Okay, I am stretching it with the play on words with Armageddon. For those who have had the opportunity to watch the HookNShoot Pancrase Lightweight Champion, Jason Walls in action, you had a treat. It becomes obvious that Walls has taken one submission and has more than made it his own. He has taken the arm bar and not only applied it in so many different ways, but from a number of different positions. The most interesting part is that Walls had no formal training in submissions. He developed his submission game by watching tapes and sparring with his brother and some friends. This four year HookNShoot champ proves that with dedication and a lot of hard work, anyone can rise up above incredible odds and become a champion. The Survivor came back from a car accident that crushed his wrist to retain his title. HookNShoot has recently aligned with the Shooto organization. They will retire the Pancrase style division and will hold all of their future matches under Shooto rules. Walls hopes to retire as the Pancrase-style championship at the HookNShoot Quake event, tentatively scheduled for March 10, 2001.

FCF: You are one of those guys who came out of nowhere and started arm barring your way to victory. What is your background?
Jason Walls: I started out in wrestling. That was my main background. I did that in junior high [school]. I only got to compete in wrestling for two years because I was switching schools and considered ineligible. I got the basics from wrestling like leverage, strength, balance and all that stuff. I liked it a lot and was really good at it and I wanted to find a way to keep doing it. When we [Jason and his brother, Johnny] saw the UFC and what Royce Gracie was doing, he would control guys through the ground game. It proved that type of ground wrestling was good for fighting. At that time, we started to go over things and figure out what they were doing. Basically we went out in the backyard, rolled around and would try different things that they were doing, until we were able to come up with enough money to get the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu beginning training videos. That's basically how I got my start and background through the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu videos. After we went through the videos, we started modifying things. If we didn't like certain techniques, we didn't use them. If we found something that worked and it worked two or three times in a row, then we kept doing it or wrote it down and worked on it. Then we would try and adapt it into our style. I think that is one thing that makes me different and helps me out is that I don't do the norm. Sometimes some of the things I do are things that people are not used to seeing and it catches them off guard a little bit the first time we fight.

FCF: Where do you train and what kind of training do you do specifically?
JW: Well, I am currently training in my training partner's basement. [laughs] We got about 5 or 6 people training there. Butch, a Golden Gloves boxing champion, is my training partner. We have been switching off a little bit. I have been training him on ground fighting and he is giving me striking training up top. Due to my back injury recently, I haven't been doing much stand up training. Basically, we are just rolling in the basement of our friend's house. We got me, my brother [Johnny], Butch, and about 3 or 4 other people that come down.

FCF: Your brother competed too, didn't he?
JW: Yeah, he was in 3 or 4 different HooknShoot shows as far a grappling. He went undefeated in the grappling matches. But because of injuries that he sustained before he even started fighting, he was never able to compete full force.

FCF: A lot of wrestlers that I have seen seem to lose their effectiveness of wrestling when they learned submissions because they end up trying to play more like a Jiu-Jitsu guy. Did you find this also?
JW: Well, I believe that I adapted my technique a lot different that most wrestlers did. Most wrestlers are so true to their heart to the wrestling form that they try to stick to that form. That's why most wrestlers are ground and pounders or just sit in the guard. I wanted to get away from that because when I first started I saw a lot of things that I did wrong when I first started from the wrestling aspect. I was used to letting people get my back and being on my hands and knees when I wrestle. There were a lot of things that I had to do different to switch over to the Jiu-Jitsu style. I think that a lot of wresters lose that because they don't want to try those things and just stay with what they know, with is wrestling and balance.

FCF: When some wrestlers start taking Jiu-Jitsu, they put their wrestling aside and turn into total Jiu-Jitsu players. A lot of times you can't even tell they were wrestlers. They either have the wrestlers who keep their wrestling skills and end up being grappling brawlers or guys who turn off their wrestling and turn into 100% Jiu-Jitsu guys. Do you find that you keep an even mix of both or do you favor one or the other?
JW: I would say that I stay pretty balanced. I don't train in the wrestling game per se or still do wrestling competitions, so there is a lot of wrestling techniques that I don't have anymore. My positioning, balance, and leverage are tools that I got from wrestling and it is my foundation from which I built my Jiu-Jitsu on. I don't just train in Jiu-Jitsu, but I work it around what I already have. I try to keep both of them. I don't practice different wrestling techniques, but when I'm doing Jiu-Jitsu, I keep the wrestling aspect in mind, so I don't wonder too far off the path and end up doing just one style because I think that it is best to blend both styles. I think you have to blend them together to get the best of both worlds.

FCF: You are amazing with your arm bars. Tell us some of your philosophies and training methods that you think are important and have helped improve your arm bars. When your brother was telling me more about you, he mentioned that you found a great way to apply arm locks? Do you have a secret to applying arm bars that you want to share with us?
JW: Not really what I would call a secret. It's one of those things that I've learned to adapt my body to do certain things that it is easy for me to explain what I do and show them what I do, but it's hard for me to coach them or train them in a way that is similar to what I do because it is more of a state of mind, I guess you could say. What I do mostly is just try to keep on the arm, more than anything. I just go from one arm to the other and focus on the transitional flow from one move to the next. Like when you're working on one arm and they are trying to defend that arm, the whole time you don't even have that arm in the picture as far as getting that arm in an arm bar. You're actually focused on the other arm, while they are distracted by the left arm, you are actually going for the right. There's a lot of different things that I do with arm bars. Me and Johnny will be coming out with an arm bar training tape to go over different techniques that I do because the things that I do for my arm bars are way different than what others do in the dojo. I have seen most people push off with the foot to get the arm bar or will totally show what they are doing before they do it. That makes it easy for them to defend it. What I do is, I don't set up an arm bar, I fall into it. If it's there, I will go for it. If it's not, I will twist my body in another position to go for it. I never give it away. I don't show people by putting my foot on the hip to push my hip out or something like that. I mostly spin off of my shoulders and keep a good circular motion going. I keep twisting back and forth to keep the arm bars going.

FCF: Since you mentioned it, tell us about the arm bar tape that you are working on?
JW: We are not sure exactly when we are going to do it because Johnny might be in the process of moving into a new house, but he had all the equipment to get it done and a couple of people he is going through for technical support. After we put together how we are going to do it, what we are going to include or how we are going to do it, we will put together a good tape. It is going to have a lot of excerpts from fights and from practice and stuff like that. What I would like to try and do is try to explain in the background what I am trying to do and different ways that I am trying to do. Basically, I want to try and get my style of how I do arm locks out, so others can know the effectiveness and the difference of the style that I do.

FCF: I love arm bars too. How do you approach that big, strong guy that keeps pulling back his arm when you are trying to set him up? What is your strategy for a guy like that?
JW: You're talking about when I'm on my back?

FCF: Yes, when you are on your back.
JW: 90% of what I do to either counteract their weight or their strength is using my knees or elbows. Any time I can get a chance, I try to get a knee underneath the shoulder or grab the back of their head with my hand or put an elbow under the shoulder, try to elevate them a little to create a little bit of space. If I have a little bit of space, then I don't get the pressing down and holding my hips in. With a little bit of distance, I can twist my hips out. And the main thing is not to keep your hips underneath them, if you keep your hips parallel or straight inline with theirs, there is nothing that you can do. So, mostly what I do is use my knees to counteract their weight and strength.

FCF: What got you into fighting?
JW: I would say, truthfully, the love of wrestling. I am a wrestler at heart, I always have been. I believe that some people are born with what I call "wrestler's instincts" and some people are not. I believe that I was born with it and when I wrestled, it was in my blood. I was destined to be a wrestler. I also just wanted do something else with wrestling when I got out of school. That was the main reason for it. I was good at it. I was the state champion. I only got pinned once in my whole career and after the two years that I wrestled, I never had a chance to do anything with it after that. In high school, I practiced with some of the people, but I never had a chance to compete again. This was a way to compete and use my wrestling skills and also I had a lot of people in school tell me that wrestling had no effectiveness in fighting. It was more of a spite thing also. [laughs]

FCF: Why did you choose the Pancrase style over NHB-type of matches?
JW: That was basically because I started too late. If I had started early, when I was still healthy then I definitely would have switched to no holds barred. I suffered a lot of injuries like a crushed wrist, which I had four pins put in and have it set and I have a bad shoulder, a bad hip, a bad back, [laughs] I guess that I could go on forever. Basically because of all my injuries, my striking wouldn't adapt very well and I figured that with Pancrase, it focused more on the grappling, but you were still able to do some full contact and up top striking. You have to have the hybrid, you know, the whole thing. It was a way to fight without having to go toward no holds barred.

FCF: How many fights do you have under your belt and what organizations have you fought for?
JW: I have done a super fight for Grappler's Quest. I didn't get to fight in the Arnold's [Schwarzenegger-Relson Gracie Submission Grappling tournament] because of a HOOKnSHOOT event, but I want to compete this year. I've had 10 or 11 fights in HOOKnSHOOT, I can't remember. I fought for Grappler's Challenge in Canada but that didn't turn out too well because we decided to party the night before the tournament. The one and only time that I did that. That didn't work out too well. [laughs] I've had a lot of practice-experience, well, most of my experience and training comes from going to different places and trying out different things and different styles, just wrestling or grappling with different people.

FCF: How have you changed your training since you started fighting?
JW: When I first started I didn't do any stand up of any kind, just ground and that was it. After I fought Wes Collins, that's when I started top striking because when I fought Vaughn Miller and Wes Collins, I was very timid standing up because I knew that I had very little training in it. I'm good, because of my wrestling, with my take downs and positions and I have always been partially decent with kicks because I always liked to kick. I haven't had any training in it though. I did conform my training to include a lot of up top striking after the first couple fights because I needed that a lot. And it did help out a lot and gave me the extra edge, which caused a lot of people to not want to keep me standing up all the time. I had to at least get enough of a stand up game so that people would not want to just keep me in a stand up game.

FCF: What about your grappling training? Did that change, other than obviously adding striking and defending striking in your grappling?
JW: Not too any certain extent. I modified my training a little bit, but I never really changed it in any direction because I'm the type of person that will train WITH anybody, but I will not train UNDER somebody. I still basically go by my own instincts and whatever I normally do when I'm in the gym. If it works, I will remember it and do it again and see if I can work it into my arsenal. When I practice, I get anyone that I can to practice with and go over the basics and just try to adapt different things into what I'm doing, but I won't go into any different direction because I never taken any martial arts, per se. I haven't taken Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or Kung Fu or anything like that, basically all I've done is got on the mat and grappled with a lot of different people. So, I don't really have a true style. I've taken a lot of pages from a lot of different places and tried to put them together, but I haven't really changed my training because I never really trained under someone.

FCF: When you said that you would train WITH someone, but not UNDER anyone. Why is that?
JW: Well, most people who first get started in the martial arts, start in a dojo, with a sensei, learning the Japanese or Brazilian words or katas or whatever. They adapt that style and get used to it. I've never done it that way. I've never trained in the "dojo" environment. I have trained myself and other people for so long that I have always been one of the top guys in the class or in the gym, so training under someone would be hard for me because I don't do normal things. Most people say "you have to get the position before you go for the submission." And I don't believe that. I believe that the best time to get a submission is when they are trying to fight for position and leave their arm open without them thinking that you are going to do something. That's when you do it. So there are a lot of things that I think that we would have disagreements on. If someone tried to tell me how to do something or not to do something or try to correct me, well, not correct me because I can take constructive criticism, but I think training under someone is too much for me and I don't think that I would want to go to something like that. Now I would be willing to train in Miletich's fighting system. I could do something like that because I trained with Miletich and Horn and I have rolled with them. I like the way they do things and the way they don't try to limit you or have to stick to a certain routine. Mostly what I mean of not training under someone is the traditional dojo environment, where you have to bow or something like that. I'm not too much into that aspect. I like it more of the one-on-one and everyone is on the same level. It's more against the traditional martial arts.

FCF: Your brother also mentioned that you had some adversity to over come while fighting. Tell us about a situation or two?
JW: I had a lot of things that I had to go through. [laughs] When Johnny [Jason's brother] had to go for his surgery, [Johnny had his ACL reconstructed] and I had a couple of other people that I was training with left. The only guy left was me and a friend of mine, not putting him down in any way, but he had no fighting instinct in him what so ever, no balance, no strength. When we first started training with him, we asked him what sports he played and he answered hunting and fishing. When we first got him on the mat, I grabbed him by the head and he fell to the mat and I had to lift him back up. He was the only guy I had a chance to train with for the fight against Collins and the fight after Collins, I think. I could basically do anything I wanted to him. For a long time, it was hard to find anyone in West Virginia that wanted to train. We don't have any ground fighting or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, all we have is Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, which is like the sport Jiu-Jitsu. It is 30 seconds on the ground to submit and then you have to stand up again. So there's nothing that would help me in the Pancrase style, so I trained on my own. It made it hard on me because I had no training partners for a while, until Johnny found Butch on the Internet, who is my training partner now. Because of him I was able to get a lot of different training partners down to practice with. I was really afraid that I would start doing some real exotic moves on him [not Butch, but the unskilled training partner] and be fooled by the time that I got in the ring. Luckily, I was able to get more training partners before I had to deal with that. I also went through some adversity when I got into my car wreck. I was out for a long time. My ribs were messed up and my back and my toe, which was one of my biggest problems, tt still hasn't healed yet. I was going through a lot of dizzy spells and lightheadedness from getting hit in the back of the head during the crash. It was a while before I got back into grappling strong. I had a hard time training because my back was never really the same after that. The car wreck basically took the problems that I had before and amplified them by ten times. Those were a couple of the biggest adversities that I went through.

FCF: You obviously got pretty messed up after the car crash. Did you ever think about retiring from competition?
JW: That's basically what has been going through my mind in the last six months, contemplating retirement. My doctor tells me that I have to retire and I'd better retire. [laughs] I had basically been retired for that long. I went to Tennessee and practiced with Brandon Bledsoe after fighting him. And that was the last practice that I had until last Tuesday. I am trying to start back up to get my stamina back up for the Arnolds [Arnold-Gracie Submission Grappling tournament]. I was basically retired for at least a 6 to 9 month time period. The hardest thing about retiring though, is the fact that I am at the peak of my career. There's a lot of places that I can go and a lot of things that I can do and learn. I know my mind is ready for it, but I don't think my body can't handle it no more. That's kind of disheartening. I get let down because of it because grappling is my life, you know? I would hate to retire, but I do see it coming to an end before too long, but I'm going to hold out and see if I can get a match in Japan or somewhere like that, you know, travel, leave the country and see a different part of the world. That would be a good thing to retire on. Or to attain a dream that I have, basically the reason why I started, to get a fight with a Gracie, Royler Gracie. That's what I want more than anything else, a fight with Royler Gracie. And I think that if I could hold out long enough for that, that would be enough to retire on. I want something big before I retire, like a Japan fight or a fight with a Gracie or something like that. I'm not sure right now and I am going to wait and see what my body does and what it can withstand to see how long before I have to retire.

FCF: You don't consider retiring the Pancrase title as the longest champion in HOOKnSHOOT history or holding the title since '97 a worthy enough achievement? I would.
JW: Not really, it is a moral victory for me. You know, when you are a kid you want to grow up to be the best fighter in the world, but it's kind of a victory because I know that I've done a lot and accomplished a lot and I have a lot to show for it. But it's disheartening because I know that I could have done so much more. If that is what I have to retire on and that is as far as I can go, then that is enough. I would be proud of my accomplishments. I want to do more and see if I can accomplish more. If my body can handle it, I would like to stay in grappling and do the grappling thing, like Grappler's Challenge or Grappler's Quest or anther grappling tournament. I have a match that is coming up that I might do and that may be my last match. I may just do grappling after that. I'm not sure what is going on with this HOOKnSHOOT match because it supposed to be a title fight, which I can understand because it is the last one, but then again, I have been retired from training for months and months and not nowhere near in shape. I was also supposed to receive my new belt for over two years. I wouldn't mind doing the fight and it being a title fight, but because I could not come back for a rematch in case I lost and he would get the belt that I worked hard for 4 or 5 years for and never ever seen. I have been promised this belt for two years and for all that I have done and put into HOOKnSHOOT, I think that I at least deserve the belt.

FCF: It was just announced that you will be fighting Pat Benson out of the Rodrigo Vaghi's academy. What do you know about your opponent?
JW: Absolutely nothing. I haven't seen anything on him yet. Johnny and Butch are working on getting a tape of him at Abu Dhabi. I have heard from Johnny and Butch and other people who have seen him fight that he is very good. He's very strong and he's very tight. It will definitely be one of my best matches. I kind of have mixed feelings about the fight, I am looking forward to fighting, but I am also nervous due to the lack of training that I've had. I know that I have a lot of work to do and I have a long way to go. I'm hoping to get his tapes and go over them a little bit and find out what he likes to do and see who he has grappled against and see how he has done against them. Hopefully he has gone against someone who I'm familiar with or someone who I competed against. I'm anticipating a fight.

FCF: What is your fight weight or normal weight?
JW: Right now, I am about 152-153lbs, somewhere around there. I'm not the kind of guy that gains 20-30lbs when I don't train. I don't lose weight either. [laughs] I am a small person and probably will always be one. We're adapting a workout into our practice. Me and Johnny have a workout program that we put together and we are hoping that will help out a lot.

FCF: I believe that the Pancrase organization in Japan's lightweight division is under 170lbs. You are underweight for that.
JW: I'm always underweight. What I would love to do, truthfully, is take a year off and lift weights big time and get bigger and gain enough weight, but stay in the lightweight division and have to drop a little weight to make weight. The guys I fight gain 10lbs after they weigh-in. In a 170lbs weight class, I weight 150lbs and my opponent weigh 180lbs. That's a lot when you get up to the advanced levels, when everyone's good. When everyone knows what you're doing and everyone is on the same level. You lose that edge. Being just a little bit better than your opponent often allows you to win. But a 30lb weight advantage takes the little part that you may be better and takes it away. I would like to take some time to recover and get my back working good. Hopefully if I get a good weight training program going and gain some weight, maybe I can come back a little bit stronger and compete with the larger people.

FCF: Do you think that the weight gain will help you that much? Normally the guys competing at 170lbs are coming down to 170lbs. You are coming up, so you will be heavier, and will probably have the strength of an average 170lb'er. Don't you see this as a disadvantage?
JW: I do know that people coming down to 170lbs are going to be stronger than people coming up to 170lbs. And I also know that it is harder for someone to go up in weight because they lose mobility and agility. I do have a few concerns with that, but for my situation that's the only thing that I can do. I have to work with what I have and try to improve upon it. I am not worried too much. I don't think it will hurt my mobility because, basically that's all I am. I just need to be quicker and more wirey than my opponent. So I would hope that the 15 or 20lbs that I hope to gain wouldn't be too much to do my style. I'd have to remain the style that I am to do it.

FCF: Other than the HOOKnSHOOT and the Arnold-Gracie tournament, do you have anything else planned after that fight?
JW: Johnny mentioned one or two other things, which I don't know off the top of my head. Johnny would know. I am not sure right now. If there is anything else, I will worry about that after these two events. I do know that I want to compete in Grappler's Quest again. I also like Grappler's Challenge.

FCF: You're not worried about the Arnold-Gracie being so close to your HOOKnSHOOT fight?
JW: I would never schedule two fights that close together, but grappling eases my mind a little bit more. And to fight a guy on the level of Pat Benson, I would like to get a little more competition under belt before I face him, especially because I have been out of it for a while. It will give me good preparation for the HOOKnSHOOT fight.

FCF: How did you get your nickname of "The Survivor?" You had the name before the TV show. [both laugh]
JW: We did have the name before the show. [laughs] I even had my license plate before the show. That basically came about because of my lifestyle, the ways that I was brought up and the things that I had to go through in my life. I've learned to overcome a lot of obstacles. If you have the mindset that you are going to keep going after that goal without quitting, I think that the "survivor" name does more to describe the way I fight or what I want to get out of fighting more than anything else. That's why the name got picked up. Like in wrestling, I got pinned one and it really ticked me off because I was surprised and it was my only pin. I swore to myself that I would never get pinned again. And that's it. That was a good goal and I tried to keep that same mindset, that I don't want to give up or give in and be the last one out there. I want to be there until the end. I try to take that same aspect from my wrestling to my fighting. Even if I do lose, I want it to be by points and not by submission. Unless I'm mistaken, the only time that I have been submitted was in a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu match against Jack McVicker. I think that has been the only time that I was submitted in my career, and hopefully that will be the last. When I lost my very first fight in HOOKnSHOOT against Jason Strandberg, the next night was the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournament. So we went to Walmart and bought a gi and competed. We don't practice with the gi because it has nothing to do with fighting, it's a sport. It turned out that I won the tournament. So the next time I came up they put me in the blue belt division, even though we never practiced with a gi. That's when I went against Jack McVicker. At the time I had no idea who he was or that he was the Pan American champ. I tried a flying arm bar, which obviously didn't work and he ended up landing a knee on my temple when I fell to the ground. [laughs] That didn't work out too well. He got me in an arm bar right after that. I've done a lot of grudge matches, you could call them, stuff like that. I've competed against a lot of people in practice, but professionally or on record, that is it.

FCF: What do you mean by grudge matches?
JW: It's against different people from another style. When I say grudge matches, it's not personality conflicts, per se. It's more of an exchange of styles. I've competed against people that wanted to test their skills or whatever. In West Virginia, my name has gotten around. A lot of people here know what I do. So there has been a lot of times where a person has said that he knows a person who wants to know if I wouldn't mind practicing with him. It doesn't matter, whatever. There's been a lot of people that I've taken out of the dojo setting and took them too my basement or wherever and we went at it. That's happened many times. But when I say grudge match, it's not out of anger, but it's a test of skill.

FCF: Do you have anything else to add?
JW: Just that Miguel [Iturrate] and Jeff [Osborne] have been talking about setting me up with a few things after they retire the belt. They mentioned that I may have a chance to go to Japan and compete over there after my fight with Pat Benson. I look forward to that and I would like to see that happen. They also mentioned that they have a couple other things, but we haven't had the chance to talk about them. So hopefully we can set something like that, but my main goal is to compete against Royler Gracie because he's my weight and my size and to me, that would be the ultimate victory, to compete against him. Win or lose, just to compete against him would be the ultimate victory. That would be my goal more than anything. If I got that, I would feel like I accomplished what I set out for and would consider retiring.

FCF: Did you ever think about competing in the Abu Dhabi trials?
JW: I competed in the Abu Dhabi trials once. I went against Dennis Hallman and basically, the only thing that happened in that fight was we stood up forever. I went for a takedown and it didn't work and he got me in the side mount and held me there the rest of the fight. I couldn't do much because he outweighed me and was a lot stronger than me. After that, a lot of people thought that I was stupid for picking Hallman over Hughes in their second match. Nobody agreed with me. Going against Hallman, I knew his strengths and his skills. The only thing that gets me about the Abu Dhabi is the weight classes. I do know that the weight classes are a little too low for me to drop down to and a little to high to come up to. I'm not sure how that works out. But if it works out, I would love to go to Abu Dhabi, but I have to figure out which weight class that I want to stick to. Isn't Royler Gracie in the lowest weight class?

FCF: Yes, he is under 65kg, which is about 143lbs, I think. You would have to drop like 10lbs.
JW: And that's hard for me to do because I ain't got no fat on me. [laughs] If I could get down that low, I would 200% want to compete. I would feel that's where I should be because I'm always trying to gain weight to get into a weight class and that does more harm than good.

FCF: Thanks Jason.
JW: Thank you.