Chris Camozzi keeps himself busy at all times, including the week before his own fight. The UFC, PFL and GLORY veteran is set to face fellow MMA veteran Dan Spohn on April 29 at BKFC 41, and he previews that matchup while traveling in a shuttle in London, where he’s coaching his girlfriend for her first boxing match. Camozzi discusses his busy schedule and what he hopes will come next.
Check out the full interview in the video above, or read the transcript below.
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John Morgan: It is Chris Camozzi, who is joining us from London right now, a very busy man right now. We’ll talk about it all, but first, I guess let’s just ask you, you’re getting ready to return to the bareknuckle world. BKFC 41. Saturday, April 29. Are you even able to focus on your own fight right now? What’s the feel for you?
Chris Camozzi: Oh, yeah. I’m always focused. So I did most of my camp at home, and then we just got to London the other day. My girlfriend Whitney is fighting on the Kingpyn Boxing Influencer Tournament this weekend, so here coaching her and then heading home, so I’m finishing camp here. We’ve got another buddy from the gym here training with me, and luckily there’s tons of boxing in London.
JM: It’s pretty incredible, right? Because the thing about the fight game is that if your loved ones are doing it, you’re way more nervous than when you do it yourself. It’s this weird universal truth, right? So, I mean, I’ve got to imagine, I mean, how challenging is this for you? You’re trying to get ready for a fight, and you’re trying to take care of your girlfriend, who is getting ready for a fight too?
Chris Camozzi: You know, it’s not bad at all, actually. It was great having us both on the same schedule, right? We live together, so if I’m dieting, she’s dieting. If I’m not going out, she’s not going out because we’re on the same schedule, fighting back-to-back weeks, so it was actually pretty fun, you know? We’ve been on the same grind, the same, you know, she went to strength and conditioning with me, everything, so I feel like it actually kind of makes life easier.
JM: That makes sense. All right. Well, let’s talk about, obviously a veteran of the fight game. You made your bareknuckle debut in October. Doesn’t get much better than the way it went. I mean, 37 seconds. I guess what knowledge did you take out? What did you learn about the experience?
Chris Camozzi: Man, I learned that I like fighting bareknuckle. No, I mean, what I learned was that we did everything right training for it. My coach was real big on not trying to kill every punch, you know, like, load up on everything, and it doesn’t have to be as hard as you can throw it. It’s more about precision, and the other thing I learned is I had to change my style. I know we talked about this a little bit, you know, with my punches. It’s kind of hard to explain, but making sure they rotate over so that you hit those big knuckles because gloves kind of allow you to cheat a little bit, where you can break your hand if you don’t have a glove on.
JM: Yeah, no doubt about it. So BKFC is coming back, it’s in your backyard in Colorado, right? I mean, I just wondered was it one of these things where like, ‘Well, they’re here in my backyard. I might as well do this,’ or is this like your new passion. Are you like, ‘Hey, you know, let me fight as much as possible’?
Chris Camozzi: Both. The fact that they’re coming to Denver is always easy for me. Plus, I love it. I’ve never gotten to fight – I never got to fight in the UFC in Denver. I got to fight for GLORY, and then being from there, it’s always great to stay at home and fight where your friends and family can come out, one. My gym’s there. Like, I know where all the food, everything I need. Strength and conditioning, everything is there, so it makes it easy for me, but I would like to do more. You know, I’ve been asking them to get on other cards for for a minute, and they came back to Denver because we sell a lot of tickets there. It’s a big fight town, so it just worked out perfect.
JM: Heck, yeah, How about this card too, right? I mean, as an MMA veteran, a UFC veteran like yourself, I mean, Mike Perry, Luke Rockhold, Chad Mendes, Eddie Alvarez, Christine Ferea, Bec Rawlings, your fight. I mean, a lot of names on this. Is this kind of fun to you to be on a card like this where it’s – I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with boxers coming in or pure bareknuckle, but I don’t know, this feels like an MMA card in bareknuckle.
Chris Camozzi: It does. You know, it’s fun. Like, I love that they’re bringing their first pay-per-view to Denver. I’ve always told everybody forever, you know, UFC 1 started there because, one, I think there was no commission back then, but Denver is a huge sports town, so especially with fights, man, every fight promotion that comes there does well. I know you remember like Sven Bean and Ring of Fire, and they just always do great there because people in Denver love the fights.
JM: Yeah, no doubt about it. ONE Championship is going to be there a week later in the same venue, so I mean, back-to-back big weekends for Denver martial arts fans. All right, talk to me about your opponent, Dan Spohn. Like we said, it’s an MMA card. He’s an ‘Ultimate Fighter’ veteran, PFL. I mean, give me your thoughts on him as an opponent.
Chris Camozzi: You know, first off, sorry, it’s so dark in here. It’s getting dark in London. We’re in the shuttle. I’m just looking at my side. It’s like dark. But no, I’m real familiar with Dan Spohn. Let me see. There’s a light here.
JM: I love it. This is real life, man. Oh, there you go. Nice, see. Look at the production work, man. Chris Camozzi, production expert.
Chris Camozzi: So Dan Spohn, yeah, I’m super familiar with. You know, we were in the PFL tournament together. I’m still trying to remember. I’ve said it in interviews. I think we trained together. I’m not positive because we were in that quarantine, you know? When I was in PFL was when we had to do the, like, 17-day quarantine before the fight, so I kind of spent every day eating lunch with him and his team, and, you know, like all the Americans seemed to stay together, so I’m super familiar with him. He’s been around a long time, and I love the matchup. You know, I think he’s a solid fighter, but I don’t think that he’s on my level.
JM: Fantastic. All right, well, before you get to your fight, you’ve got your girlfriend’s fight. You’re out in London, as you said, making your way through the city. You’re in the corner? Or are you just there to support? How does it work?
Chris Camozzi: No, I’ve been training her, and then I’ll be in the corner. So yeah, I’m excited. It’s her first fight, and she looks great.
JM: That’s awesome. How is that? Is that challenging or is it fun? I mean, coaching as well, as I mean you’re trying to balance a relationship, then you’re trying to be a coach also. Is it is it tough or is it fun? What’s it been like?
Chris Camozzi: I mean, it hasn’t been tough at all, actually. She listens really well. She learns quick and, you know, she trusts me and my team, so when she got this fight set up, luckily I’ve been doing this so long, I kind of had everything set up, you know, like coaches, training partners, everything, because I’d been going to that gym, so she just jumped in and became part of the team. So it’s been a lot of fun.
JM: I love it, man. Things are great. All right. So you got you got the ‘Involuntary Yoga’ podcast. You got behind-the-scenes stuff on OnlyFans. You got your fight coming up. You got your girlfriend’s fight that you’re coaching. Is there anything else we need to know about? I mean, is that enough to keep you busy or are there other projects I’m missing there?
Chris Camozzi: Man, I got my own training app. It’s called Jiu-Jitsu On The Go. Originally, it started out just jiu-jitsu, but now we’ve got striking on there. We’ve got wrestling. We’ve got MMA. It’s people from all over the world teaching on there, not just me and my coaches, so it’s really cool because we get a lot of people that literally just want to share knowledge with people. So I’ve got that app. I teach kickboxing at Katharo, my jiu-jitsu gym, and yeah, it’s a full life. It’s busy.
JM: Man is staying busy. He’s doing interviews from the shuttle in London. I love it, chris. Well, I mean, a lot going on here. Talk to me, man. You pick up another big win here, what does the rest of the year look like, man? I mean, obviously you’ve got a lot of irons in the fire. Are you focused more on the things happening outside of the cage and the ring or I mean, do you see yourself competing multiple times this year? What does it look like?
Chris Camozzi: Like always. I mean, you remember from the UFC days, like after every fight, I’d be in the locker room asking when I could fight again. You know, I don’t know how much longer I have, like a couple of years, so I want to be as busy as I can. That was part of the reason going to bareknuckle. The MMA offers were just like slower, a little bit fewer in between as far as fighting in a valued promotion and making the money that I want to make, so bareknuckle made sense at the time, and yeah, I would like to get a few in. You know, I already asked them if I can get another quick knockout on this one, I want a title shot because Lorenzo Hunt’s already beat everybody else, you know? None of the – how do I put this? I asked to fight almost all their top-ranked guys. I think all the top-ranked guys in bareknuckle, none of them responded. So now I end up with Dan Spohn, who’s coming from MMA. I think if those guys don’t want to fight, even though they like to say that I’ve never fought a bareknuckle fighter, none of them wanted to fight. So yeah, I’d say, move it along then. I think Lorenzo Hunt‘s already beat everybody else in the rankings, but he hasn’t beat me, and he won’t.
JM: I love it. I love it. Challenging the very top. Awesome. Well, Chris, I know you’re busy. I appreciate you joining in and taking the time. Best of luck to your girlfriend this weekend. Safe travels back home and we’ll see you BKFC 41. Hopefully another quick knockout, and a title shot after that.
Chris Camozzi: Yeah, let’s get it. Hey, I appreciate it, like always.
