Bob Sapp continues his World Tour of Losing
Published by Zach Arnold on October 7th, 2009 in Current Events

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After an embarrassing fight performance against Bobby Lashley in Biloxi, Mississippi last Summer, Bob Sapp is back on a six-fight, three-month program where he is likely to lose as many fights as he wins. Sapp’s insane fight schedule has taken everyone by surprise and has raised a lot of eyebrows.

It’s also prompted, naturally, a lot of questions. Is Sapp simply fighting for the money? How many times will be lose? Is he even taking each fight seriously he is booked in? Does he even care at this point about his legacy and credibility as a fighter?

If Sapp’s performance in the DREAM ring on Tuesday was any indication, the answer is a pretty negative one.

In what can only be described as a strange, if not bizarre pre-fight DREAM 11 press conference, Sapp showed up with a representative from Battle Planet named Chris. Battle Planet booked Sapp for a show the very next day after the DREAM event and Sapp fought a kickboxing match. Sapp started out his press conference by announcing that he cut ties with his old Seattle trainer, Maurice Smith.

“I’ve been training extremely hard, uh, one thing that I’ve done I since changed my trainer from Maurice Smith to a Mixed Martial Arts fighter by the name of Antonio McKee. I uh also have moved to California for this training, in particularly for as I was getting prepared for this training it caught the eyes of some other fighting organizations, so I will be fighting in Planet Battle also on the 7th so I’ve been training in all sorts of fighting, stand-up for kickboxing which I will fight on October 7th in Hong Kong and of course I will also be fighting Sokoudjou in Mixed Martial Arts on October 6th, so I’ve been training for all types of fighting, Mixed Martial Arts and of course stand-up so I think this will give me a better overall picture for total conditioning that I truly need to become a world champion.”

At this point in the press conference, Sapp’s new Hong Kong friend named Chris started getting focused on by the Japanese media. Why did Sapp bring him along? What was this man doing here? Sapp told reporters that the man was at the DREAM event to recruit fighters. This came across, in my opinion, as a complete slap in the face of everyone at the press conference and everyone involved with DREAM. Sapp kept saying that he was taking fighting 100% seriously now and yet showed no real loyalty to DREAM. His only loyalty is to himself and what he has to do. Not exactly a recipe for babyface success.

Sapp, who lost to the smallish Minowaman in the Super Hulk tournament a couple of months ago, was a replacement for Gegard Mousasi who got hurt in the Fedor exhibition fight in Kansas City. Sapp’s opponent on the Yokohama Arena card, Sokoudjou, did not sound happy at all in his pre-fight meeting with reporters. He wanted to fight Mousasi and instead got Sapp. Sokoudjou said that Sapp is a Beast but he is a Lion and the Lion always kills the beast. He also called Sapp a big, slow elephant.

“Sokoudjou is, he is an excellent fighter, I think you can see that he’s managed to control big people rather easily, he can maneuver very big and very good with the skills of judo,” said Sapp in his pre-fight presser. “So, one of the things that I’ve got to do is watch out for the sudden takedown moves that he’s of course a master at. So, look to see me throw a series of punches and of course knees and following it up by big slams to take him down and of course to dominate with the ground and pound over the top.”

“Well, I mean I think Sokoudjou is just like, I’m definitely like I’m a elephant and Sokoudjou is the equivalent to that of a gnat so you know I just basically will just do nothing more than swat him right off of me. So, one thing that you’ll definitely see is he will show you, I won’t move, so when he’s punching me I will stand right then and there in the center and just have the punches bounce right off so I plan on making sure that he moves and that’s moves right on down to becoming the loser.”

As Sapp is wont to do, he continued his ‘professorial style’ of talking to media writers who spent little time focusing on the Sokoudjou fight and instead focused on Sapp’s insane fight schedule and his mixing and match of MMA, pro-wrestling, and kickboxing bouts.

So why is Sapp fighting so often, so quickly?

“You know, I guess I think one of the things that because I did have some losses, some recent losses this year, some of the promoters said you know they found that my most exciting fights being the ones when I was actually in fighting the most and so they decided to kind of really pack my schedule to make sure that I will concentrate solely on fighting so that’s the reason why you have Mixed Martial Arts and kickboxing at least one of those each month. I did have a show that recently got canceled for Mixed Martial Arts in Texas on October 16th, so we’re OK with that being canceled so two fights a month for at least the next four to five months is what we’ve got right now in the books.”

How will Sapp manage to handle the fatigue if he is truly 100% focused on winning each of his fights?

“This is definitely one of the side effects of course of having such a hard schedule is getting tired and being fatigued and that of course is what I have to overcome in the ring as well, so according to the way my trainer believes and of course these promoters set this up they believe that this is the best for me to understand that’s how I can overcome fatigue and tiredness and to become a real champion, so they actually have me out there really working so I’m thankful to be working and we’re doing the best to stay as safe as possible with this difficult schedule and also to have as much fun as possible, too.”

While Sapp didn’t bash Maurice Smith, he made it very clear that his new trainer, Antonio McKee, is pushing him very hard.

“The biggest change that I have was just the overall workload has increased. Before I was kind of mixing some of my fighting into with my entertainment schedule, although I’m still doing that the way that my trainer now believes Antonio McKee, we’re training every day 24/7 no matter what, so you can actually have me I will actually when I was in L.A. I was actually doing some of my commercial reads and voiceovers for cartoons and things and right after I was immediately brought down and went straight to training. Now normally I would take the rest of the day off, however currently our trainers and of course the promoters feel that the best way to get the most out of me is just to continually have me work and train and that will allow me to actually have the best athletic performance.”

Sapp’s fight with Sokoudjou at DREAM 11 was simply the start of the hectic schedule.

“Well, the training we definitely have already started but the beginning will definitely be in the sixth of October so yes I do have before it was seven fights in three months so now we’ve got six fights in the next three months coming up.”

“My ultimate goal is to definitely improve from where I was at the standing of last year and so my ultimate goal is still to be the best fighter in the world and in order for me to do so I have to fight and have some more success than what I’ve had recently. I’ve come up with some losses and now it’s time to show more about action. The only way to do action is to stop mouth from talking too much and actually let my body do the talking so more fists and hands and knees and submissions will do the talking for me.”

If Sapp’s ultimate goal was to win, well, he failed miserably against Sokoudjou at DREAM 11. Sokoudjou got on top of Sapp and started pounding away until the referee stopped the fight 90 seconds in.

After the fight, Sapp naturally placed the blame and heat elsewhere.

“OK, so as for the match I mean you know three mixed martial arts judging fighting can be a little bit difficult. So, you know, unfortunately what sometimes when you have a larger or a smaller opponent on top of you, he’s going to throw in some uh he’s going to throw in some shots. It’s just a matter of whether these shots are going to create damage, whether the ref should stop them is and um you know hey, I can’t block ‘em all, however if there’s no damage you know I have lost no conspicuousness and I have no bloody nose or even a black eye, I think that maybe shouldn’t you know even stop the fight.”

“Yes, I definitely think [the referee] intervened too early, I do understand him thinking that maybe I was uh creating damage but the only thing that you can do when you’re on the bottom is only defend and that’s it, I mean there’s nothing else really you can do, I mean you can’t hold on, I mean as we saw earlier Hong-Man Choi held on and he got a yellow card, so, I can’t hold on so the only thing I can do is defend so I mean that’s it. Otherwise, you’re going to get hit in the face, that’s the only two things you can do at that point.”

Typically, the Japanese media is restrained and respectful in questioning athletes after fights. However, all focus from the media was on Sapp’s hectic schedule and whether or not he essentially took an early loss from Sokoudjou in order to save energy and not take a beating in order to fulfill the rest of his fight schedule the rest of the year.

“I definitely look into going in every match to end it early. However, I take each fight one at a time. Yes I do currently now have five more fights to go uh in just to end up this year then I do have another four fights confirmed that go into next year um and that’s everything stemming from Mixed Martial Arts to kickboxing. However, I came into this fight expecting to win, I came in here um really you know wanting to do just like The Beast has I think um you know at any fight I will definitely I’m a big guy you know I’m well over 350 pounds, or well over 160 kilograms, and you know you’re going to be able to land some shots. However, if the shots create no damage, then I mean really I’m going to be at a disadvantage the entire time I mean some times you’ve seen me after my fights, I’ve been pretty beat up and bloodied up but I have no even a black eye or even a bloody nose so I mean, that’s all I can say.”

Sapp stress in the post-fight presser that his new trainer would make him a better fighter by the time his fight schedule is completed.

“Oh yeah, definitely, I think you’re going to see Antonio McKee, you’re going to see him train me for all these six fights coming up including my next MMA fight in Hong Kong, in Eurosport, and in China and of course coming back here to Japan, so, Antonio McKee’s going to be the trainer for now on so I did change the trainer from Maurice Smith to Antonio McKee and we’re going to stay with him for at least the remainder of these five fights, so.”