A shooting star flashes upon a midnight sky for an instant, then as quickly as it becomes visible, it is gone. Very rarely does a man can make this same impression in a sport. Mike Van Arsdale has made a dramatic impact on the mixed martial arts world, and then he suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth. Van Arsdale exploded on the MMA scene with an impressive victory in an 8-man tournament in Brazil's brutal IVC. He returned to action three months later and systematically took apart a fairly well experienced fighter and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Torrance gatekeeper, Joe Pardo. Mike looked nearly untouchable until he ran into a freight train named Vanderlei Silva. 1998 was a huge year, but as fast as he gained prominence, he quickly turned up missing on the NHB scene. I tracked down Mike by phone on February 18, 2000 to ask him, "Where the hell is Mike Van Arsdale?"

FCF: Please update everyone as far as where have you been since 1998?
Mike Van Arsdale: Since 98', I joined the army in 1998. In late, actually early November. Why did I do that? Because one of my goals, my main goal is to win the Olympic games in wrestling. And I have two children and I have a wife so I had to take care of my family. So, in order to train for the Olympics and stuff, you know, you have to have money. So I joined the army wrestling team, as a way to support my family, and it would also enable me to train at the Olympic training center in Colorado Spring, which you know when you're doing that you know you got the best of everything you need to make the team. I've been here since April of 99'. I had to go through basic training, six months of that, and then after that, I've been right here in Colorado Springs just getting in shape and slowly building myself up to the point where I can earn that spot. That's about it really.

FCF: It sounds like such a sweet deal that you join the army; you get to wrestle, and get paid for it basically. Why don't you think other wrestlers are doing the same thing that you're doing?
MV: Well…it's not all peaches and cream, you know. When you join the army, you're just like anyone else who enters basic training. You basically give up your freedom when you go in there and you're in the control of the training brigade. You have to eat when they say eat, and you have to march when they say march, and a lot of wrestlers are so independent and so used to their freedom that they're just not willing to give up that time in their life. Me on the other hand, you know, I had a great reason, my daughter, my son. So I just put my own personal stuff aside and said, hey, I got to take care of my family, I can't just train for the games broke, [and] down in the dumps. I have a family. I had great motivation to do it.

FCF: Do you think that the army discipline helps you out as far as training for the Olympics and keeping you more consistently in shape all year round?
MV: You know, we tend to forget things sometimes, but I try to remind myself everyday of how it felt to be away from my family, to be away from the things I love in life, to be isolated in the woods down in Georgia. I try to remind myself everyday of what I've gone through to get to this point. That kind of discipline that you have to have, it does help you because what it does is; it puts you in a situation where you are not getting the finer things in life. You're not making decisions for yourself. We take things for granted so much. I was in that situation and I was like, when I get out of here, I'm going to train harder than I ever did in my life and I try to remind myself of that everyday. What costs have I paid to get to this point? And that just motivates me to train harder. It makes everything more worthwhile, just thinking of everything I've gone through. The harder something is, the more rewarding it becomes. Everyday before I work out, I think about everything I've gone through to get to this point and yes, it definitely motivates me and it gives a little bit of boost as far as discipline goes.

FCF: Is your job in the Army basically to wrestle or do you have some other career and you get the facilities to wrestle?
MV: This is the way it works. You, basically, join the army. You apply for the World Class Athletic Program. I think we have all the Olympic sports in our program. There's someone in the army for track and field, and wrestling, and boxing, and pretty much all the sports. So, you apply while you're in there and if you're accepted based on your background, you go to that unit, which the abbreviations are WCAP, and you basically go through that unit and depending what sport you're in, like for example, in wrestling, we train at the Olympic training center with the freestyle wrestling team. …Sorry man, I lost track there. I just came back from training about three hours straight.

FCF: No problem man, I'm tired myself.
MV: Basically, you have to apply. Everyone who applies does not get in, and once you're in you have to meet certain benchmarks to stay in. They're not going to just let you join it and ride the gravy train for twenty years or anything [laughs]. You got to finish in the top three, top six in the United States and meet certain goals or they are going to get rid of you and get someone else in there. That's all more motivation for me.

FCF: Do they allow only two wrestlers per weight class or no wrestlers in some classes according to their standing nationally?
MV: Generally, they don't stack weight classes up too much, but I've seen as many as two or maybe even three wrestlers in a weight class. I don't think they do it intentionally, but they really don't mind that you're in the same weight class as long as you're competitive on the national and international level.

FCF: Do you look at the military as a long-term career, a vehicle to further your education, or do you have other professional plans?
MV: The military is an experience for me. It was just something I thought I would do. It worked out to my benefit to do it. Also, I'm benefiting the army by representing them in these competitions, especially if I make the Olympic team. As far as making a career out of it, no, I would have done that a long, long ago. I already pretty much know what I'm going to do in my life once I'm done with sports. I'm just enjoying the time I have left in these competitive sports, whether it be wrestling, or submission wrestling, or maybe even some mixed martial arts competitions later on.

FCF: Would you like to share with us these future professional plans after your wrestling career is over?
MV: I'll probably be done wrestling in 2001, at the World Championship in Vegas. That's where I pretty much see myself going. I see myself going to Atlanta. I'm going to the Worlds and I see myself winning both competitions. After that, it's up in the air. I could easily retire from sports. If there was a call, or a demand or something, people want to see me fight or something like that, I wouldn't mind training for some of those competitions because to be quite frank, I thought it was fun to train for them, and it was even more fun to compete in that kind of competitions. It's not as fun to train for wrestling. It's much harder. It's much more demanding on your body. Mentally also, it just drains you to train for this sport. Of course, it's fun to win, but during the competition, unless you're just killing the guys [laughs], it's kind of stressful. Mixed martial arts, if you're not trained for the competition, I think it's more stressful than wrestling, but if you're prepared, and you feel good, and you pretty much know you're going to win. It's just a great feeling overall. It's like a big party, to go to a competition.

FCF: Do you plan to hold off your return to MMA after 2001?
MV: Well, I'm going to compete in Abu Dhabi. It's a submission wrestling tournament, like in a week and a half so that's about as close as I'm going to get to full contact right there. After the Olympic games, maybe I'll enter a tournament or two. Being in the army, I can get permission to do that, but not before the Olympic games. Submission wrestling is close to what I'm doing. It's about taking a person down, controlling a person, maybe opening up and looking for a submission hold, but for me really, it's about being able to control the takedown and trying to control the position on the mat so I have the advantage. In MMA competition, you have to defend a lot more… kicks, punches, elbows, knees. It's a lot different than a submission-wrestling tournament. For some people they are about the same, but I don't really think so. When you get clocked [laughs], or kicked in the head, or something, it opens it up and makes it much more difficult to defend yourself. I don't have time to train for that kind of stuff right now, but the submission wrestling is a little different so…

FCF: You are going to Abu Dhabi and you submitted Joe Pardo, who is basically the gatekeeper of Gracie Torrance, as well as submitting a person in the IVC. Where did you learn your submissions?
MV: Basically, it just happened. It was kind of crazy how it all happened. The person who trained me in Phoenix, Tim McClellan. He was the main person at this particular gym for strength training and conditioning. He was in charge of all the other physical trainers. He invited me down to a gym in Phoenix, we started working out down there, and I just liked his spirit, his attitude. He's just a ruthless strength training coach. I think he's one of the best in the country. What happened was, he invited me to his house and they did martial arts on the weekends. So I go over there thinking, ok, they'll be a few guys over here. I get over there and there's like forty guys in his garage out there in Gilbert, Arizona and they know what they're doing. I get locked up a couple times, choked. I was like, what the heck is going on here? You know, I like doing it, but I was like how are these little guys choking me out? That was the first day and that was really the last day I got submitted with a choke, armbar, ankle lock, or anything. Mark Kerr and those guys, they were training out there. Mark Coleman, you know, some of the bigger names. I don't think they got into the submissions like I did. I mean I just threw myself in there and you know you have to humble yourself to learn this stuff. As a wrestler, you think you know what you're doing, but really to learn submissions you have to open your mind, relax, and just pay attention to what's going on and feel it. You know, a lot of times when I practice, I close my eyes, I don't even look at the guy. I just feel where he's at and that's how you really become good at preventing the submissions and actually learning a few moves yourself. Now in competitions, I know a lot of stuff and I'm sure a lot of these guys that are Jiu-Jitsu experts and Judo experts or whatever, they know a lot of moves, but really in competition, there's only a few they're going to open up if you have anyone that knows what they are doing. So, in competition, I may know how to do something, but I'm not going to do it because what can happen is you can get yourself in trouble. I pretty much learned from Tim McClellan, Christophe Leininger and all of the guys in their dojo.

FCF: How long did you practice submissions before you entered your first NHB fight?
MV: Wow, when I started that in January 1st, 1997 was my first day.

FCF: So about a year, because you competed in…
MV: …[interrupts] I competed in the Contenders in October. Renato Verissimo, he's like a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu champion. He's actually pretty hard to fight [laughs] because he was like 6'2", 180 lbs soaking wet, but he moved really well. He was real flexible. He was long, tall, and skinny, so that was actually my nightmare kind of guy to fight. Bigger guys don't move that fast. They don't move as smoothly, and they're not as squirmy, you know [laughs]. This guy was like hard to fight, but I actually beat him with only ten months of submissions. I was pretty happy about that.

FCF: Actually, I know Renato very well. In fact, he teaches at a school down here in Hawaii.
MV: Yeah, he's pretty hard to beat, but like I said I was prepared. You know I heard a lot from people in MMA that the guy that was training me didn't know what he was doing. I just ignore all of them because when I trained with him, nobody beat me, and I actually didn't have any problems with anyone. When I fought Joe Pardo, I actually let the match last long on purpose just so I could stay on TV. That's what Tim thought I should do [laughs]. [I asked], "Tim, can I just go get him?" [He said,] "no no no, just don't hurt him, just hit him a few times, kick him a few times, play around, don't get in trouble," which I almost did cause I thought he was right handed. I was controlling his right arm so he hit me with that left and I was like, what the heck? This guy has something in his glove [laughs]. He hit me pretty hard and he was lying on his back, but he hit me in the right spot. Anyway, we did that on purpose and the whole plan was to submit him in regulation, some kind of a lock and I used the one that I used in Brazil because I knew it the best. That's what I did. I had a chance to choke him in that fight, but instead of slipping off of his back because it was slippery, I decided to go for something more sure. The plan was not to let him get into overtime. Stay on TV, but don't go into overtime.

FCF: You seem to have an explosive stand up game, which is very uncommon for wrestlers that entered NHB. Did also you train with Tim as far as the standing or do you investigate some boxing?
MV: Well…no boxing at all. Tim actually taught me how to strike maybe, maybe about…we worked on it the whole time, but really only, maybe three days before the fight because we really didn't know who I was going to fight. They just kept switching guys. It went from Rigan Machado to Chico Bueno to Conan Silviera. It was all these different guys, and then it went to Joe Pardo, so we just decided to not even wrestle, just throw the wrestling out the window, and just go out and have some fun. Throw some punches, throw a few kicks, you know it's all on tape. I could have done a lot better with my strikes, but I really didn't focus on that because the fights end up on the mat, so my main focus was protecting myself on the mat. I didn't have a striker at that point in time. I wasn't fighting a guy that really knew how to use his hands so we just said, let's stay on our feet and have a good time and let him shoot on me. That was the plan. The stuff I did do, he showed me how to do it. I don't think I did it as well as he taught me because when you get out there and the pressure hits you, you don't throw the punches as straight as you normally would in practice, or you don't kick as well, but I did it the best I could, given the circumstances.

FCF: I remember watching you live in the UFC and I was impressed. It seemed like you were using your lead leg penetration step that you would use for a takedown to close the distance and throw your jabs. I thought you were working a long time on your standup because you were very effective. Supposedly, they say Joe Pardo has a background in boxing and you pretty much just took him apart standing up.
MV: You don't want to box them in the UFC. You don't want to stand toe to toe and slug because you know what, you're going to get beat sooner or later. Somebody's going to hit you or catch you and you're going to get beat. Those gloves are one ounce gloves man, you get hit…it's like you get hit like a bat. You don't want to stand toe to toe out there, at least I don't want to. I almost tried to do that in Brazil and got caught. It's not a good idea. The whole idea is not to get hit or not to get hurt. You don't want to go in there and get injured. Make what, five or ten thousand dollars, get hurt, go and get an operation, costs you twice as much or whatever, or just the pain and suffering you go through so the whole plan was just not to get hit. If I would have fought some striker, it would have been a different game plan, but even though he might have been boxing, you could still go toe to toe and box him. I wasn't going to do that, no matter what.

FCF: Vanderlei seemed to put a halt in your progress in NHB. What do you feel that you did wrong in that fight?
MV: He didn't put a halt on anything. I did it myself. After the UFC, I cracked a bone in my foot in that fight kicking him, which was like a hairline thing or whatever. It wasn't anything where I had to wear a cast or anything, but I had the World team trials in wrestling two weeks, three weeks after that maybe. I ended up, I lost that match one to one. That was the only match I lost, ended up getting fourth in the trials. I didn't train after the UFC up until those trials and I didn't train anytime after until I got a phone call. I was kind of low in cash and I was like what the heck? I don't care. Mark Coleman asked me if I wanted to fight in Brazil. I was like, when is the fight? He said next weekend. I was like wow! How many days I got? Well, it looks like you got about seven or eight. I was like, damn forget it, I'll take the fight. Who is it? Even though I didn't know who the guy was, didn't pay attention to what was going on, just thought I'd go down to Brazil, seemed like a fun trip, make a little money. Well what happened was, I trained with Miletich down in Bettendorf, because I was at home in Waterloo visiting my parents. I trained with him for a week and what happens when you train hard for a week, you drive like eighty miles to get there, and you drive back. What happens is, you just get burned out. You don't reach any type of peak. All you've done is broken your body down. So what happens was, I tried to make everything up, and you can calls these guys and verify, went down there and worked my butt off for about a good week. I went back to Waterloo, jumped on a plane, flew down to Brazil, and realized what I had just gotten in to. Then, my nerves kicked in because when you're not well trained, all you can do is think about what the heck am I doing? Who is this guy I'm fighting? Next thing you know, you can't eat, you can't sleep, then you're in a foreign place. You're fighting a real fighter. This guy is crazy. He wants to win real bad. He hasn't fought in a couple years. He has been training for two years for this fight. You get out there. The crowds going crazy. You look at the ring. You see all this blood all over the place. You start thinking, "hey maybe I'll just let this guy armbar me or something [big laughter]". You're not thinking like a fighter. I was not myself in that fight; so really, Silva was not the issue at all. He was just there. It could have been anybody. I was the only issue because when I'm well trained, a guy like that? I would have no problems fighting. He's slow. He's predictable. He's not that good on the mat. He hits hard, but his punches come from where? Left field, you can see them coming from a mile away. Problem was, when you're not training, you don't see anything. All you do is feel…oh my god, he just hit me. Aww, he hit me again. Let me hit him a couple times. Aww, I broke my hand. It was just a total nightmare. If I was well trained, I would have been trained for anything. There is no excuses or anything for losing the fight. I'm just telling you the circumstances that I put myself in, which was totally dumb. I really don't feel like he put a halt on anything. I decided to go in the army. I decided to try out for the Olympic games. I decided that there wasn't a lot of money in fighting because there really wasn't. There's no stability or anything like that. For me it wasn't, maybe a few guys out there, here and there, they make a lot of money doing it, but I would have had to go to Japan and start a whole new thing up, but I already signed with the UFC so I was like, these guys are not paying me anything. They are not going to let me fight for the title, because they told me they wouldn't. They wanted Bas Rutten to be the champion. Ok fine, can I fight Shamrock? They said no. Ok fine, so I got out of there. I'm not going to sit around and waste my time. I'm only young once. I thought it was a waste of my time and energy to stay in there at that point in time.

FCF: If or when you return, do you want a rematch with Vanderlei or do you have any specific opponents that you would like to fight?
MV: I don't hate Vanderlei or anything like that. I don't sit around and think about him. I don't even think about him at all. Unless people ask me questions, I think it's kind of funny how people perceive things. I was the one that did everything. I was the one that signed up for that fight. I was the one that lost that fight, not even sticking to a game plan, not even knowing who I was fighting, not training for that fight, and then getting down there and totally…your nerves control everything in sports. If you're watching TV and some guy is going to shoot this basket to tie the thing up with two seconds left with it going into overtime, you can just look at him and tell if he's going to make it or miss it. Your nerves control everything and I was a nervous wreck. I don't really care if that guy beat me. He deserved to win that fight. I hope that he makes a lot of money. I hope he wins a lot of fights. When I get back out there and if there's a demand for something like that or if that's going to take me in the right direction, yeah, but if this guy's out there getting beat by all kind of people, I'm not really vindictive, like I want to get him back or anything like that because I really don't care. Whoever I fight, I hope that I win. I hope that I'm motivated enough to train for the fight and have the skills to beat that person because I don't want to be a total idiot, going out there and thinking that I can do something that I don't have what it takes. As long as I feel like I'm motivated, I'm athletically strong enough to do the things I have to do and I'm never fighting anybody else without training again. That's for dang gone sure! [Joel, Isn't that a remark born in Queen's?] So, I don't hold any grudges against him. I hope the guy does good.

FCF: Do you follow the fight game nowadays?
MV: No, not really. I'm interested in it, but I just don't spend my time that way. I pretty much just spend my time with my family, in the weight room, on the track, in the wrestling room, and maybe, in the swimming pool. Really, we're trying to make the US Olympic wrestling team. You got to be the world champion in no matter what you go at, so it's not even a joke. I'm just spending as much time with my family as I can, but the rest of my time is spent training. You know there's guys that come up to me and ask me about the fight game and did you know so and so. Oh, really? Really? Oh my gosh, you know. Just to hear the information, I was like happy to hear it, but I don't pursue it or subscribe to anything at this point [Joel, you didn't hit him up for a subscription yet? I'll do a follow-up call later.]. I'm not indifferent or anything. I love to hear the stuff, but I just don't watch a lot of TV. I don't read a lot of magazine or anything like that at this point.

FCF: Now that there is a solid difference in weight class between heavyweight and middleweight, if you return to fighting, do you plan on fighting above or below the 200 lbs.?
MV: Definitely above. Right now my wrestling career, it's just crazy. I'm training for the Olympic games, but I used to wrestle at 90 kg, which is 198. That was beautiful. I can make that weight. I can be back up to 215. I can feel great, you know. Now they changed the weight classes. Weight classes are 214 or 187.5. Now, to make 187.5, that's kind of difficult for me to make that weight. If I can make the weight feel good, I'll go at that weight. If not, I'm going to have to go up to the weight class above me. Now in fighting, there's no way in the world I would want to cut a lot of weight and then try to go out there and fight. It's a very bad feeling when you get tired out there and some guy is trying to take your head off. So, there's no way I would do that. Now in wrestling, I know the sport so well that I can actually lose weight, lose a little bit of my ability, my athletic ability, and my endurance and still win because I know what I'm doing and I'm also am very comfortable with the wrestling matches. Only a limited amount of time, six minutes. You're only fighting another man. There's tactics you can use to control the match. Now in fighting, if you just got dead tired, not only that you have to worry about the guy shooting on you, but he can swing [laughs]. So really, I would definitely fight over 200. I would probably end up weighing around 210, 215.

FCF: So you feel that it would be that hard for you to make under 200, that it would be detrimental…
MV: I think the guys under 200 are better. They're more skilled. They move fast. The lower weight classes, the better the technique in sports. Of course, there's more power in heavier weight classes, but with the power, comes fatigue because big muscles get tired fast. If I'm in shape, I'm not going to get tired, at all. I might be a little bit, like aww man I'm started to get a bit tired, but that other guy is going to be exhausted because I don't get tired if I don't lose weight. The power factor, like I said, that will diminish as the match goes on. As that person starts thinking about air, his priorities have changed, not really trying to put a hand to my face, just trying to hold on to me and breathe, but little guys are going to be rolling all over the place and I really don't want to…I can deal with it, but I would rather fight someone that moves a little bit slower [chuckles]. If that makes any sense to the people out there.

FCF: It seems like you would match up better with the guys under 200 like your Frank Shamrock or Tito Ortiz or someone like that…
MV: I wouldn't mind fighting those guys. Like right now, I could make the weight pretty easy. Today, I weighed 199 after wrestling practice. It's not that hard for me to make the weight. I want to eat. I want to just enjoy life. When I was training, I was just eating, enjoying life, lifting weights; I give no consideration to making weight. I don't care what I weigh! I just don't want that to be a factor in to the equation. Oh, I got to lose two pounds. I don't want to think about it. No fun.

FCF: When you train for NHB, do change your conditioning drills accordingly or basically feel that wrestling drills give you the best combination of aerobic and anaerobic endurance that transfers to the NHB arena?
MV: No, you definitely have to train for the fight. Boxing shape or striking shape is a lot different than grappling shape. Whoever can solve that problem can make a lot of money because it's very difficult to get in striking shape, at the same time you're in grappling shape. Just the energy system is totally different. If I was in great wrestling shape, I could get out there and start striking with a person. You tire within a minute or two. When I train for NHB fighting, I definitely cross train. I add a few things in there, like running sprints, jumping rope, maybe running after wrestling practice for 30-40 minutes just to keep my endurance. You have to strike. You actually have to do the movements. You have to kick. You have to strike. You have to wrestle. You have to do it all. It's not an easy thing to train for. Just because you may end up on your feet, you better be able to handle that.

FCF: Would you consider fighting another wrestler in NHB?
MV: Why not? I mean I don't really see a problem with that at all. I think that would be to my advantage. I don't know who you are talking about or whatever, but I really think that would be to my advantage just because I'm pretty versatile. I think I can do it all. Like I said, if I was trained to punch, trained to kick, I have the ability to do that and my wrestling skills, on any given day, I feel like I can be the best in the world in my wrestling. I'm talking about beating wrestlers, not people in MMA. I'm talking about guys who are training for the Olympics in freestyle wrestling. I believe it's going to be hard for any of those guys to take me down or score a point. I feel that I can match up with any wrestler in MMA. I don't have a problem with that.

FCF: Do you actively modify your wrestling techniques for NHB or do you feel that wrestling techniques flow almost seamlessly into the fighting realm?
MV: You have to modify it. There's certain wrestling techniques that you do not want to do because you're going to give the guy the opportunity to put you in to some kind of submission hold, maybe a choke or an ankle lock or a knee lock or something. So, you stick with the basics as far as takedowns are concerned. There are certain things that work and certain things that don't. Once you're on the mat, I think wrestling helps a lot because the intensity of a wrestling match is so much higher than a MMA competition or even a grappling competition because this guy is going all out, 100%. He's trying to turn you or stop from being turned or he's trying to get away from you. He's trying to hold you down. Whereas in that sport, it requires more patience and you have to learn to relax in certain positions or you can get yourself in trouble. There's no time for panicking in a fight where you can be submitted. You have to relax your body and work to improve your position. So yeah, certain wrestling techniques work and certain ones don't, but just wrestling in general, knowing my body, and being able to operate in space, whether it be on my feet, upside down. You have to know where you're at. You can't get confused or dizzy, while you're rolling around defending yourself or trying to submit someone. You might end up coming up in a bad situation.

FCF: Are you affiliated with any wrestling/fight team in particular, such as the RAW team or are you still in contact with Mark Coleman from the Hammer House?
MV: Mark and I had a deal. If he called me for a fight and I decided to take it, then I'd fight for him. If I found a fight myself, I'd fight for myself so at this point in time, I'm just by myself not really affiliated with anyone.

FCF: What made you start fighting in the first place?
MV: I thought it was fun. Just like I told you, I was going out to Tim McClellan's house and rolling around with those guys. It was like a brand new toy for a kid because here I was practicing these wrestling moves for twenty years, you know, the same old thing and all of the sudden…This is a punching bag and this is how you hit it. All right, let's box around with this guy. I was always like, oh no, I don't want to box, you know, but I got to moving around and nobody could hit me and I was like hey! This is nice. I like this, hitting this guy. It just was kind of fun. Of course, I got punched and kicked a few times, but for the most part, I was on the winning side of that. I just took on better and better opponents in practice. It became more difficult, but it was like a challenge. One day, Tim McClellan came in and said I got a fight for you. It's not a NHB fight, but it's a submission tournament. If you want to try it out? I said yeah! So I trained for it, entered it, and that's when I fought Renato. So that kind of got me into it and then I was upset a few times because fights got cancelled in Brazil because of riots and things, I was supposed to go to. Finally, Coleman called me up and I got into IVC 4 and that was kind of fun. I was ready for it.

FCF: Joel Gold (editor of FCF) told me about the wicked trips to the hospital after the Vanderlei fight looking for adequate medical attention. Is this a good representation of how you were treated while in Brazil?
MV: No, you were treated very good in Brazil. You know what? I'll just tell you a story I just went to France, east France, right on the Mediterranean, beautiful city, good food, good people, good fun. I didn't have any fun. You know why? I tore my hamstring. I had a worse experience there then I did in Brazil. Brazil, Joel and I went to the hospital, we had a great time. We were laughing, joking, talking about the fight, I was happy about the fight. I didn't care. When you're in a bad situation and it's over, you're just happy that it's over. A guy gets to go to prison or something, but when he's out, he's like, "yeah, I'm out!" You actually might remember some of the good times, not all the bad times you spent in jail. Just like I was in basic training, while you're there, basically it sucks, but then when you get out, you start laughing about it because it was funny, you know? You look back and laugh at things so I was looking back and laughing about the fight. In France, I laid on the hospital bed for six hours. They had X-rayed my leg. I didn't get a MRI. They said it wasn't broken, told me to go home, I couldn't move so I had to pay the ambulance to take me up to my hotel room, lay me in bed, where I stayed for five days not knowing if I could go to the airport or not [laughs]. So, it was pretty bad man. The injury was terrible, it was severe. Actually, my first day of wrestling practice was five days ago. It took that long to heal and that was November.

FCF: I take it that you wouldn't mind going back to Brazil to fight or would you rather follow every other fighter to Japan for the big money. Have you visited Japan or are you looking forward to maybe fighting in the future in Japan?
MV: I would love to fight in Japan. I'd love to go to Japan. I would love to visit. I love to travel. Yeah, like I said, if given adequate time to train for something and the right environment, that would give me confidence to go back in there and compete if the money was right and the event was right. I would love to go there, to go to Japan, and fight. We'll have to see after 2000. I'm sure I'll probably will someday just cause I'm curious.

FCF: This type of question is usually asked of martial artists, but how long do you feel that someone must learn wrestling before they can be proficient enough to utilize it in a MMA environment?
MV: In a MMA environment, if you got the right person teaching you the techniques, it's not going to take that long. Because really what do you need to do? You need maybe one or two good takedowns. You need to learn how to sprawl, to get your hips back when a guy shoots on you to prevent him from taking you down. You just know how to use certain control positions, like when he shoots, how to pull his head down and utilize a front headlock or of course, you could go into some strikes and stuff if you can keep his head down, but it wouldn't take that long. For a good athlete, a person who picks things up things fast, maybe about six months to a year of practice. You know you got to work at it. Whatever you do, you got to work at it. Nobody's going to give you anything nowadays.

FCF: So six months to a year of training, on the average, how many times a week would you feel…
MV: Well, it depends on what you do in your life. If you have a family? Do you work? What kind of job do you have? How demanding is it? How serious are you about the fighting game and where's your money coming from? If you had all the time in the world, I would say you can be on the mat Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, with Wednesday being just a drill day, just going in and practice some technique, maybe taking a sauna, steam or just relaxing on Wednesday. And on Saturday, doing something fun. You know you can play a little basketball or something, maybe just going for a jog around the neighborhood, but just hardcore Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Take Sunday off and enjoy yourself, relax, get ready for Monday. In all those four days, I would say you want to cross train. You want to lift weights. You want to run in the morning, then you want to go hit the mat, learn your skills and learn your techniques in the evenings. You do that Monday, you do that Tuesday, you do that Thursday, Friday with some kind of variety and direction, good direction and you can learn any sport, but if you try to do it everyday, you're going to plateau and you'll never reach your potential. You try to do it twice a week? You might as well just forget it.

FCF: Thank you for your time and we all hope to see you back in the fighting game really soon.
MV: We'll see. All right, take it easy.

FCF: Good luck in Atlanta and in the World Championships.
MV: Thanks for the call.