Mixed martial Arts : tom erikson

Most of us know Tom 'the big cat' Erikson as the fighter everybody ducks. And with good reason, as the 280lb All American wrestler has dominated all but the very best the MMA world has to offer. He knocked out Kevin Randleman with a jab, drew a marathon tournament final with Murillo Bustamante, and destroyed a bunch of people leading up to his loss to Heath Herring and redemption against Tim Catalfo at Pride 19.

I caught up with Tom backstage prior to Pride 20, as he'd come to Japan for Gary Goodridge's wedding party scheduled for the next night in Tokyo. I found him courteous, friendly and willing to give good long answers to everything I asked him. Apologies to the Big Cat for posting this up so late.

I wondered are you here to corner for somebody tonight?

Tom Erikson : No. Gary Goodridge is getting married and I used to work his corner, and so I came over for the wedding and I wanted to watch the show, and maybe drum up a fight for myself!

You went a while without any fights....

Tom Erikson : I fought on the last show, Tim Catalfo. Hopefully I'll be on the card at Pride 21. Its exciting (today). The first fight, that Bob Sapp guy, he's huge. That would be a good fight. Semmy Schilt would be a good fight. Minotaur.... I don't care.

Have any of those names been put around during negotiations?

Tom Erikson : You know what? I'll fight whoever they tell me to fight. I mean, I don't wanna even start picking (opponents), thinking 'this would be a good fight'. I don't care. Pride calls me, says 'will you fight this guy?', easy answer - yes.

Are you keeping in shape? You know, treading water or training hard anticipating a fight?

Tom Erikson : I'm a coach at a university in the United States, so I train with my team but I don't train very hard. I mean, I train, but I don't get into the shape I have to get in unless I know I'm fighting. Otherwise its alot of wear and tear on my body if I keep training at a high level all the time. But I do train, every day. I'm maybe 80%. When I know I have a fight it goes to 100%.

tom erikson

Erikson v Catalfo

I'd like to go into some of your past fights. I watched the Tim Catalfo fight. It was a quick one. You seemed to lock him up, throw him down and then slowly work around to a choke. Was that the plan?

Tom Erikson : Honestly, I thought we were gonna stand up and trade. I worked alot on stand-up for that fight. I worked on submissions. I know Catalfo was pretty good at submissions. So I've been trying to cross-train with a little bit of everything but I really thought we were gonna strike. But then when he tried to take me down, it kinda surprised me. So I was like, okay let's go there and work on the ground. When he gave me his back, it was very simple for me: let's go for a choke. So it worked out good, to my benefit.

He seemed to be fighting off the choke, and then you let go and went back to it.

Tom Erikson : Yeah, I thought I had it, but it wasn't in very tight. So instead of just standing there I wanted to change off to something different. And then he gave me an opening. He tried to do an ankle lock and when he did that..... I couldn't even remember till I saw it (the tape) but when I saw it, he had my ankle and was pulling it up. By doing that he opened up his throat where he couldn't block it so I went right back in and got the choke.

What was your impression of him in the fight? Did you find he was strong, or technical? What stood out?

Tom Erikson : It was so short its kinda hard to say. He was very strong, otherwise I would have gotten the choke right away. I mean, he defended the first time. I thought I had it tight, but he defended it well. Plus he wanted to fight. He was very excited to fight me. He chose to fight me. So I thought he would have something. I wasn't nervous but I knew I had to be prepared to fight him.

So do you think he just didn't get his game working but you did?

Tom Erikson : Yeah. I kinda forced my game before he could get his going.

Going to some old fights - Martial Arts Reality Superfighting 1996 - when your fought in the tournament. How did you get into it? Did they just call you up?

Tom Erikson : A real old fight! Yeah, they just called me up. They were looking for someone to fight. I'd had other shows asking me to fight before and I couldn't because of my schedule. I was still very active in amateur wrestling. Finally I agreed to fight in that show. I trained maybe 2 weeks for that show. And I fought a Russian, then Willie Peters, and then I fought Murillo Bustamante. And now Murillo is a big star and a champion in the UFC.

Did you know anything about him before that match, cos that was quite a long one.

Tom Erikson : Yeah, about 40 minutes. I knew he was very good on the ground so it was gonna be educational because I didn't know for sure what he was trying to do but I knew that everytime he moved I must follow. So it was good for me to fight a very good Jujitsu fighter early in my career and that way I know and hopefully learn something from it.

Did he surprise you a bit? He seemed to get close to an arm bar early on and you shook him off and lay on him and hit him a bit [I can't believe I said that to him! - Nick] and then.... was he always going for submissions?

Tom Erikson : Yeah he was trying to work submissions, he was trying to set up submissions. He actually almost tried a knee bar and an arm bar. He had some good positions but I was able to defend them. And then from after that I felt I knew from the set-ups that he used not to make the same mistake and we fought on the ground for a little while longer.

Were you learning as it went?

Tom Erikson : From there I realised there was more of a risk for me to get submitted if I stayed on the ground so I chose to stand up and take momentary strikes on the ground and stand up again.

In that fight you seemed to take over 15 minutes in, you seemed to push him around alot.

Tom Erikson : I was out there learning. I didn't know how good he was on the ground. I've never experienced a very good jujitsu person and fighting with him I was very unsure. As it went on I tried to make adjustments, I knew I must move with him. And after I did that I started feeling more and more comfortable. And after a while I realised that my best opportunity to finish the fight would be standing up. That's why I stood up the whole time.

The ending was controversial, in that they didn't have any rules ready for a fight going so long. Is it true that they didn't pay either of you a share of the winner's purse?

Tom Erikson : No, they didn't. We split the loser's purse. They made it very difficult. It was very.... I didn't understand. It wasn't a good decision.

Just one more match. When you fought in Brazil Open Fights 97 with Kevin Randleman. It was another short match but good while it lasted. With Randleman being a wrestler, did you know much about him before you went in?

Tom Erikson : Kevin and I were friends! I knew him from wrestling and I trained with him. I thought it was very disappointing that I had to fight Kevin. I did not feel comfortable fighting my friend but because we had to fight, we did. So that was that.

Had you wrestled or rolled with him before?

Tom Erikson : He was smaller than me. We rolled around a little bit, but he was alot smaller than me when we were wrestling. When we fought he was much bigger, probably 220lbs. He wrestled 177lbs, so he'd gained alot.

Were you about 270 or 280?

Tom Erikson : 275.

In that fight, you weakened him with a front headlock and kneed him a bit. The punches seemed to finish a job you'd already pretty much done.

Tom Erikson : I worked on my striking and some of my ground. I knew Kevin would come out very aggressive so I wanted to take the front headlock and cut his wind off. Then to create space and throw my knees. Then finish him with strikes.

Okay then, thanks for your time.

Tom Erikson : Yeah, thank you.

Erikson's accomplishments include:

9-1-1 record in MMA, including a tournament win at Brazil Open Fights '97

1996 U.S. Olympic Freestyle Wrestling Team (Alternate)

Once defeated the 1996 Super-Heavyweight Olympic Gold Medalist.

Ranked #3 Super-Heavyweight Freestyle Wrestler in the world.

6 x medalist in U.S. Nationals and World Cup Championships.

2 x All-American and NCAA Champion.

* SFUK would like to thank Pride for their hospitality and photos used in this interview *