The Ultimate Fighter Interview Series: Ryan Bader

Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 11.11.2008

The Vile One catches up with Team Nogueira member, Ryan "Darth" Bader.



Last week, I got the opportunity to interview Ryan "Darth" Bader, the first pick of Team Nogueira on season 8 of The Ultimate Fighter. Bader defeated Kyle Kingsbury in the opening tournament to earn a spot in the TUF house, and then went on to defeat Tom Lawlor in his first round match. Bader is still undefeated in his professional MMA career with a record of 7-0. He's a graduate of Arizona State University, and currently operates out of the Arizona Combat Sports training camp, the same camp of TUF 7 finalist, CB Dolloway, whom Bader is also good friends and roommates with.

Currently, Bader is training in Florida as we speak with Nogueira. Last week, he was nice enough to take a break from his training regiment to speak with me about his training and experience on TUF:

Jeffrey "The Vile One" Harris: You're good friends with CB Dolloway, and while he was on the show, the editors filmmakers sort of led him into speaking in the third person and making it look like he had this arrogant personality. Was that something you were weary of when you were going on the show?

Ryan Bader: No I wasn't really worried about it. I kind of knew what not to say. I learned from watching previous seasons, but they would do that as far as steering the conversation to what they want it to be. But other than that, you just have to be careful about what you say and stay away from all that, so . . .

TVO: When the coaches were doing the picks, who were you hoping to be picked by?

RB: Well you couldn't really go wrong with both coaches, you know with their experience and their coaching staff. I worked with a little bit with Mir when I was trying to cut weight. I worked also a little bit with Nogueira when I was getting my weight down. You couldn't really go wrong, but you know obviously I just wanted to get in there and roll around with Nogueira and his coaching staff, his assistant coaches. We also heard that Anderson Silva (Current reigning UFC Middleweight Champion) and Lyoto Machida were going to come in also, so you couldn't really pass that up to work with the pound for pound best fighters. Also Nogueira ended up being awesome. I'm so glad I got the opportunity to work with him.

TVO: There's been a lot of controversy about Junie Browning. Was it hard to keep your composure around him during his volatile outbursts and behavior? You did a great job of keeping yourself calm around him.

RB: We only really had that one problem kind of by the pool. At that point, he thought he was going home, so he wanted to take as many people with him as possible. I wasn't about to give up my opportunity, and be one of the guys who kicked off of TUF for fighting in the house, you know. After that [the pool incident], we pretty much got along fine. He was a little bit humble after the fight with Rolando he started calming down a little bit. It's just if you want to keep your distance, keep your distance, and I'm not trying to get sucked into anything else.

TVO: Now that the show is on, is it obvious to you why Junie didn't get kicked off the show?

RB: Oh yeah, we knew that first time after the pool incident that, he's on there just for the ratings. We could tell, and we knew why he was there and that he would not get kicked off for the rest of the season--he's there for one thing, to push those ratings up.

TVO: What made you decide to go on the show, also after having seen CB's experience? Were you wary at all to go on the show?

RB: At first we kind of planned on not going that route. We thought about the success CB had on the show and the kind of exposure it brought him, having it be my weight after that. I had talked to the producers when they were out there filming TV for the finale. So I kind of just made the choice, it worked out well for CB, so I might as well just take the opportunity to do something like this. So I went ahead and did it, even though you might be getting a better contract if you do it long way and what not, but I just thought it would be a good decision and all work out in the end.

TVO: I heard you come from a very stable home and familial background, can you talk about that at all?

RB: Yeah, I grew up and got into this basically through wrestling. I've always loved to compete, and that's what drives me to fight and get into sports like wrestling at an early age. My dad was big on me playing sports like playing football and wrestling in high school, kind of concentrated on those two, but wrestling being the main one. They [Bader's family] have always been supportive, my parents are still together, and my dad would show up to every single sporting event, and pretty much my whole family. I mean, they still do. Even my grandparents watch me fight. They've watched me fight, twice already when I was fighting little fights in Arizona. I owe them a lot . . . they've made me into the person I am today, and I thank them for that.

TVO: Nogueira thinks you can be a champion. How does that make you feel when you hear that?

RB: It's just an honor for someone of Nogueira's stature to say that about you. Nogueira's an awesome guy, and he represents this sport very well. He's a very laid back, cool guy, and he's a beast when he gets in that cage. He handles himself real well, and to have him say something like that about me is definitely an honor . . . and Nogueira and I would spar almost daily on sparring days, and we had pretty good little wars, and I think he respected that . . . we had a great time together, and I hopefully will have some more next week, we're going down there to train with him, so it should be a good time.

TVO: What about that amazing sparring session with Anderson Silva?

RB: We were inside the cage with a couple of guys and Nogueira and Anderson Silva, and couple of other guys were on the outside. And we would rotate, inside/outside, from person to person, and we kept going from Nogueira to Anderson Silva, sparring-wise, and it was just un-real . . . Anderson Silva's amazing; we were just going at it. He was switching his stance. And at the end, that you saw, it was the end of the workout; we had been sparring for a while. I hit him with a good shot, and he was kind of like, "Oh yeah?!" So I tried to get him a little bit, but he's so elusive, its pretty amazing.

TVO: There were a lot of pranking incidents in the house, and Nogueira got upset about it. Nogueira has a very personal, familial approach to the training and the teams, where Team Mir came off more like frat boys. Do you think there was overreaction to the pranks, or were the pranks just little, silly things?

RB: The pranks were fine. I never really thought anything was out of line, which some people thought the itching powder was . . . we had nothing to do in the house . . . and when it happened to me we always just tried to laugh about it, it was fine you know. But basically, we didn't go up to Nogueira and complain that they were putting itching powder in our sleep or anything like that. Nogueira kind of took it upon himself . . . and when Nogueira comes into the house, and he's trying to talk to you guys, other people should listen and give him the respect that he deserves. He's at the pinnacle of where we want to be, so I did feel he was kind of disrespected in that aspect, but Nogueira's worried about his team . . . Team Mir are more individuals and people have their egos, where Team Nogueira's more of a team. We're always trying to help each other out, and most of that was put together by Nogueira when picking the teams and talking in practice about what we need to do as far as helping each other out. So we owe a lot to Nogueira as far as it being like a real, genuine team.

TVO: Some fighters after their stints on TUF have changed weight classes. Could you ever foresee a change in weight class for yourself, or would you like to stay at light heavyweight for your career?

RB: I'd like to stay at light heavyweight. I'm close to 230 right now, and I'd have to lose a lot more weight to get to middleweight . . . obviously at light heavyweight for sure. I don't see myself going up to heavyweight . . . I'll be at 205 for probably the rest of my career.

TVO: What have you been doing since the show and what's your training regiment like? When you train how hard is it to get yourself to those limits and past them? Do you need people to help you with that, do you try to be independent, or is it a combination of both?

RB: It is a combination of both. I'm pretty independent as far as working hard -- but honestly it's all in your training partners when they're working hard alongside you and pushing you. At Arizona Combat Sports, we have a great group of guys, they're all willing to help each other, we're all friends. When somebody has a fight, we make sure we're there helping that guy out. So a little bit about my training. I'm training my ass off right now. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays we go in for strength and conditioning at around 8 o'clock, and do a lot of explosive stuff . . . I get my heart rate up as high as it can get, and keep it there. We do springs on the treadmill, sled-pulling, squatting, things like that. Then we go into ju-jitsu after that for a good hour and a half two hours on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday's. Monday/Friday's are wrestling, and we have an evening practice at 3:30 which is all stand-up and then we spar every Monday/Wednesday, sometimes box on Wednesday, and then pads and technique Tuesday/Thursday, chute boxing on Friday. We just put in a lot of work and just try to get my recovery down, and I'm feeling really good right now, so yeah, just training hard.

TVO: Is your family supportive of your career choice?

RB: Yeah, I got out of college with a justice degree and a minor in business. And I got kind of a sales and marketing degree and then a job. And I was doing that for about nine months, and I had a couple of fights while I was still working, and then the opportunity came for me to get paid monthly through a sponsor and it was enough to support myself, and I definitely took that chance. At first my parents were kind of weary, but like I said they've always supported me, and they said the same thing, whatever you decide we'll support you because I do everything I put my mind to, I put 100% in it and go after it. So they were supportive and started watching more and more MMA and now they know just as much as I do about the sport, the fighters, and the organizations so it's kind of funny.

TVO: What do you do to get yourself mentally ready before a fight?

RB: Well basically it's just looking back at my training and knowing that I put in the work. So now it's just time to put forward, you've been training two and a half months for a fight, and it all builds up to that fight. So yeah, you just got to focus on what you've been doing in your training camp, what's your game plan, and knowing what you're going to do when you get in there, and following your game plan -- its basically just kind of letting everything go and now its time to have fun. You put in the work, you put in the grueling training days and little, nagging injuries and we went through that, so now its time to have fun. And then it's done. And when you get done with a fight, and you win, its the biggest pressure release ever. Its off and it puts you on a high for weeks afterward, so that's what I love about fighting.

TVO: Thank you so much, Ryan. Really looking forward to your next fight on the show, and good luck.

RB: Thank you for having me.

UP NEXT: Team Nogueira's Efrain Escudero. And then we get to hear from Team Mir's Vinny Magalhaes.