and put face lotion on my face. Charles was very metro, I got a lot of things from him.
19. What’s the one thing you could never get enough of?
Free time! I can never get enough free time. I’ll watch T.V. but only certain channels. The Learning Channel, The History Channel, Discovery, Speed. I never watch the news. There’s never anything good on there.
20. What’s this “pilot” about? What networks are shopping it?
With everything that’s happened they want to reshoot more. The format of the show has changed, obviously, the dynamic of the show has changed. Just the different elements, they want to refilm it and try to resell it.
Are you not working with Versus anymore or is it up in the air?
It’s up in the air. I did an interview for Versus the other day and it was kind of weird. We love Versus for taking a chance on us a lot, a lot of other people passed on our show, they took a chance and put us on. Our first season did great. Between the first and second season they replayed the show a billion times, but not once since the second season ended have they replayed a show. So I don’t know what’s going on there. I don’t know if we pissed somebody off or what… we don’t know what’s going on.
Is it going to be basically the same?
Sort of, yeah; acting like a jack ass. Punkass getting irritated; trying to find fighters.
Questions? Comments? E-mail me:
samantha.lynn.johnson@gmail.com
samantha.lynn.johnson@gmail.com
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