MMA Veteran Bret Bergmark talks the Diaz brothers, street fights, etc

Bret "The Angry Hick" Bergmark is a long time veteran of the sport.  He was set to appear on the Strikeforce: Diaz vs Noons II undercard this weekend but had to pull out due to injury.  Bret hasn't fought consistently so he doesn't exactly have a household name but I have a feeling after this interview, you'll be a fan.  Despite being in some pain, Bret stopped by my show "Verbal Submission" this past Sunday and shared some of his thoughts on the Diaz brothers, Cesar Gracie belt standards and and absolutely insane street fighting story you don't want to miss.  Here are a few of the highlights

Bret Bergmark: Yeah, I was just training my ass off for James Terry.  He's a solid solid fighter, good grappler, good standup and excellent takedowns.  I've been working my ground game super hard and my takedown defense and when we were working some takedowns I got caught in a scramble with one of my training partners.  I tried to sit under to escape a guillotine and all of the sudden I heard a nice loud pop and training came to a halt rather abruptly.  The doctor I went to says possibly an MCL or a partial tear of the anterior meniscus.  Unfortunately I have a BB in my head from BB gun wars as a kid so I can't get an MRI so that kind of led to a guess at my knee.

Things are actually doing better now, I'm trying to get back to soft running and rehab it slowly.  I'm hoping it's just a minor MCL strain.

BH: I've been told specifically to ask how you got the nickname "The Angry Hick" because apparently that's a pretty good story.  Can you fill us in on that?

BB: Yeah, it must have been 2001-ish.  I was training jiu jitsu with Ralph Gracie in San Franciso and I went to a tournament in Santa Cruz.  At the time I was cutting weight hard to make a lighter weight class and I hadn't eaten for a day and a half or so.  I made weight and then me and a couple of my buddies James Meadows and Gabe Ruediger went to at a local greasy spoon to grab a bite to eat and I was feeling short, grumpy and irritable.  

The waitress came to take our order and I made it abundantly clear "Alright, I need my eggs scrambled well done.  I don't care if they come out burnt, just make sure they don't come back runny.  I hate when my eggs are runny."  It was a little extreme but she goes "Oh, not a problem.  We'll take care of it personally sir, don't worry."  Well she cruises off and 5-10 minutes later we get our order in and my eggs come back a little runny and I got a little short with her.  "What the hell's goin on?  Didn't I make it frickin abundantly clear.  I said anything but runny eggs!"  

I was going off for a little bit and my buddy James Meadows says "Don't mind my angry hick friend here" and Gabe Ruediger smiles and says "Yeah, don't mind the angry hick."  After that it just kind of stuck.

BH: Well speaking of country and hicks, you actually started out as a bullrider in the rodeo before making the transition to MMA. That's certainly a very different cage than mixed martial arts.

BB: Oh it is, it's a hell of a lot of fun too.  It's the one time you can guarantee your opponent will always win.  There's nothing you can do, that bull's got you on every angle: strength, speed.  I was riding for 4-5 years, but I ended up tearing some of the connective tissue on the forearm of my riding hand.  I was doing ok, nothing special, I never actually won a buckle.  I had a bunch of second place, which is just the first loser but it was fun giving it a whirl.  It got to the point where every time I made a ride I wouldn't be able to close my hand or grab my bull rope for the championships rounds.

A buddy of mine, he was a coaching wrestling back in high school way back when and he said "If you quit that bullriding stuff you should try this fighting stuff.  You've got this messed up attitude and you don't get along with people, you should try fighting them instead."

So I figured "What the hell?"  Bullriding, I couldn't make much money at that so I figured I'd give MMA a shot.

BH: Well you train under Cesar Gracie now.  It's notoriously hard to get a belt under Cesar Gracie.  Do you think some of the other schools are watering the process down with how easily they hand out their belts and why do you think Cesar is so strict compared to the others?

BB: Oh there's no doubt in my mind that a lot of the other schools will just hand out belts.  All you gotta do is pay your bills on time.  You pay your bill on time for a year and you get a belt, it's pretty ridiculous.  But Cesar is just, he tries to hold us all to a higher standard.  Dave Terrell was his first blackbelt and that man is just a freak of nature.  He's just a total grappling stud.  I've had my ass kicked by a lot of people but no one hands it to me like Dave Terrell can, almost effortlessly, the man is a phenom.  But I think Cesar just never wants there to be that question "Do you deserve the belt?"  If you get a belt from him you've earned it tenfold so I just think that's one thing he has absolute control over and he just insists you've got to be damn good to get it.

BH: Both Diaz brothers have been in the headlines recently and you're closer than most.  How do you perceive them both inside and outside the cage?

BB: They're both similar obviously being brothers but I think one: first thing they're both great guys.  If you know them outside the ring.  If you get them away from all the hoopla and everything they're both phenominal fighters, they both excellent at what they do.  Their ground game is impeccable.  Their stand-up, when I first saw their stand-up I was like "Whoah, that's awkward and wouldn't work and they've proven me wrong with their last 8 fights.  They've got just crazy stand-up.  They've got their timing, accuracy, precision down.  It's amazing to watch but they're both away from the camera, they're both absolute gentlemen.  You talk to them, they remember people's names, they show up when one of the kids in the schools is going to a Muay Thai fight just to support them.  

You start pushing them a little bit though with interviews like on TV, if you push them into a corner they're gonna snap back.  And if they come back, they're gonna come at you a little rough.  It's part of what makes them as good as what they are.

BH: You've fought sparingly throughout your career, but you've been more active in 2010.  Are you trying to make one last good crack at it?

BB: Yeah, yeah definitely.  I've allowed life to get in the way of my fighting.  It's one of those thing that you know if there's one bit of advice I've got to give to any fighter out there is "There's always some excuse.  It's just whether or not you give into it."  Unfortunately I just pissed away a number of years of my career with "Oh, I was moving, I had girl trouble."  If you've got a fight you have to go for it.  

Now it's 2010, my gal has been a bundle of support and I decided "screw it, I'm gonna go for it."   I've got nothing to lose.  I'm a plumber by trade so that's how I make a living.  Fighting for me is just fun.  That's one of the things that makes me more dangerous than most because, don't get me wrong, I'm there to fucking win but, I don't have to win, I don't have to worry about not losing.  I'm gonna go in there and give it all I got, and win, lose or draw, I'm gonna have fun doing it.  

BH: Ok, well you mentioned you got your nickname hanging out with Gabe Ruediger.  I heard you guys all used to live together and you were just crazy.  Do you mind sharing any of the stories from those days?

BB: Actually Gabe and I were roommates way back when, around the turn of the century.  We were out with a bunch of our core groups of guys, Kurt Osiander, Aaron Hart, the Professor.  It was New Years Eve, we were going down to watch the fireworks in San Fransisco down at the Fisherman's wharf in that vicinity.  I've got a nice button up on, my boots, a cowboy hat.   

Anyways, Kurt Osiander bumps into some guy and he goes "Whoops, sorry" and the guy gave Kurt a little bit of a shove and it was on from there.  Kurt spins the guy around, gets him in a rear naked.  Some other guy went after me and Gabe Ruediger jumps on him and goes for an armbar from mount.  We're reasonably sober and we're pulling things apart going "let's get out of here, let's get out of here!"  So we're running off and there's three guys in a ball on the ground.  We're like "Oh shit!" and we're looking for cops walking away.

About 5 minutes later, the same group of guys show up with more fellas and they go after us all again.  This time it's basically the same scenario as before except I'm the only one standing there.  There's 8 guys on the ground, Kurt's got some guy on the ground.  James Meadows has a guy in a triangle.  There's guys flailing around.  Gabe's got another guy in an armbar from mount, I don' t know what his deal was that night but armbar from mount was his deal.  There was this little guy with us we called him Slim Shady,he must have been about 5'4 a solid, solid 130 and this guy comes after him and gives him a shove and Shady just lays him out with a straight right.  The other dude was at least 6' and 200 lbs.  He dropped like a sack of potatoes to the ground.  Again everyone's hustling up grabbing bodies and we're running down the street and these guys show up again.

It was ridiculous, 3 times they came at us and I'd had enough.  I see a police officer and I tap her on her shoulder and I'm like "Pardon me, ma'am?  These guys keep attacking us and getting their asses kicked."  She talks into the radio and she goes "Three blocks back, that was you guys?" and I'm like "uhh, yeah??" and she starts laughing and she goes "Guys just walk off, keep walking away and I'll make sure they don't follow you 'cus apparently 3 of them are on their way to the hospital in the ambulance."  

It was just one of those things you don't realize.  Most of, we're just buddies having a good time, most of us looking like pencil-necked geeks.  You've got me in a cowboy hat in the middle of the city, Kurt walking around being himself and all of the sudden they attacked one of us.  It was shit like that pretty much every other weekend.  It was fun for a while you eventually get tired of it, trying to do the right thing.  Kurt apologized to the guy, bumping shoulders in the middle of the street.  Show some class, but such is life.