Interview with Steven "The Warman" Wright: War Room MMA striking coach discusses Team Takedown, the jab, and much more!

I recently had the pleasure of talking to Steven “The Warman” Wright, former striking coach of Team Takedown, and current coach at War Room MMA. Steven went into how he got into the business of coaching, his time at Team Takedown, why the jab is so important and reasons we don’t see much of it in MMA, and so much more!

Please make sure you go follow Steven on Twitter @steventhewarman, head out to his gym if you’re in the area, War Room MMA, and of course, enjoy the interview as well!

Coaching at Team Takedown

So when I got to Team Takedown, I was already coaching in Minnesota but I was only doing it for fun. I was working as the general manager at a movie theater, I just finished college and I was getting paid OK money, so I was like, this will be just some fun that that I’ll do. So then I went out to Europe and I was filming a kick-boxing documentary and and also looking to have the opportunity train here and there, and then all the sudden I get tapped on the shoulder and it’s Tyrone Spong, and I'd actually trained with him like a little bit earlier, like in 2007, but this was around 2010 or 2011. Then he goes, oh you and Henri (from what I could make it, it was Henri) contacted me on Facebook, but he had a friend who ran his Facebook, so then he said “did you still wanna do that interview?” and I said “perfect, I’d love to” so then I went out to their gym, and I ended up videotaping the interview, and then like, we made a day of it. We went to the barber shop, like it was a big deal, but when I met him he goes do you know Mo and he’s talking about Muhammad Lawal, and then Muhammad Lawal was like, “oh man you know is like this is crazy, kickboxing is crazy”, you know it's funny, he was just enjoying being out there.

So then once we got to the day I'm filming, and then as a joke Tyrone held the pad to low kick pad towards me, and I can really, I've got a really deep low kick and and I've been training in Holland for a while, and I went to Thailand, and I picked up on it so I kicked the pad one time with my jeans on and I said “hold on” and I had my fight gear underneath just in case I got the opportunity to train and then they fell out laughing so I just started going to work and then we were training, and I was like “well Mo, if you do this, it could work against a guy….in MMA, but it would be really tough to do against a guy who was was used to kick boxing” like, that technique he was trying. Then I said “Tyrone, you know what you're doing here man this works really well in kickboxing but if you go against a guy that can wrestle, you’re really opening yourself up to this”. So then we just ended up talking fighting and then it got into a, of all things, a conversation about faith, because I’m a very spiritual person, a very Christian guy, Christ is my life, and so then that turned into the no sex before marriage talk, which I held to until I got married, to them that was insanity, but it also meant we were more than just training partner partners, we became friends.

After we were doing it, Mo, after training, Mo says “when we go back to the States, you're gonna be my guy”. I didn’t think anything of it, but he was like “I love it you got the kickboxing style down, you’re going to be my guy” and so we get back to America, every weekend, he would ask me what I'm seeing, if there was a fight event, he’d be like “oh what are you seeing here, what are you seeing here?” so then I would break it down to him and send it to him, and he goes “you’re the truth” he says I've been telling everybody about you, I told Marc Laimon about you. At the time, I'd heard the name Marc Laimon, but wasn't 100% sure of who he was because I came from kickboxing. So then, um, a week or so later I get a call from Marc, and he goes “man I had talked to Mo Lawal and he says you know you're good guy for striking and he says is there anyway you come out to Texas just to, you know try it out see if you like it out here”, and I was like “alright, cool’. So then the owner was named Ted Earnhardt, he called me like the next day and he said he’ll pay me a $1000 to go out there and work with them for a week, see if the fit happens.

To hear the rest of this fascinating story, you’ll have to listen to the interview!

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