411 MMA Interviews: Rich Franklin

Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 11.11.2011

Former UFC middleweight champion Rich Franklin sits down with 411's Jeffrey Harris for an exclusive interview! Check out the full article to see what he had to say about his recent shoulder injury and rehab from surgery, his future plans and more!

Late last month, I got the chance to speak with former UFC Middleweight Champion, Rich "Ace" Franklin (28-6, 1NC, MMA; 13-5, UFC). Currently, Franklin is going through rehab following surgery to repair the torn labrum in his shoulder which he injured during training. Franklin is currently set to make a return to the UFC next summer. In the meantime, Franklin also appears as a featured role in the new movie, Hamill, about the life story of former UFC fighter, Matt "The Hammer" Hamill. In the movie, Franklin portrays Coach Pruitt, who was Hamill's wrestling coach when Matt Hamill competed on the wrestling team at Purdue. Franklin has also been in the news as a recent deal was made to make a movie about his life's story and career. Here is what transpired:



Jeffrey Harris: How are things going right now?

Rich Franklin: Everything's going really well. I had a therapy session today on my shoulder, just got out of that. I'm regaining more flexibility on my shoulder after surgery and all that kind of stuff. They had some new exercises for me, so it's a great day. 70 degrees here in Cincinatti; beautiful, sunny, and things are looking better for me. I can't complain, brother.

Jeffrey Harris: How did your most recent shoulder injury, your torn labrum, occur?

Rich Franklin: This was not from a fight or anything like that. I was actually training for the [Rogerio] Nogueira fight after the [Forrest] Griffin fight, but this wasn't even during training for that. This was about a month after I was training for the fight. I was just in the gym training and dislocated my shoulder grappling, first time I've ever done anything like that before. Shoulder popped right out of its socket. It popped back in on its own. I didn't think that it was anything major at the time. And I waited about a little over a week to go see a doctor, because I thought that it was just your natural instinct, like "ah, it will be OK." Well, I could tell right away that it was not happening. And long story short, I go to see the doctor, and sure enough I end up with the MRI and they tell that it's a torn labrum.

Jeffrey Harris: When you hear this and you hear you may be out for a while, as a fighter and a professional, how does that make you feel that you might not be able to fight again for such a long, long while?

Rich Franklin: It's a bit disheartening. It actually takes a while for the realism of something like that to hit you because you start telling yourself; oh it's not that big a deal. I'll bounce back real quick. And then as you are going through the process, you realize – just realizing today that I'm almost at the point when I'm the physical therapy that I can get my hand over my head straight. We haven't even begun to move my shoulder sideways. So when you think about all the directions the shoulder moves and how much we haven't done, it starts clicking in your head like this is going to be a much longer process than I would've already had thought of. And when you realize that it hits you. It is kind of sad because in my line of work basically I'm stuck on the sidelines now for about the next six months.

Jeffrey Harris: And not just that but from recent interviews it sounds upsetting that you can't even work out and train the way you want to. Is that one of the more frustrating things about the injury?

Rich Franklin: It is because even if I wasn't planning on fighting for six months, if I could be in the gym and doing the things that I needed to do to stay in shape, work on my technique, and all that kind of stuff, that somewhat diffuses the situation for you. It at least takes your eye off the ball a little bit. In this case, I can't. The doctor from the day of the surgery gave me a three month time frame from even being able to jog. I'm allowed to ride a stationary bike but that's about it for now. So I've been taking full advantage of that, but otherwise there is really nothing else I can do. I can't lift weights. I can't really do any kind of sparring or hitting a bag or anything. So yeah, it is very frustrating because it eliminates basically everything you could possibly do.

Jeffrey Harris: Do you compartmentalize in your head at all like, OK in a few months I can do this, and in a few months I can do this, to get back to where you were before?

Rich Franklin: Yeah that's the way you look at things. I'm allowed on the bicycle now, so I've gone into the gym several days and gotten on a bike and immediately I started pushing myself. How many miles can I ride? I'm going to ride for an hour. What level am I on the stationary bike? All that kind of stuff. And then I started doing some hamstring curls and some calves and then I started doing a little bit of core work and adding these things in. I'm only two weeks out of surgery today. But then you start adding more things as you heal. At some point in time, I'll be able to add things like maybe wall pushups or pushups, and I'll start actually be able to actually do some upper body. Then I'll be able to jog. Then I'll get some range and motion back, and I might actually be able to start doing footwork drills and shadow boxing and grappling drills; not actually grappling, but some drills and some movement drills and stuff like that. So it will come in phases. And as it comes in phases, you just got to focus on the things you can do rather than the things that you can't.

Jeffrey Harris: I know next year when you are set to come back is still a while off, but are you thinking at all about who you might want to fight? Do you still maybe want that fight with Rogerio Nogueira? Or do you just have to take it as it comes and when you are ready to go?

Rich Franklin: Yeah I definitely take it as it comes. It that fight makes sense at the time I come back then yeah I'm all about it. We'll have to see where everybody's sitting in the weight class when I get back in. So I just kind of take things in stride between now and then. A lot of things could happen between now and then.

Jeffrey Harris: After the Forrest Griffin, do you want to stick with light heavyweight or are you thinking about going back to middleweight?

Rich Franklin: Well, I'm at light heavyweight because the UFC encouraged me to be at light heavyweight. And either way, it doesn't matter. If I came back and the UFC said, "We want you to take this fight at 205," then I would take that fight at 205. But if they wanted me to take a fight at 185, then I would take that fight at 185. It would all depend on where they want me to be. I'm the kind of person that has just stepped up to the plate when they need to.

Jeffrey Harris: For the Hamill, you are featured as Coach Pruitt, the wrestling coach at Purdue that Matt Hamill had earlier in his career. I saw the movie last year at AFI Fest where it won the audience award. It was a very good movie. I was really impressed with your and Russell Harvard's [as Matt Hamill] performances. How do you think it turned out after getting to work on it?

Rich Franklin: I think the movie turned out great. They did a great job with the movie, especially when you take into account the budget that they had to work with for this movie, they did wonders with this movie. It tells a great story of Matt's life, what he had to go through, and the kind of obstacles he had to overcome in his life. And I know Matt on a personal level. There are a lot of things in that movie that I didn't know about Matt, particularly I didn't know about his personal life. I took a vested interest in the movie in watching the movie just because I didn't know a whole lot about those details of his life. And being a friend of his, I took an interest on a more personal level.

Jeffrey Harris: Seeing a movie made about your friend, and now knowing that a movie is being made about your life and career, is that a learning experience at all?

Rich Franklin: Well I've seen plenty of life story movies before, so I don't think working this movie gave me an edge up in any more experience. I don't know how much control I'll have over what they do with my life story. It will be interesting for me to see how that unfolds. As far as I'm concerned, if they'll allow me to be, I will be involved in that movie from start to finish: from the writing of the script all the way down to the shooting and everything. So I think that's going to be a whole big learning process for me being involved in this movie. I'll say that much.

Jeffrey Harris: How did the movie deal with Eric Eisner get done?

Rich Franklin: You know what, I guess he and my manager met at a function or were introduced. My manager, J.T., started telling me about taking a meeting with this gentleman. So we sat down with him. And I like Eric; he's a really down-to-earth guy. And we sat down and we talked about what was the vision that we had for this movie. And we seemed to be on the same page. And the Eisner family was the kind of family that can get things done. So we tentatively agreed based on our meeting. Contracts were sent back and forth. Things were red lined, you know whatever. You know how the whole contractual thing goes back and forth. And we came to an agreement. And they sent a writer out here to Cincinnati. He spent about five days with me. He interviewed some of my family, some of my friends, training partners, coaches, interviewed me. I took him around to some of the places I ate and he just kind of saw how my life is in general. And then I took him to some of the places I used to live and grow up and around the city so he could kind of get a feel for how my life was. And then he went his way and is now working on writing a script. So I'm at this point waiting to see an initial copy of the script I guess.

Jeffrey Harris: For the Forrest Griffin, getting in there with him and was it frustrating by realizing just how big he is and how much weight you have to push around with him? I think you did a good job toward the end of the fight, and sometimes in a fight like that you just run out of time.

Rich Franklin: Absolutely it was the case. I think that maybe in a fight like that, had it been a five round you could've seen a different outcome. And I wasn't frustrated about pushing his weight around so much. I knew that Forrest was going to come in a lot bigger than me. And I said this in interviews and I told them, when we step up on the stage at the weigh-ins and face off, we're going to look roughly the same size. But make no mistake about it; by the time he gets to the Octagon the following night, he's going to be a lot bigger than me. And he was. It looked like two fighters in two different weight classes. It was expected by me, and I wasn't frustrated about pushing his weight around as much as, you know in the first round if you watch my fights, I'm known for being able to get up off my back and fighters have a hard time holding me down even if they take me down. And with Forrest, I started to push away and I realized how big and heavy he was and we hit the ground so early in the first round that I thought if I tie this up, the referee will stand this up and then I'll continue working from there. And Forrest, he was wasting so much energy throwing these strikes that just weren't landing. And he from my point of view in the fight appeared to be tired at the end of the first round. Unfortunately, [Steve] Mazagatti never stood us up in that fight. We went over four and a half minutes on the ground with no significant damage done, no passing, no changing of any positions of any kind, no submission attempts – no clear, real submission attempts. And it was just a dead first round. I can't even imagine what the fight looked like from the fan perspective. It had to be a boring, boring first round fight. And that's not typical of me and that's frustrating. It was frustrating not to be able to end up back on my feet. And that's partially my fault for taking the wrong strategy and thinking that the referee would stand us up. And it's partially the referee's fault for not standing us up. But I think that as the fight went into the second round, even when we hit the ground, there were tons of scrambles, there was a lot of movement. He wasn't able to hold me down. Even into the third round, I was pushing him up against the cage, so strength and size was not necessarily a factor in that fight. I personally don't see it that way. Perhaps some of the fans do. I didn't. I didn't feel like I was fighting in a weight class where the guys were just that much bigger than me, or he was that much bigger than me. And Forrest will be one of the biggest guys in the weight class. It will be difficult to contend with that for fight after fight after fight, that extra weight is going to wear on you. From that point of view, yeah it is disadvantageous that I am fighting as a light heavyweight because I'm not a big light heavyweight. But again, I don't have to cut the weight so come fight time, I'm feeling better than the guy that had to take 20-25 lbs. off his body in order to make weight.

Jeffrey Harris: Later this month, you'll being going to Nashville for the Inspiration Country Music Awards regarding breast cancer awareness. Would you like to talk about that at all?

Rich Franklin: Yeah, for a segment of the show I will be presenting an award for some work and talking about breast cancer and bringing awareness to breast cancer and breast cancer research in another segment of the show which is kind of fitting for me because I'm a fighter who wears pink and I've done some breast cancer fundraisers. I don't raise funds for breast cancer; I raise funds for breast cancer research. But I've done some fundraisers for breast cancer research in the past using a play off of me wearing pink. And this is appropriate since October is Breast Cancer Research Month and big things are being done in different organizations. The NFL is wearing pink. So this is a fitting way to tie in the end of October.

Jeffrey Harris: And would you also talk about your work with the Disabled American Veterans?

Rich Franklin: Well I've involved with the DAV for a while now and I shot a PSA with them some time. And it was about the Disabled American Veterans, an organization that helps disabled vets out. And they help with some of the things like medical bills down to the simplest things like transportation to and from the hospital. There are a lot of World War II vets in this country; they don't have the capability of getting to the hospital and the DAV helps people like that out. And there are people that were recently in some of the operations in Iraq that are in need of skin grafts and they can't cover their bills completely maybe. And they help with like that as well. The DAV is a great organization, and you see other organizations that are like that as well. But I've always had a passion towards the military and the servicemen that have gone out and done the job that a lot of us wouldn't want to do. And for that, I just make sure that I get behind the cause that helps these guys out.

Jeffrey Harris: Your clothing and apparel brand, American Fighter, made a deal with The Buckle. What is the deal with The Buckle?

Rich Franklin: Basically we're in Buckle now as a brand. I've spent so many years with American Fighter as a brand, that there were times I passed up some good endorsement money from other companies and sat that out because of American Fighter. And it's difficult when you don't have the contacts in the clothing industry to put your clothing in places that you don't need to. And we teamed up with Affliction. They are basically franchising our brand out for us right now. And they have the contacts that we needed. They've gotten us into Buckle to start with. And pretty soon we should be able opening up in Macy's, Dillard's, and Bloomingdale's hopefully for the final fiscal quarter of this year which will helps us out with Christmas sales. So just now, personally as part of this company, starting to see a turnaround in the company finally. And I'm hoping it ends up becoming a successful company not for the money as much as I've been with this company from the beginning. And there were times when I was building this company that I really started losing faith in whether or not it would make it or survive as a brand. And it's finally starting to take off. So this is a really exciting time for me in American Fighter.

Jeffrey Harris: I saw a bit of the perspective of your title win against Evan Tanner in 2005 from Tanner's perspective in the documentary, Once I Was A Champion. But what was that moment like for you personally having worked toward that throughout your career and finally attaining the title and getting to that level?

Rich Franklin: It's kind of weird because it's not like what I thought it would be. Winning the title, it wasn't all that – I think the journey to the title was way more important than the actual winning of the title. I remember I went up to my hotel room the night that I won the title and I sat my belt on the bed and I just stared at it for a second. And my wife was in the room, I had a couple of my trainers in the room, and maybe one or two of my friends were there. And I just stood there for a second, just kind of speechless and I remember the room was real quiet. And all eyes were probably on me. I just kind of turned around and looked at everybody and I said, "I don't feel like a champion. This isn't what I thought a champion would feel like." I thought it would mean much more to me than it did. And winning the belt means a lot, but once I got there it was different than what I thought it would be. And you come to find out, as you get older in life, you realize that there are things way more important to you in life: things like your health and the health of your family and things of that nature. You don't place as much weight on that as you once did.

Jeffrey Harris: It's about the journey, not the destination?

Rich Franklin: Absolutely. That journey, the journey to get there: the hard work, blood, sweat, tears, all that kind of stuff that went into starting from ground zero to actually making it to the world title is really the most important thing.

Jeffrey Harris: Now that Hamill is making it to theatres for a limited release, do you know if it's changed at all from when it was making the festival rounds? I hope they didn't take you out of the movie because I enjoyed your scenes.

Rich Franklin: I don't think they took me out of the movie. We've been doing some promotional stuff for them on my Facebook and my Twitter as well. I don't know why they would take that out. And thank you, I appreciate the compliment for the acting job that I did. It's kind of difficult to watch yourself do something like acting at first because I'm not used to seeing myself in that light. But I don't think the movie has changed. I saw the movie out in LA when it premiered I guess almost a year ago now. So I'm assuming that the movie has maintained the same format. And I would imagine with my scene in particular, Matt being cut from the Purdue wrestling team, was a significant time in his life. Like that was a key moment, him leaving Purdue and going up to RIT. So it would be difficult to tell his story without that scene in it.

Jeffrey Harris: Anyway sponsors or people you would like to give a shout out to?

Rich Franklin: My Twitter handle is Twitter.com/followace. I'm @FollowAce. And my website is RichFranklin.com. We've talked about American Fighter. And on RichFranklin.com it has the link to my Facebook as well. The Hamill movie premieres in Cincinnati I think in two theatres in the downtown area here in Cincinnati as well.

Jeffrey Harris: Rich thanks so much for your time. Good luck with the rehab and I hope we see you back in the Octagon really soon.

Rich Franklin: Perfect. Thanks for all that, I appreciate it man.



Thank you to Rich Franklin for taking the time out of his schedule to speak with us.