This excellent interview is full of interesting conversations, here are a few of our favorite moments.

Why Mads Burnell Actively Competes in Grappling

Ben: You competed in the recent Grappling Industries tournament, what kind of experience was it for you, a blackbelt in Jiu Jitsu with many professional fights, it’s something I’m curious about....what’s it like for you to compete in a tournament that is not a particularly large one? Is it something for you to just have some fun and stay loose? Is it important for you?

Mads: I really use the grappling tournaments, and of course it’s super fun, but you get that little thing in your stomach right before you’re competing, even though it’s just grappling and it’s all fun and games, and nobody is getting elbowed or kicked in the face, I use it for a sort of mental training in between fights.

I’d like to do as many grappling tournaments as possible, I think it’s really fun to do grappling, and it keeps me sharp. That’s pretty much what I use it for.

The thing is, it’s not that I’m like, super nervous or anything. I feel that it’s just fun and games, like we’re just having fun here. But the competitor in me, of course wants to perform, like everyone else wants. And the competitor in me, I can feel the little butterflies in my stomach. I think I would feel that even if I was fighting my grandma basically, because yeah. Everybody that wants to compete, you feel the butterflies a little bit, and it’s healthy and it’s good.

Ben: It’s definitely something that I like to hear, because now when I get them, at least I can say, “Well at least Mads gets them too.”

Mads: And if people say they don’t get them, they’re lying, they’re lying.

I promise you they’re lying. Even freaking Donald Cerrone, who’s a freaking mad dog, fights 20 times a year, you can find him on YouTube saying like, “Why the fuck am I doing this?”, but then when he’s in there, that’s what separates us, then we’re having fun.

The Japanese Necktie