Exclusive: Seth Petruzelli Talks UFC and Size of His Manhood

Thursday, 22 July 2010 16:20

by Eva Hamed

Coming off of a disappointing, but still impressive, loss at UFC 116, Seth Petruzelli is looking to bounce back strong. For Seth, his 15 minutes of fame he received after knocking out Kimbo Slice wasn't enough. He wants to leave his mark on MMA for years to come. I caught up with Seth yesterday for an insightful, and very humorous, exclusive interview.

EVA: You started training at the age of 7, and continued to fight in high school after which you were offered a scholarship to play football and wrestle. Someone who is able to turn down a scholarship to college must be pretty confident in their abilities. When did you know that you were going to be a pro fighter?

SETH: To be honest with you I didn't not go to be a fighter. That was part of it, but I'm not going to lie, it was part the girlfriend. She wasn't going to the school that I was going to so I wanted to stay back and make martial arts my life. I was going to end up teaching martial arts in college and from there I learned about mixed martial arts and started fighting. That's what led me to MMA.

EVA: Your last fight against Ricardo Romero you were dominating the fight until you were caught in a submission. Do you feel that you perhaps over trained for the fight and gassed or did you get too cocky?

SETH: Yeah I got too confident. Even on the ground when I was on my back I didn't feel like I was in trouble at any time. I knew he would only catch me if I got tired. I was coming off of a fight in England four or five weeks before the UFC fight. It was the first time that I had back to back fights like that without a real break in between my training periods. That could have something to do with it. I've never felt like that before in a fight. I don't know what caused it. I just know that I need to correct it.

EVA: We saw once you were caught in the arm bar you showed that the pain basically lifted the entire lower half of your body off the ground. What was going through your head when you felt that pain? Was it immediate or did it just get too much to handle gradually?

SETH: It was extremely painful. My elbows have been bad for the last couple of years as a result of doing martial arts since I was seven years old and always punching. The tendons have worn down on my elbows. I guess you could call it not tennis elbow, but punchers elbow. It felt like a nail being driven through my elbow. There was absolutely no pain, but then when he hyper extended it just a little bit, I heard the tendon pop. It wasn't the pop that scared me; it was the pain. It was more of a shock than a slow steady tap. The day after it was fine.

EVA: You were on a four fight win streak before this fight. What do you need to do to bounce back and get back to your winning ways?

SETH: I need to keep doing what I'm doing. I had a great training camp for this last fight. I trained with Mike Whitehead and Wanderlei Silva at Wanderlei's gym out in Vegas. I plan on doing the same thing. I plan on traveling before my next fight. I want to get a good camp in besides at my gym here in Orlando. Really I just want to go out like in my last fight and not gas. I'm really going to be pushing the intensity in the gym and getting my heart rate used to being high along as the adrenaline.

EVA: You mentioned your gym. How are things going down at The Jungle?

SETH: Everything is going great there. Since it's summer time we have a lot of people on vacation right now, but we are still signing people up. We've got a lot of upcoming fighters coming out of there. We've got a guy fighting this weekend and we had four guys fight last weekend. We have a very positive atmosphere and it's going good.

EVA: You and Tom Lawlor seem to have a... “special” relationship. Care to explain how you guys met and what brings you so close together?

SETH: (laughs) We're really not that close. We honestly think of each other as like nemesis. We're always competing for attention. Each of us think that we're better than the other person. We're good friends though and it is all in fun...kind of. We also party and act retardedly gay together.

EVA: Back when you knocked out Kimbo all of the casual fans were in shock. It was a major deal at the time and you even started going by “The Guy Who KO'd Kimbo” on message boards. Now that it has been quite a while since all that happened, looking back, what do you think about the situation?

SETH: I'm glad that it is over. I'm glad that it happened, but I'm glad that it has kind of faded out. I know that it is what I will always be known as until I do something else to make my mark in the world of MMA and that is what I plan on doing. That's my driving force. I don't want to just be known as the guy that knocked Kimbo out. I want to be known as a great champion or a great competitor in MMA that has won a lot of big fights. I'm glad that it happened because it's just another driving force for me to better myself and get out of the shadow of me knocking out Kimbo Slice.

EVA: There has been people say that they feel Ken purposely cut himself in warm ups for that fight. Do you agree with that?

SETH: I'm not saying anything about that at all. I've already gotten in trouble once for opening my mouth. You would have to be a retard to cut yourself and I doubt that Ken is a retard. Take that how you want to take it.

EVA: You're called the Silverback. Where did you get that nickname?

SETH: There's a couple versions of how I got the Silverback name. The first is when I was 19 I was about 255 pounds and I had a huge gut to match it. There was a picture of me and all of my friends wrote on the picture “Silverback Gorilla.” They were making fun of me which was great. That's one way I got the name. Another version is that when I grapple I walk on my elbows and knees so I look like a little baby gorilla. The last version is that the Silverback has the smallest penis to body ratio of all animals. That's why they call me the Silverback. You can choose whichever version you want.

EVA: There for a while you were upset because you couldn't get any fights despite being on a losing streak. Why do you think promoters were hesitant to sign you on for a fight?

SETH: Honestly it is because of what I said after the Kimbo fight about them paying me to keep it standing which wasn't true. I think people were just scared to sign me. Not only that, but promotions would go under and fighters would pull out when they put me in fights (laughs). There was a lot of bad luck there. Strikeforce wouldn't touch me because of the Showtime thing.

EVA: Thanks for the time Seth. Is there anything you would like to close with?

SETH: I would like to thank my gym which is JungleOrlando.com. If you guys all follow me on Twitter would be awesome. It's Twitter.com/SilverbackSeth.