Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Oriol Gaset looks back on his career in an interview with Kontact Magazine.
I started with martial arts at the age of 19, first with traditional Kung-Fu...
by chance really, as a hobby. I enrolled with a friend of mine...
and did Kung-Fu for a couple of years. I was always looking for new things...
I was trying various things , tried the Jeet Kune Do...
we were fencing with sticks and knives.
It was a little more varied, so I really liked the idea of...
mix things up, a little bit of grip...
That's when our instructor organized a course where I first tried fighting on the ground.
Just fighting on the ground. So that's when...
I was sold.
"Second round!"
I started doing MMA in 2004...
doing almost exclusively Jiu-Jitsu, some kickboxing and boxing...
with Jose Ramon Sanchez in the "Uppercut" gym.
But my main thing was the ground. Then I went to Brasil...
trained for Jiu-Jitsu there. And on return here I was offered...
an amateur fight. "Kickboxing-grappling" they called it then. Amateur MMA...
And... of course I could not turn that down.
My amateur fight with Javier Puertolas. It was my third fight.
There I did a little "trick"...
We didn't know much about each other, so I wore a pair of Muay Thai boxers...
to make him think that I wasn't going to exchange. But my intention was to fight him on the ground.
I won by submission, but just before I did...
I just escaped a rear choke.
My debut as professional MMA fighter was in December 2005.
against Igor Dimoski from Shooto Switzerland.
Then I had 6 amateur fights won and 1 draw.
The fight with Mark Harrison was my first one in a cage.
My first fight in England, first time using elbows. It was my first time in many things.
Also my first professional fight with a jury's decision, in 3 rounds of 5 minutes.
And my first ever experience with lactic acid...
After the fight I had a really bad time, I ended throwing up in the dressing room.
Really a lot.
My fight with Paul Jenkins. When I received...
the name of the opponent, I started to jump on my couch...
Not because Paul Jenkins has such a good record or very good statistics...
because at the time he had won half and lost half, but when I confronted him...
it was his 100th fight. While this was only my twelfth...
counting both amateur and professional. Therefore he was a very experienced fighter.
And I won by technical Knock-Out.
The fact why I did most of my fights outside of Spain is...
aside from these countries having organized many more events...
and therefore having more support or even being televised in some countries...
This directly affects the economic side, the amount of fee you receive.
It's more lucrative to fight in Finland...
where no one knows me...
then to appear in Barcelona, or Malaga...
for instance.
The nickname "Cookie Monster"... When I was training in the A.K.A.
they gave me the name. Basically, when I just arrived...
they asked for my name, and I said "Oriol".
But they pronounced it as "Oreo".
"Like the cookies?" they asked.
And I said "Like the bird."
They kept making the same joke for 2 weeks. "What's up, cookie?"
After 2 weeks I picked up the pace and began to raise the level of my sparring sessions.
A member of the team, Nate James from Oklahoma said:
"Hey, you're really starting to kick some butt. You should call yourself Cookie Monster."
So that's where I kept it from.
You don't choose your own nickname, others choose that for you and then stick to it.
This fight with Mick Sinclair, who's now my teammate...
was very special, it was my first fight after many years in Barcelona.
We wanted Paul Sass for this fight, because he sat in the top 10 of the rankings.
I wanted to fight someone from this European top 10.
The Kaobon team informed us that he couldn't fight because he was just picked up by the UFC.
So they offered us Mick Sinclair instead. I didn't know anything about him...
but when I saw who it was, with whom he had fought, his results...
I saw he was a very good fighter. Watched a video in which he fought very good...
I noticed he was very good.
The fight was mostly just dragging for me, he caught a couple of my hands...
he did some ground and pound, I couldn't take him down, but he did.
He's a very capable fighter. Physically he's very strong.
And... it ended with a guillotine.
When it finished, I had this big smile on my face.
because I was feeling like...
Even having lost, I had a great time.
Although it seems a bit...
I went to Liverpool after my fight with Mick...
for training.
After three days, looking at their level of training, the organization...
Apart from the installations, it's the team that counts...
Seeing how these people trained. Similar to my trip to the U.S. when I said...
"That was a turning point", here I had another one.
If I want to face this level of fighters, I have to train just like them.
Mick Sinclair didn't win because he's the most techinical guy in the world...
neither because he makes lots of flying kicks with fire in his eyes.
He won because he was better prepared.
And that was proved when I was there that week training at Kaobon, so I decided...
I have to be here.
So now I'll be fighting in Finland the 9th of October to defend...
the "Botnia Punishment" belt.
I won the belt in March of 2009...
against Pasi Maliniemi.
Was supposed to defend it earlier, but because of some injuries it didn't happen.
And now finally I'm going to defend the title for the fist time.
They say that to be a real champion you must...
defend at least once.
The future of my career, right now...
begins and ends October 9th.
Perhaps, looking backwards...
I see all these troubles and difficulties...
all the bumps I had to overcome...
To get fights, postponed fights, cancelled fights...
and injuries and more. I look at myself now, and...
each time I have even the smallest...
almost invisible step forward...
I see it as a significant development. And there's still a long way to go.
Follow Oriol Gaset and other fighters through our special Magazine section: http://kontact.tv