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Mayhem Miller talks about DREAM 16 fight against Kazushi Sakuraba and his future in Strikeforce

By Zach Arnold | September 14, 2010

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KENNY RICE: “So, Jason, let’s get to it. You go back to Japan, you’re taking on Sakuraba who lost his last fight to Ralek Gracie. How’s everything been going for yourself? Because you’ve had a little bit of time off here to get ready for this.”

MAYHEM MILLER: “Well, you know, I’ve been training anyway and it was just getting ready for whatever came up and luckily, you know, this came up so I just ramped up my training to 1000% and it’s kind of weird for me right now, honestly. I get to fight like a legend, like to me I watched this guy all coming up and kind of modeled myself after him and watching him fight when I was younger was like a passing of the torch from that traditional like “this is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu,” I mean you could see where fighting was going, you know like he started beating all the Gracies and you could tell that fighting was becoming this hybrid of wrestling, boxing, and grappling instead of like just style vs. style. So, for me to punch his face in will be very great.”

BAS RUTTEN: “Wow. When you see him, you never realize now looking at him that he’s 41 years old.”

MAYHEM MILLER: “Yeah!”

BAS RUTTEN: “And he’s been through some wars!”

MAYHEM MILLER: “He’s been through some wars, yeah.”

BAS RUTTEN: “I mean, the three fights against Wanderlei.”

MAYHEM MILLER: “Like, you know, I got to win this fight, you know he’s older, older than me but he’s still dangerous.”

BAS RUTTEN: “Oh, he’s very dangerous. Very explosive power in his punches.”

MAYHEM MILLER: “Going for a submission and just trying to tear your arm off or you know his fight before this last fight he lost, I mean he was getting massacred and then just pulls off this submission of the year out of nowhere, you know, gets a kneebar on the guy. I mean, I’m going in there with a clear head and I’m fighting smart.”

BAS RUTTEN: “Yeah.”

JOE ROGAN: “Remember when he popped onto the scene when he first fought Conan (Silveira)? Remember that?”

MAYHEM MILLER: “No! I don’t remember that.”

JOE ROGAN: “Yeah! UFC Japan.”

MAYHEM MILLER: “OH YEAH, I REMEMBER THAT. When they stopped the fight.”

BAS RUTTEN: “All the way back to the days where the arm couldn’t be broken, right? He had that thing on his arm, ‘my arm cannot be broken,’ armbar, he got an armbar.”

JOE ROGAN: “He tapped him, he got him with a far-side armbar.”

BAS RUTTEN: “I was there.”

JOE ROGAN: “Remember when they stopped the fight too soon? He dropped down for a takedown and Big John mistakenly though he got hurt and he stopped the fight and let him come back.”

BAS RUTTEN: “And Sakuraba stayed in the cage, remember? He didn’t go out. He said, no, I’m not going to go out until they change the verdict and they changed!”

JOE ROGAN: “Nobody even knew who Sakuraba was back then.”

MAYHEM MILLER: “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

JOE ROGAN: “He’s a real icon, he’s one of the few guys, a real true original.”

BAS RUTTEN: “Yeah.”

KENNY RICE: “In many ways, this is one of your biggest fights ever.”

MAYHEM MILLER: “Yeah, yeah.”

KENNY RICE: “I mean, this may be the biggest in some ways.”

MAYHEM MILLER: “I mean, for me, every fight coming up is the biggest fight ever. The name recognition that goes with Sakuraba and you know he’s got this legendary aura around him. I mean, it’s not going to stop me from beating him up. Like I said before, man, I beat up my Dad plenty of times.”

KENNY RICE: “You didn’t get paid for that, did you?”

MAYHEM MILLER: “Nah.”

BAS RUTTEN: “Total satisfaction. “The satisfaction knowing that you can take him out.”

MAYHEM MILLER: “He’s still got a better intra-family record than I do, but still, you know, you’re as good as your last fight.”

BAS RUTTEN: “That’s a nice, warm family right there.”

KENNY RICE: “Let me ask you about Strikeforce. Are you still in the mix there with Strikeforce? It was Jacare and Kennedy and, you know, the whole thing, we know all the thing that happened in Nasvhille. Is life still good? Good graces you’ll fight again in Strikeforce?”

MAYHEM MILLER: “I mean, I don’t know, I don’t talk to them directly, you know, I have managers for that but, you know, I still have a contract, you know, with Strikeforce and I’m willing to fight for them.”

JOE ROGAN: “What did you think about Tim Kennedy and Jacare fighting for the title?”

MAYHEM MILLER: (pauses) “I don’t know, I mean… What aspect do you mean?”

JOE ROGAN: “Well, both guys you’ve fought.”

RON KRUCK: “I mean, that’s a title you [fought for], obviously.”

MAYHEM MILLER: “Yeah, that’s true. I don’t know, you know, I thought that was a strange choice for them because I’m the last one to fight for the title, you know, and I lost a decision, a close decision with Shields and then with Jacare and Kennedy fighting, two guys that I’ve fought before, I don’t know. I don’t know where that puts me in the whole mix. I mean, I guess…”

JOE ROGAN: “Have they talked to you about a rematch with Jacare?”

MAYHEM MILLER: “I’d love that! You know, I love that! I would love to kick him in the head legally, you know. I just think that it’s like, I don’t know. I don’t know exactly what their plans are for the future and the title picture for Strikeforce, you know whatever it holds for me, you know I’m open to anything. I want to fight.”

JOE ROGAN: “Isn’t it weird seeing Jacare win a kickboxing contest?”

MAYHEM MILLER: “YEAH!”

JOE ROGAN: “Actually, it was a kickboxing fight.”

MAYHEM MILLER: “I kind of knew that Jacare had been working on his kickboxing and definitely that’s the area he had been working on so I think he wanted to kind of showcase it there in the fight.”

JOE ROGAN: “Yeah, a little bit of that but I was surprised he didn’t take him down, there was almost no ground fighting in that fight.”

MAYHEM MILLER: “Yeah, I mean, I think that his corner was telling him that he was doing good enough to win the fight, you know. I know. I thought it could have went either way.”

JOE ROGAN: “I don’t tune into a Jacare fight to see kickboxing, I tuned in to see one of the best jiu-jitsu guys in the world.”

MAYHEM MILLER: “Yeah, grappling.”

JOE ROGAN: “And to see some mid-level kickboxing…”

Topics: DREAM, Japan, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 1 Comment » | Permalink | Trackback |

One Response to “Mayhem Miller talks about DREAM 16 fight against Kazushi Sakuraba and his future in Strikeforce”

  1. Zack says:

    Fuck it…WAR SAKU 39!!!

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