“He really impressed me and he had great finishing technique,” exclaimed Forrest Griffin. Quinton Jackson said “it was one of the most gruesomest knockouts I’ve ever seen.” Now you can hear what Matt Riddle had to say about his first fight on The Ultimate Fighter 7, episode 2 against Dan Simmler. I met up with Matt Riddle for a few minutes after the second episode of TUF 7 to talk about the first round of the fight, what his parents though about him fighting, and what Quinton Jackson said to him after the fight.

Juanito Ibarra was in your corner for the fight, what did he tell you to do?
“Box like a Southpaw.” I’m a Southpaw and I only got like two minutes with the corner guys and they were like “what’s your style?” and I was like “I’m a wrestler and jiu-jitsu guy with heavy hands” so they said “box like a Southpaw.” So that’s what I did and you can see that it worked out for me.

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Few people have ever visited the small town of Palmerton, Pennsylvania. Situated in the mountains of the northeast region of the state, it’s home to The Ultimate Fighter’s newest sensation, 22 year old Matt “The Answer” Riddle. While Matt Riddle isn’t the only fighter from the show to come out of a small town, he certainly comes out with a big mouth and even bigger actions to back his words up. If you watched the second episode of The Ultimate Fighter, you saw Matt Riddle deliver one of the most brutal knockouts in the show’s history. A knockout that Quinton Jackson called “knockout of the century.” The young fighter, however, is probably one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. He’s always smiling and more than willing to help anyone learn jiu-jitsu at the facility where he currently trains.

Going back a couple years to 2006, Matt Riddle begin his MMA experience at Jay Russell Jiu-Jitsu in upstate New York. After moving from New York to Pennsylvania to live with his family and train locally in April of 2007, he placed 2nd at the NAGA World’s in the Expert Division. Next came NAGA’s Battle at the Beach where Riddle took home the belt in the mens no-gi Expert division along with a win at Grapplers Quest, and at the Copa Atlantica BJJ tournament. While Riddle was winning these tournaments, he was still a white belt with less than two years of jiu-jitsu experience. He recently won his first amatuer MMA fight with a keylock at the “Battle of the Sun II” before trying out for The Ultimate Fighter in Newark, New Jersey where he was selected to be a part of the show.

Not only has Riddle gone further than most fighters in only 8 years, he also doesn’t train at a large regional facility hosted by a big name UFC star or a well-known trainer. Instead, you can find him in Palmerton, at Rat Pack Fighting Systems. MMA Opinion sat down with Matt Riddle tonight during the second episode of The Ultimate Fighter, Season 7 to discuss his past, training with a Gracie Black Belt, and his move from junior high school wrestling to Division 1 wrestling.

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UFC Fight Night 13, one of the most anticipated Fight Night events in UFC’s history, can not come soon enough! From elite strikers, grapplers, brawlers, to ground & pound and jiu jitsu experts, the explosions are guaranteed to go off throughout the night. Stacked with top talent, this fight card may very well be bigger than many of UFC’s Saturday night Pay Per View events. With this exciting night just a few days away, I caught up with one of UFC’s intense seasoned grapplers Kurt “Batman” Pellegrino (17-3) as he prepares to face off against the recent Ultimate Fighter series winner Nate Diaz (8-2) on Wed. April 2 Live on Spike TV.

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Ed Herman Interview continued…

CC. What are the best things about being a pro fighter?

EH. There are a lot of good things; I get to support my family doing something that I love. I get to travel and see the world. I get to meet a lot of cool people. One cool thing is that you get the chance to influence people and motivate people that you have never even met. I get MySpace emails, and stuff like that on my fan site from people thanking me for motivating them to get off of their ass. It is pretty cool to be able to motivate people you have never even met.

CC. Worst?

EH. Man, you know, I think the hardest part is staying in good shape all the time, and staying healthy, and being disappointed. You know, in the summer when all of your boys are going to the river, you have to say no that you have to go sit in the hotbox sweaty gym all day and train. That’s probably one of the hardest parts. I like to get out and have fun. That is probably the hardest part with all of the time you have to put in to be top notch.

CC. If Dana came to you and said you could have any fight, who would you pick and why?

EH. Any fight I want. Haha, I would like to fight Jason McDonald pretty bad. I would love to fight him. Kendall Grove and Jason are both on my list. Another guy is Kazuo Misaki who I lost to a couple of years ago in Japan. I was winning that fight until I made a mistake and got caught. I don’t have any animosity toward any of those guys, or really anyone else, but those are three guys that beat me, and I would love to get that back. I feel that if I had a shot at any of those three guys it would be great.

CC. Rumors today on the internet is that Wanderlei is dropping, any interest in fighting him?

EH. Wanderlei is dropping, huh. I would fight Wanderlei. I watched him as a kid, I mean that is not who I would want to fight right now, but if they came to me I would take the fight.

CC. If you could put together a dream fight, which would it be between?

EH. Of course I want to see Randy and Fedor throw down. There is a lot of stuff out there it is hard to say. Maybe Gomi and B.J. Penn, There are a lot of good matchups it is hard to pick. Personally, I would like to see Ryan Schultz, a teammate of mine, get a rematch against JZ. They fought to a draw, I was at that fight and Ryan won that fight hands down. I am not sure what the judges were watching but I would love to see that rematch. I think that Ryan Schultz is one of the baddest men out there!

CC. Presidential Candidate John McCain has gone on record saying that MMA is human cockfighting, what are your reactions to these absurd statements?

EH. Those statements were made a few years ago, about how the UFC used to be. In a way he was right. It was very brutal back in the day. In a way it helped push the sport to the level that it is at now, to be a professionally ran sport with the great set rules and commissions. If he is still saying that I don’t think it is cool. It is not. Anyone that doesn’t like it, they don’t have to watch. People that are educated on our sport know that it is a legit sport, and that it is not as bad as people think.

CC. I personally feel that the NFL is a lot more violent than MMA.

EH. I think it was NBC or someone big like that, that did a story on the UFC and IFL awhile back and it was a real good story. In that they compared the two, and how football and other sports have a lot more injuries than we do.

CC. What would you recommend to young fighters that are trying to crawl their way into the UFC?

EH. I would recommend working hard; harder than they could ever imagine. I can remember back when I thought I was working hard it is a joke now. Working hard and being dedicated are important. Having good partners and a good team around you is also important. There are a lot of crooks getting into our sport these days, so fighters have to watch their backs. Having a coach that is not going to throw you to the wolves that will build you up, and back you up is also important.

CC. What is the biggest problem you see with young fighters?

EH. There are promoters that are all about making a dime off of everybody and they don’t care about the fighters. You have guys that want to make money and jump right into the Pros. I believe in coming up amateur and fighting your way up, like in boxing. Most of the guys have a lot of amateur experience, and I think that MMA guys should do the same. I am not saying have as many as the boxers do, but at least have a handful of fights. A lot of guys go in there and get hurt, or get a bad taste in their mouths, and it ruins it for them.

CC. What do you think about steroids in MMA?

EH. I think there was, I think their used to, but it is getting a lot better. Especially with the merger of Pride and UFC, most of the big shows are in the U.S. now and they are testing everybody. I am glad too, I don’t want to have to do steroids because everyone else is, I don’t want to have to do it because everyone else is, just to keep up. Which eventually would have happened, but now in the UFC the guys coming in from Japan are a lot smaller. I think it is a great thing for the sport that they are stepping up on the testing.

CC. Other than MMA, what sports do you enjoy?

EH. I have been an athlete my whole life, I enjoy watching football. I don’t really got down and play anymore. I am a little bit of a basketball fan. I like to go and ride quads. I enjoy wakeboarding

CC. Are you still coming to Virginia at the end of March?

EH. Yea as far as I know, my agent is taking care of that. As far as I know they are still advertising it, and that I am going to be there.

Prior to completing the interview Ed wanted to give a shout out to his sponsors Condom Depot, Warrior Wear, and all of the guys from Team Quest with recent fights which included StrikeForce at the Dome, all the IFL guys from Team Quest who fought on February 29th, and Jon Fitch’s latest challenger, Chris Wilson.

I want to thank Ed Herman for giving me this opportunity to pick his brain, and wish him nothing but good luck on his training and upcoming fight. Expect more articles related to Ed Herman and the Team Quest camp in the future, and possibly exclusive interviews as well.

Team Quest fighter Ed “Short Fuse” Herman is an amazing athlete who is currently fighting in the UFC with an exceptional 15-4 MMA record. He is recently coming off exciting stoppage wins over Scott Smith at UFC 72 and most recently, Joe Doerkson at UFC 78. Faced with a tough year in 2006, Herman returned with a vengeance in 2007 to stop all three of his opponents before the final bell. Ed took the time out of his busy training schedule to talk with me to discuss his next fight in 2008, his training, and several other topics of interest. This is Part 1 of this exciting interview with the Team Quest fighter.

CC. Rumors around the internet (graciemag.com) are that you are fighting Demian Maia at UFC 83, are these rumors true?

EH. Yes that’s true.

CC. After your KO in your last fight, can we look for you to throw more of the leather in your future fight?

EH. Yea, you know. It would be nice to get another knockout. He is a submission grappling world champion so I figure I would be a lot smarter if I keep the fight on our feet.

CC. It never hurts to get that knockout of the night bonus either.

EH. I would rather get a submission of the night; I think it would be cool to get a submission over the world champion.

CC. How has your training for the fight been going?

EH. Great! Originally I was suppose to fight March 8th, they rescheduled to April 19th, which gives me even more time to get in even better shape, so that was fine by me.

CC. What type of cardio workouts do you do?

EH. I run, I do a lot of stairs, running hills, airdyne workouts, and things like that.

CC. Are your workouts anything like we seen on Sean Sherk’s UFC All Access?

EH. I do some stuff like that, I workout at a place called SportsLab. We work on things like plyometrics. I run a lot of steep stairs like they showed him doing in the All Access, I run hills. I don’t get on my hands and knees, but I do run hills.

CC. When you are training for a fight how much tape of your opponent do you watch?

EH. I watch a little bit yea, I have a boxing coach that watches tape on it, as well as Robert Follis, my Jui Jitsu coach Fabiano Scherner. They all take a look at it and tell me what they see.

CC. I am sure that helps out a lot, there are some fighters that train their style, and have the mentality if they are going to beat me then they are going to beat me.

EH. Well I am not going to change my style for them; I am still going to fight the same way. I will know what to look out for, what your opponent is going to do. If he is going to try to take me down, then I will take a look at his takedowns, what kind of shot he shoots, and stuff like that

CC. How does training differ when you are training for a fight, and not?

EH. It differs a lot you know, I try to stay in shape all the time, but when I have a fight coming up; usually 8-10 weeks out I am in the gym 2-3 times a day. If I am not in the gym then I am somewhere else working out. I usually just step up the cardio, and make sure I am in top shape.

CC. Can you tell me a little bit about your diet? I heard a rumor that you have a different diet than most, is that true?

EH. Um, everyone has a different diet I guess. I walk around at 210-212 so as the fight gets closer I get tighter and tighter with my diet. Yea, we refer to it as the Dolce diet. My strength and conditioning coach, who is kind of like my nutritionist Mike Dolce designs a diet. It is a lot of common sense. It is cutting out a lot of simple sugars and carbs. It is a real simple diet, it is very clean.

CC. Is it hard to stay on?

EH. You know, it gets rough; it gets tighter and tighter as the weeks go by. You know, you will be thinking about those Cheetos and things like that. Things that I don’t really crave that much, I don’t really eat fast food, but when you’re cutting weight and dieting, and drive by McDonalds, you want to stop.

CC. Do MMA organizations need to regulate weight cutting?

EH. I don’t think so, no, because if a guy cuts too much weight then it is his own fault. You have to be good at every aspect of the game, your diet, how you cut weight. You have to have it all down to a T, that is part of being a champion doing things right.

CC. If you are cutting wrong then you are going to gas in the 3rd.

EH. Right, people throw an outfit on, and cut 30lbs the day of weigh-ins aren’t doing it healthy and it is hard to do. Hopefully the people that do it stupid don’t ruin it for the rest of us that know what they are doing.

CC. Do you think that cutting weight is a big deal in Mixed Martial Arts

EH. I think it is a big part of the game, yea. As long as you do it right it is a good thing. I have it down to a science now. Making weight is easier now than it’s ever been, and I am bigger now, and I think it is just part of the game.

Prior to completing the interview Ed wanted to give a shout out to his sponsors Condom Depot, Warrior Wear, and all of the guys from Team Quest with recent fights which included StrikeForce at the Dome, all the IFL guys from Team Quest who fought on February 29th, and Jon Fitch’s latest challenger, Chris Wilson.

Check back tomorrow for Part 2!