My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 83 - JAMES KRAUSE

Episode Date: October 20, 2020

Robbie is joined in the Basement today by one of the only actively competing coaches in all of mixed martial arts, James Krause! James picked up a short notice victory over on Fight Island this past weekend and discussed that plus much more in this interview! Enjoy.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey My Mom's Basement listeners, you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. James, if you're not aware, is one of the few active fighters in mixed martial arts who is also a coach. He coaches 12 fighters in the UFC, and he's very serious about coaching. He says he's pretty much as serious about coaching or more serious than he is fighting. I think his perspective on the sport is very fascinating because of that, and we had a really good interview. So before we get into it, let me remind you about our sponsor,

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Again, that's BASEMENT at checkout, the number 3, CHI.com. This stuff is amazing. I recommend it tremendously. Okay, let's get into this interview with James Krause. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the show. Welcome back to My Mom's Basement. I am lucky enough to be joined by one of the men who picked up a win over on Fight Island this weekend. It's Mr. James Krause. James, you picked up a short notice win as well. How are you? How are you feeling? Well, I'm kind of banged up, but par for the course, you know the deal.

How's the knee? I heard you say in the post-fight interview, you thought you might have torn something have you had evaluated yet uh i had an ultrasound done uh yesterday morning uh the ultrasound shows a partial tear in my mco uh but i have an mri on it today to see what you know the extent of the tear so uh we'll see but it's definitely it's definitely torn that's unfortunate i wish you the best of luck in recovery there but the fight like i said was a short notice fight you got the win does your short notice win feel a lot better than a regular win because this isn't your first short notice fight you're kind of known to do this oh I think a win's a win you know what I mean it's great it's it's it's there's there's pluses and minuses to both I mean it's great not to have to go through, like, the, you know, the grueling training camp or whatever.

So that's nice. But, you know, like, I'm not in as good of shape as I normally would be in. But I feel like I'm still – I train all the time, so I still feel like I'm in pretty good shape. And I think I showed that in the fight. It wasn't really a cardio issue. It was more of just a mobility issue than anything towards the end. But, yeah, I mean, there's pluses and minuses to everything. And, you know, wins are wins there.

So I'm happy to get the win for sure. Does being a coach and having that stuff on your schedule add to you taking short notice fights more often, do you think? Yeah, it's one of the reasons why I like to do that. You know, I stay training all the time. So it definitely was really the deciding factor in taking this fight to be honest with you because i knew if i didn't take something on the island then i i would i won't be able to fight for the rest of the year you know i have too much on my schedule like i have october 31st i have november 14th i have november 28th i have december 12th i have january 16th these are

all my guys that are booked that's ufc only And I have another four guys in the UFC that probably aren't, uh, that probably will be booked that aren't booked yet. And then I have my own promotion in Kansas city. That's on UFC fight pass, uh, local, other local stuff, regional stuff that I'm not even counting. So, yeah. So I want to get into all of that because that's actually why I wanted to have you on the show. I think your story of being an actively competing coach and one of the few in the sport is very fascinating. And I've become friends with one of your fighters, Megan Anderson over the years, and she speaks so highly of you as a coach specifically. So when did you get into coaching and what made you kind of dive into that as a fighter? Uh, I mean, I've been coaching, I say this all the time. I've been coaching since way before I should have been, uh, you know what

I mean? Like when I started fighting, if you had six months experience over somebody you had it was a lot you know I mean it was it was it was like you know when when an eight-year-old and a nine-year-old compete with each other usually that year difference of maturity is a big is a big player so that's kind of where I was at uh in that in that regard but I would say that I really like I really took on the I think I went from a teammate helping other people to an actual like a formal, Hey, I'm your coach. This is our schedule. This is how we're going to approach this fight, blah, blah, blah. I think I did that about five or six years ago. You know, Grant Dawson and Megan both came to me around the same time. And that's really when I was like,

shit, people are really starting to move here because of what I'm doing you know maybe uh I need to look at this I need to start and honestly I never really was like this is super formal I was just I was just like hey this is how we're going to approach this fight hey uh this is your this is your training schedule um you know just helping him through life stuff I have a lot of experience in the game and in life you know so uh I just I'm a natural a natural leader and I naturally want to help people through things so I think that was a big part of it and then this kind of grew you know what I mean it kind of grew and everybody getting better and now you know we have 12 fighters in the UFC and it's just it's gotten really cool yeah you're a go-to name when people talk about

coaches now definitely so you would say maybe you fell into it and then it snowballed more than like I really want to be a coach and passionate about coaching before you got into it. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. It just kind of happened by accident. And, you know, I'm kind of obsessed over the game. I have a very obsessive and addictive personality. And I just, I think I just see things a little differently than most people. I have a different outlook on how to approach the game. I think I do things a little differently than most people. I have a different outlook on how to approach the game. I think I do things a little differently than most coaches do. I was going to ask you about that.

How would you describe your style or approach as a coach? Obviously, you don't have to give away the dirty secrets here. Oh, yeah. What is your style as a coach? Well, my team focuses on five things that I feel like set us apart from from other gyms uh that's that's fight IQ that's organization of your game uh blending everything together uh clinch work and cage work I think those things I don't think every other gym is doing all of all of those things I think people for the most part suck in the clinch I don't feel like very many people can

wrestle well off the cage. There's always exceptions to every rule, but I feel like those five things combined are what set us apart from other gyms. And I think it shows in our fights. You know, I think our guys are competing at a high level. We're having success right now at a high level. And right now we're riding the high. You know, we're on a big streak right now in UFC.

And, you know, I know it's a roller coaster. It always is. It'll come down. Of course, it's fighting, right? Yeah. Yeah, of course. You know, if you win a fight, you know, I know it, it'll, it's a rollercoaster. It always is. It'll come down. Of course it's fighting, right? Yeah. Yeah, of course. You know, if you win a fight, you fight better people. And it's just, you know, at that level, the margin of errors is so thin, but I just feel like we're, we're, we are, uh, I feel like we're a very new school team. I feel like we're approaching things differently. We're approaching things from, uh, much, uh, smarter than a lot,

a lot of teams are, uh, you know, we're, we're looking at how we drill. We're looking at You know, we're looking at how we drill. We're looking at strength conditioning. We're looking at how we spar. We don't really spar super hard. It's about putting everything together, the organization of your game, you know, funneling down to give you the best possible chance for you to win. Just a lot of little details like that that I I just don't see people focusing on it. It just seems like people are kind of throwing random stuff at the table and hoping it sticks,

but we are very, very adamant about organizing the game to funnel people down into giving our fighter the best possible chance to win. As an obsessive guy with an obsessive personality, like you just said, are you a big film watcher when it comes to preparing for fights? Absolutely. I've already got over an hour today and I'll probably do another two before the day's in. I watch video every day. Yeah, absolutely. Who are your favorite fighters to watch? It's not necessarily fighters per se it's it's to me it's about positions techniques how they're filling gaps um you know like what are they doing differently uh you know like the

one that stands out khabib is fighting this weekend you know his his cage work system his ground uh his catch wrestling style like all that is obviously very unique you can learn a lot from that and i've taken a lot from that uh on the flip side of that justin i like his striking style he's got a very fast twitch herky jerky style um does a good job uh like striking off the stand switch cutting cutting angles uh cutting people off into his power he does a really good job all that so both those guys have you know incredible details and that's so i don't really look at people specifically i look at like one person that's doing something different than everybody else. Right.

Like, uh, like if we're looking, if we're talking about left body kicks, you know, if we're saying, you know, if I want to look at a left body kick, who's the best left body kicker and, and all of MMA, the first guy that comes to mind, Edson Barbosa, like that's the guy that comes to mind. So what is he doing differently? What let's watch it. What does feet look like? Let's watch what his hips look like.

You know, what is he doing? Like, that's what i'm looking at so um and once again i just feel like we we break things down a little differently than than others you know i like to watch the defensive aspect i like to watch the footwork i just i feel like a lot of mma guys are just lacking basic fundamentals and and very niche uh niche positions like clinch. Not very many people are good in the clinch. Not very many people can wrestle well. I still see people trying to double and single on the cage.

Everybody's taking down the fences too good nowadays. You have to start to work the body lock, a lot of trips now. Just the game is changing, and I feel like we're changing faster than most people are. Yeah. Did you get a chance to see Brian Ortega's performance in the main event on Saturday or not? No. Glimpses of it. From what I've seen, it was absolutely incredible.

He looked very improved. But I have not had a chance to watch that fight as a whole yet. I was going to say, from what you're saying about differences and people putting things together differently, I feel like you would enjoy his performance because just – I'm not an analyst or a coach by any means, obviously. But from hearing what Dan Hardy was saying about his performance on commentary and stuff and how he was putting things together differently and grabbing the leg and teasing takedowns and stuff like that i feel like you would really like that yeah i love that stuff man uh blending that's the blending category for us uh putting just putting all things together he's not he's not striking he's not wrestling he's doing both at the same time he's using one to set up the other that's that's what our blending category is all about we're huge on that here it was really fun to watch so i also

saw this and i'm not looking i'm not this is the clickbait show but i saw you mention uh joaquin buckley who just got this viral ko wanted to train at your gym and you told him no i'm not really asking about that i'm like i said i'm not looking for the i hate joaquin buckley i want to fight him quote but what is sort of the culture that you're trying to set up in your gym that you didn't want to allow him in to yeah um like one of the things that one of the things that he's done that I just don't really have a lot of respect for is when he when he gets on social media like I've seen him call out guys like two and three weight classes below him he's notorious for that in our area and uh he's just not really like positive dude he's not a good teammate he's been kicked out of every gym in St. Louis.

So now he's coming to Kansas city. Like if you look at his pictures, he's trained with like four guys. It's cause nobody wants to train with him. And it's just, he's, he's a dickhead training partner. Like, and I've never, I've never heard a good word said about him, you know? So it's like, so I don't, I don't, I just don't want that culture in my gym. You know, I want people that, that want to help others. You know, our, our team is good and we're, we're having success right now because everybody wants to help each other,

you know, with that success. So it's, I just don't, I don't, I don't want guys that are selfish. I don't want guys that are out for their own individual success. I mean, that what we're doing leads to that, obviously. I mean, to, to deny what we're doing right now is ridiculous you know we're obviously having that success but i'm not listen i'm not dogging on him as a fighter like what he did is incredible that kick was amazing sick you know i just i i don't want that uh type of attitude in my gym i don't need it i don't it's just not something that i want and it's not something

that i can help him with because uh you know that know, that dude wants to go and he wants to, he wants to spar everybody and he wants to fight everybody in the gym. It's just not what he was asking from my gym. He wanted to come spar and basically fight everybody. That's not, I don't, it doesn't do my guys any good. It doesn't do him any good. Like, I don't, I don't want that. And I told him that he took offense to it, got lippy with me. So I got lippy back. You know what I mean? I don't want that. There's no progress in that.

There's no learning in that. You know, if you want to go spar and beat people up go go somewhere else it's not that's not what my gym is about we're trying to get better we're trying to learn and uh i think i think the the methods in which we're doing that are proven yeah okay i was just curious about that i appreciate you answering that now i've got a few final questions that i want you to answer as both a coach and a fighter they're kind of overall broad scope mma questions the first of which being what do you think about israel adesanya's plea to deduct a higher percentage from fighters that miss weight yeah i don't think that's the answer um well he said like what did he say he said 90 yeah i mean there's at that point it would make it wouldn't even make any sense for us to fight because, like, let's just say you make $100,000 in a fight.

If you're making $100,000 in a fight, you're in at least a 30% tax bracket. So right there, that's 30 off the top. So if you take 90, I mean, you miss weight, you've already lost $20,000. It doesn't even make sense to fight. It hurts you to fight at that point. I'm with you i see the i see the uh the message he's trying to send though there has to be uh harsher penalties on missing weight and i and i don't disagree with that uh however you know in my opinion we can do uh

there's so many different ways uh to approach it 90% is, is too much though. You can do, you know, I think anything over five pounds, the fight should be scratched. And the, and the, the, the person that made weight should get their, their, their show money and their opponents show money. Definitely. You know, and then, and then anything under that three pounds, you can go to 30 or 50% or whatever. You know what I like even 50 is is is pushing because at the end of the day we got to feed our family right these guys are in ufc most of the guys are they're full-time fighters so

uh yeah there's a there's a bunch of different ways but 90 is that's unrealistic i get his message and i agree with the message just the the specifics of it i don't agree with all right so how do you feel about the current system of mixed martial arts scoring? We hear complaints all the time, right? Fighters will not agree with the decision. Fans will not agree with the decision. Dana will even not agree with the decision. A lot of these people scoring the fights are brought over from the boxing world at times.

People that the commission just kind of brings over to MMA. We've heard open scoring suggestions. We've heard Joe Rogan say maybe we need more judging in general, maybe a wider pool of judges for each fight. What do you think about the current system? The problem with it is each individual state is commissioned by their own state. So it's not just one rule change. You've got to get 50 people to agree to this.

So that's the first hurdle right there is getting everybody to be on board with this but so it starts with if you want like immediate change in my opinion if you want immediate change it's going to start with like okay this is going to be a five ten year process to get these rule change but what can we do right now to make a difference right now open scoring seems to be the like if you go in any other sport basketball football baseball we know what the score is right like in any other sport we know exactly uh what the score is uh in in the in the game or in the in the fight if we're doing that so if we want to change right now like the the best possible thing that we can do for change and my opinion is open scoring, that's not going to be the answer.

That's just a small Band-Aid to fix the problem. But if we are fixing the problem, I think a bigger pool, I think we bring in five judges instead of three. And I think they have to have – man, when I was on the Ultimate Fighter, to see some of the judges walking in there is just like, dude, these guys are like 80 years old. They've never, I mean, you know, they have no idea. They're talking about the sweet science.

Yeah, it's not, I mean, they're not, they're not, they don't even give a shit about the sport. You know what I mean? They're, they're, it's, it's a, it is a, especially in that community, Vegas, California, Florida, like the head guy is taking care of his friends. You know, if you and I are friends and I have a, I have this big company, I'm going to give my friend a job. I'm going to give you a job. You know what I mean? Like, I don't, I don't care if there's more qualified people to take care of my homie. You know what I mean?

And then your livelihood is at stake based on their decisions. And the problem is, man, you know, I was saying this after the Giles fight, the problem is, is like the guy, like my guy scored, scored the first round for Giles. I rode the dudes back for four and a half minutes like you know what i mean like i don't know yeah but but this is the problem is at the end of the day those guys go home with no consequences no repercussions you know if i if i mess up at my job i get my brains beat in because of it. You know what I mean? There's no consequence or repercussion for him. He got the same check.

He went home and he probably judged again the next weekend. And that's a problem. If you mess up at your job, you need to be reprimanded for it. And they're not. There's no accountability for what they're doing. And I think what they have to realize is people's lives are in jeopardy, you know, with their decisions. And they don't care. You know, they're not required to do research.

There's no requirement for training. There's no requirement for upkeep. There's no requirement to know who's fighting style. There's no requirement for them in any way, shape, or form. They show up, judge a fight between two people they have no idea about on a sport they really don't have any clue about. And there's no prep time. There's nothing. And it just has to change.

You know what I mean? Like, there needs to be some kind of course or something stating, you know, at least some guidelines. You know, it can be opinion. Like, one judge can score grappling more than striking or vice versa. I don't mind that. But there at least needs to be, like, some type of guideline along the way. And I do think five judges over three would, would avoid some of those, those razor thin decisions a little bit more, you know? Yeah.

I mean, it's a big problem. It's not going to get fixed anytime soon, but I'm just throwing out suggestions on, on what I think would help. Yeah, absolutely. So, okay. As as a coach I'm a big Conor McGregor fan I want to know how you break down the Conor McGregor versus Dustin Poirier matchup in 2021 because I think it's a much different matchup than it was the first time right Poirier is much improved Conor's been away for a long time so what do you just think about that fight as a coach uh it's it's a very very intriguing fight uh especially at 170. I feel like that favors Dustin over Conor for sure. Why do you feel that?

I feel like – yeah, well, I feel like at 45, the cut hurt Poirier with his chin. You know what I mean? I definitely feel like the dehydrating your brain – I mean, he's been knocked out one time at lightweight. And then, I mean, he's been in wars since that, you know what I mean? Like wars. I mean, his Gaethje, Hooker, they're beating his brains and he's coming forward. You know, Dust, I'm a big fan of Dust. I'm a big fan of both of these guys, but I definitely, I definitely do think that it's a different, it's a different matchup.

I feel like Poirier has improved more than Conor has, but Conor is a sharpshooter, man. Like you can say whatever you want. I feel like people, people have forgot, like the level of skill that this guy really brings to the table. And Poirier does as well. Poirier brings some big skill to the table too, but Poirier is a dog man like that's what you know that's the x factor at play here you know I feel like the longer the fight goes on the more it favors Poirier uh and then with Conor obviously you got to watch out for getting sniped out of

the rafters in round one you know it's a very intriguing matchup man I haven't really like I need to go back and watch some film to get my you know my pick or whatever but yeah it's a very very interesting matchup and I feel like one day I'm like ah get my pick or whatever. But it's a very, very interesting matchup. And I feel like one day I'm like, ah, the next day I switch. It's really intriguing to me. And if both guys are bringing their A game, it's a matchup that interests me quite a bit. All right, so I've got one more matchup to ask you about. It's not necessarily just talk to me about the matchup,

but it's a how do you prepare for someone who everyone's calling the goat amanda nunez you've got megan anderson fighting her in december and as that coach how do you prepare for this figure that everyone's making out to be unbeatable you know everyone in mma is unbeatable till they ain't she's not unbeatable she's been beating me many times already now uh and i know i listen she's obviously uh she's obviously considered the greatest fighter of all time for for a good reason she's the greatest female fighter of all time for a good reason she's obviously considered the greatest fighter of all time for a good reason. She's the greatest female fighter of all time for a good reason. She's incredible.

Without really diving into what we're doing, you kind of have to just – I go back and I watch all the old stuff, and some of it's relevant, some of it's not. Yeah, like when you watch that Cyborg fight, can you pull anything from a fight that short? Or are you like, no, she left an that short or are you like no she left an opening there or there like when she goes in and dominates these fights is there stuff as a coach where you could still pull and see things yeah absolutely um so so if you're watching a if you're watching a uh let's say you're watching the chiefs play whoever any other football team like last night the the was it the bills uh who who played last night it was a shutout cardinals

it was the cardinals in i'm not so is that right you're asking the wrong guy whatever the score was like 32 to 3 right so obviously if you watch the game it's a shutout right but if you watch each individual play there's there's mistakes you can find so uh once again it's really it's kind of hard to go into it without yeah yeah don't give me the secrets trust me i want me again to be raising that note for you of course but like you got to go back and you got to watch individual plays right uh and you have to try to win the plays that's that's what's important here is i feel like people focus on winning the game or winning the fight or winning the round like we have to go in and we have to win each individual play and i think that is what uh if we can if we can

focus on winning small plays uh on a regular basis I think we're gonna do really well you know what I mean but obviously Amanda is incredible at what she does um and she's gonna be trying to win plays too so this uh like I said without diving into it yeah without diving into it I mean that's the that's the gist of it is I feel like everybody focuses on the game. You got to focus on the plays because you can't win every play, right? So you got to figure out what meltdown happened in that play and then try to exploit that. Absolutely.

I appreciate the time, James. This has been a pleasure. Tell the people where they can find you on social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. I'm most active on Instagram. The James Krause on everything. Awesome. And hopefully we'll get you back on the show to break down the game plan and

actually tell us what worked in the Megan Anderson fight. Hey, let's go. Absolutely. All right. Thank you, James.