We’ve had Matt Horwich on the Rear Naked Choke a few times — and when Riz found out Suave was going to be traveling south from Portland towards San Jose and / or LA to do some training, Riz suggested to Matt that he stop by and hang out with me for a bit in Sac.
Matt’s reply “That would be way rad!”.
So down he came. And in a strange weird twist on things — it turns out that while I was hanging out with Suave my buddy Riz from the Rear Naked Choke was hanging out, at the same time, with the IFL’s Brad Blackburn on the other coast. Who would have thought that’s how we’d be spending a day. Totally Rad indeed.
An even stranger wrinkle was that Matt had agreed to stop by my place at all. We’d only met for about a minute at the IFL’s Vegas Event – where he fought and lost to Ryan McGivern (and then got married the next day). I’d just introduced myself when he came into the IFL office and that was it. About a minute total of conversation. Based on this and Riz telling him he should stop by my place, he does.
Talk about a free spirit — Suave is the free spirit.
Originally, the plan was to have Suave come over and visit for a bit, do some audio with me and then head over to Fourth Power Fitness for a CrossFit workout and then later on do a barbecue.
Incidentally, I specifically was going to put him through Fight Gone Bad (since he’s such a big fan of BJ Penn and that WOD was made for him).
But, of course, there was a curveball. Matt was kind of worn out from the traveling and being woken up early by his hotel staff for some stupid reason. On the phone before he comes over, he tells me he wants to do some light rolling. I told him…No problem.
Of course, I’d don’t roll anymore and don’t own a school or anything like that, but how do you say no to a request for something like that? I figure somebody at a local Jitz place will want to roll with him. So I call a few places nearby and get zero response. Some places aren’t open. Some places don’t care. Some even seem a bit annoyed by the proposition.
Unbelievable.
Then I remember that The California Kid has a gym in downtown Sac — of course Suave could get some professional courtesy there. I call Ultimate Fitness and wind up speaking to Matt Sanchez and he hooks me up. “Come on down! We’ll have as many guys as he needs.” I suggest one guy, maybe a bigger guy for a technical session. Sanchez said no worries – just show up. I throw out a possible time of 3 PM, hoping that is going to work out. At least that’s set. Maybe.
Eventually Matt and his wife show up at my place. They’ve got a little dog that might get eaten by my cats. The dog is a Pekingese and all of about 5 or 6 lbs. Basically, it’s the size of a bass. My cats are in the 17 lb realm. Surprisingly, they all get along. Suave and I rap for a little bit at our kitchen bar. We talk about music. Turns out he’s a huge Rush fan and a huge Pink Floyd fan – right there some common ground gets established. When it comes time for the audio (and i am NOT the master of audio — that’s Riz’s department) I manage to get one headset hooked up and one track recording and decide that’s going to have to be good enough. Suave is pressed for time because he has to haul his butt all the way down to LA to see Eddie Bravo that evening. His original plan was to workout at Frank Shamrock’s place in San Jose, but Frank’s broken arm changed that.
The interview went pretty well. Seeing as all I could get to work was the one headset – it’s a fairly one sided affair that needs some serious editing to make any sense. When I figure out how to edit it together, I’ll put it out there. Suffice it to say that Matt is a way interesting guy. Sure, the hippy-ish everything is connected stuff is a given, but what might surprise others that don’t know him is that they shouldn’t let the hippy thing fool them. This pugilist is as sharp as a tack and would like to discuss CERN, dark matter an string theory just as much an omaplata. For reals!
Surreal.
Anyways, we chat for a bit and then take off to Faber’s Ultimate Fitness to meet up with Matt Sanchez. While we’re signing the obligatory waivers, Urijah bounces over to say hello and talk for a bit. “This is my gym, this is my home — enjoy it!” he says. Next up, Matt and he introduces us to Mark Munoz who postponed some personal plans to stay and roll with Matt. According to Matt after the session, Mark is going to be a bad ass in the light heavyweight division somewhere. He’s well known in the area, but if you’re not from Sacramento or Vallejo, this might be your first glimpse of an up and comer. How cool? Very cool!
In this video what is cool is how it really is “light” and “technical” rolling. With less experienced folks, all too often that’s what you’re supposed to be doing and it just devolves into a maximum effort ballz out effort. Mostly because ego gets in the way.
The video is pretty raw. No sick soundtrack except the music from the gym and not a lot of commentary from Matt, but it’s wicked cool to watch if you are into BJJ / MMA.
Suave has skillz.
After he finished rolling, I got a chance to put the Thai pads on and help him out with doing some striking drills. All I can say is I have no idea how McGivern took kicks like that to the head and body and kept going. Total testimony to that kids toughness.
Naturally – when the guys had Matt back on, they took the opportunity to rip into me a little bit. You can check it out here…
