This is number ninety-five in Jack’s series of interviews with MMA fighters and personalities, and for this particular interview, we’re pleased to feature UFC veteran and longtime MMA fighter, Jason Reinhardt. Reinhardt’s first professional MMA fight was back in 2000, and he has a career record of 20-3. He has never lost outside of the octagon, but he has yet to get his first victory inside of it. His three fights in the UFC, each at successively lighter weight classes, from 155 to 145 to 135, all resulted in losses, but Reinhardt has not given up yet. The frequent contributor to the UG forums has been a lifelong martial artist and still wants to fight for many years to come. Please enjoy the conversation below.

Jack Brown: What was your first experience with martial arts/combat sports, and how did it become more than just a hobby for you?

Jason Reinhardt: My first experience in martial arts was me being tired of what you would call being bullied. I was small growing up. I’m talking way smaller, like the show “Little People” smaller, like midget small. Ah, hell, you’re not supposed to say the word “midget” anymore. That’s right, my bad. You watch and see, after this interview, I’m going to have the small people union or some dwarf organization be upset at me. I’ll be like, real loud, “I’m one of you people. Shut your tiny mouths! I took growth hormone at age twelve because the doctor said I was going to be five feet tall as a full-grown man.” Can you imagine like fifty screaming midgets outside your house picketing? Jesus, what is this world coming to? Everyone’s so sensitive. Anyway, at age nine, all my friends played football and I was just too small to play. So my parents enrolled me in Taekwondo.

But I did play soccer, and one day, getting ready for soccer practice, this bully, this real turdball of a kid, threw one of those big, red, hard dodgeballs as hard as he could and hit me in the face from about eight feet away. It hurt like hell and knocked me ass over appetite. I had just put my soccer cleats on. So after coming to my senses, I went right over to the little bastard and roundhouse kicked him in the eyeball with the very point of my cleats. I didn’t mean to kick him in the eyeball. It was just how it landed. I remember it actually really scared me because I thought I really hurt the kid. I never got bullied again.

I took my Taekwondo very seriously. My mom took me to class every single night and on Saturdays. It seemed like every weekend my parents were driving me to another tournament to compete in. That’s how I remember my childhood. It was pretty much all related to martial arts and competing in tournaments. My parents were so damn dedicated. God bless ‘em. 

I opened my first Taekwondo academy, when I was eighteen and went off to college, under my very first Taekwondo master, Grandmaster Young Chul Rho. A very nice businessman gave me a chance and let me rent a space above his racquet club facility, and Master Rho gave me a chance and spent money to run radio and newspaper ads. This was in Edwardsville, Illinois, near St. Louis. I taught and ran the business for two years. I was eighteen years old and I didn’t know what I was doing business-wise. I was more interested in my fake ID business than my Taekwondo business at the time. Everyone wanted to get into the bars on the landing in St. Louis. Let’s just say, I got a lot of college kids into a lot of clubs. What a dumbass kid I was. I’m very lucky I didn’t get in big trouble. Don’t try this at home, kids. It won’t work now. This was before the internet and real computers.

I hated college, and after pretty much flunking out, I came back to my hometown and I ran a couple Taekwondo academies for another Korean Grandmaster, Grandmaster Joong S. Chung. So in a big way martial arts has never been just some hobby. It’s been a very huge part of my life for a very, very long time.

I’m just like so many other old-school guys who watched Royce Gracie in the very beginning of the UFC. He not only defeated guys much larger than him, but he did it in such a way that their lives were in his hands when he used Gracie Jiu-jitsu, also known as Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, on his opponents. When I witnessed this happening over and over again, I broke the news to the Korean Grandmaster and respectfully resigned while explaining to him how important it was for me, as a martial artist, to go explore other arts, specifically Gracie Jiu-jitsu. It was tough because I had 125 students, but Royce Gracie ruined me! After seeing what he did to guys, I didn’t believe in my heart what I was teaching my students with Taekwondo and Hapkido. That was simply not enough.

My martial arts journey led me to only being able to find Judo in my area. So I did Judo for a few years and competed in Judo tournaments just here in the Midwest. Then I finally found a Brazilian Jiu-jitsu academy a little later on, and I would travel hours back and forth just to train. I was literally obsessed. I just kept doing Judo and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and competed a lot in submission wrestling tournaments all over the United States. It was truly like a sub-culture of its own. I attended a Frank Shamrock seminar in 1998 or 1999, and after the Frank Shamrock seminar, I attended a Pat Miletich seminar and started driving to Iowa from Illinois to train at the legendary Miletich Fighting Systems. I would sometimes make the 3-hour one-way drive and then drive right back and do it all over again. Often times I would stay for periods of time. I lived in the fighter house when Jens Pulver won the first ever UFC lightweight world title against Uno.

It’s crazy to me to look back and to see how far MMA has come. I’m so happy. Not only because this is my livelihood, but a big reason is because I feel it has helped be something very positive for our society as a whole. Imagine how MMA has helped change so many lives. People now realize you do not have to be a fighter to train in mixed martial arts. I love sharing what I’ve been taught from people way more skilled than myself. I sought that out and went on one hell of a journey. And that’s as real as it gets.

JB: What do you recall about your first professional MMA fight, and how prepared do you feel you were at the time?

JR: My first professional MMA fight was a very scary experience for me. To be 110% honest, I was scared shitless. Here’s why. I had several amateur MMA fights and Jiu-jitsu and submission wrestling matches before I ever started to make money fighting. So with how dedicated I was to my training I felt very prepared, but not when the promoter told me who I would be fighting. I arrived at the arena and the promoter Brian Madden, God rest his soul, came up to me and said my opponent did a no-show. I had sold like $4,000 worth of tickets and already had fans, friends, and family who drove two and a half hours to watch me fight. I told him to please find me a fight and to do whatever it took. He sure did that too. He found Sean Yoshida, a Judo black belt who I had been watching at prior Judo tournaments throwing guys on their heads and submitting guys in the black belt divisions when I was just a white belt in Judo. And here I was fighting this guy? He was sponsored by Sony and he was a very cocky guy. 

You have to understand what it was like back then. Guys were not well-rounded. They would be studs at one martial art, and this guy happened to be very good at Judo. Like I said, inside I was about to shit my pants, but I had to face my fears head on. I knew that I had to do this if I really wanted to be a professional fighter. My mind was playing tricks on me. I thought I was going to lose my very first pro fight in front of everyone including my Miletich Fighting System teammates. Jeremy Horn, Jens Pulver, and my brother, Justin, were in my corner. Matt Hughes, my Dad, Mike Griffin, Greg Giddings, Kelly Wiseman, and Jason Black were off to the side, right next to my corner. Jeremy Horn turned off a negative switch in my brain when he said, “This isn’t a Judo tournament, Jason. It’s a fight. You train with the best camp on the planet.” I went out there and choked Yoshida out in 38 seconds. It was funny because his own teammates were happy I beat him. Apparently they felt that he was getting too big of a head back then.

JB: Your professional MMA record is a thing of beauty. You were a perfect 18-0 before you debuted in the UFC. Every one of your wins was a stoppage and most were submissions. How did you evolve as a mixed martial artist between 2000 and 2007, prior to your UFC debut, and how important was it to you that your remained unbeaten?

JR: First off, thank you for those nice words. I just truly worked my ass off. I sacrificed so much, just like any professional athlete does and should, if you want success, that is. Pat Miletich’s gym, Miletich Fighting System, and all the beatings and wars I had in that room made me stronger. As far as it being important I stayed undefeated, I never really thought about it until I was like 12-0. Then it became a lot of pressure. It was almost like a sense of relief when I lost my first fight.

JB: You made your UFC debut at UFC 78, at lightweight, against Joe Lauzon, another fighter who always wins via stoppages. How different was that first fight in the UFC compared to your previous fights and how did you react to your first career loss?

JR: I feel like being 100% honest, so I will be. Pat Miletich was actually mad at me for signing to fight Joe Lauzon. I’ll never forget him calling me into the office and telling me that Joe was just way too big at the UFC level. He told me he would like to see me remain 18-0 and take a fight against someone my own size and not two weight classes above. There was only one problem. The UFC didn’t have my weight class. I knew deep down Joe Lauzon was too damn big for me, but I am a fighter and you fight who and where you’re told to fight, period. You just don’t turn down the UFC! That’s just how it was and is.

The one thing I can look back and be proud of is that I was reliable. I came in shape, I always made weight, and I fought whoever the UFC put in front of me with no questions asked. I feel real comfortable looking in the mirror as a fighter. I don’t regret a thing. You can’t. I have the best management team in the business in Monte Cox, Chad Bergmeier, and Chaz Bowling. I remember like it was yesterday, Chad Bergmeier calling me and telling me, “We made it.” He was the first to call and tell me I was fighting in the UFC. Anyway, the best part is, I’m far from finished fighting. You’re either a fighter or you’re not. There is no in-between.

JB: After the loss, you won your next two fights outside the UFC, both by submission. Then you had no more MMA fights between 2008 and 2011. What was going on with you during that period of your career?

JR: The UFC told my manager that if I won two fights outside the UFC, they would bring me back. I won three fights actually. You just made me realize that they don’t have one of my fights recorded. Oh well. Who’s counting?

Anyway, since you asked what was going on with me during that time, and I like to be open and honest and not phony-baloney, I will tell you. I overcame something big in my life that happened after I broke my neck in a title fight in 2001. I had neck surgery and was told that not only would I never fight again, but that I would be lucky to be able to lift twenty pounds over my head. I was told I would never train again. Instead I would make it to the UFC three times. Unfortunately, it came with a heavy price. I became dependent on pain pills.

It was horrible. Although I kept training during this time without the intensity needed for a fight, I focused instead on getting my life back. I focused on beating addiction. I had a new kind of fight on my hands. It was the hardest fight I’ve ever won. I believe differently. You can defeat addiction! Any of you young fighters out there, trust me, the narcotic pain pills, like Vicodin, aren’t the way to go. They have a way of sneaking up on you. It’s not cool. I know you’re in pain from all the hard-ass training you put your body through day-in and day-out, but there are other alternatives. There are so many other alternatives. I wish I had the same education back then as I do now.

JB: After the time away, you returned to the UFC for two more fights. The first was at featherweight, against Tiequan Zhang, at UFC 127. The second was at bantamweight, against Edwin Figueroa, at UFC on Versus 5. Though you lost both, what was the experience of returning to the UFC, and competing at those lighter weights, like for you as a fighter?

JR: That was a big layoff from competition to go from to stepping my two feet back inside the octagon at this level. I trained so hard at Wanderlei Silva’s gym in Vegas for my UFC fights. I had the opportunity to train at Wanderlei Silva’s and I seized it. It was just an incredible, incredible experience. I met so many cool people, and Wanderlei is just as cool in person as he is in interviews. His gym is awesome. The people and coaches are awesome. I met Sidney Silva who took me under his wing and picked me up every day for training. Sidney is a black belt under Rickson Gracie and he helped me so much. Sidney is one of the smartest men I have ever met. If you’re in Vegas, go seek Sidney Silva Jiu-jitsu out. He’s available for seminars. I’m telling you, he’s like a hidden diamond. We trained so much Jiu-jitsu, and I feel I let him down when I got caught so quickly in Australia. I did not plan on flying twenty hours across the world to get caught in a guillotine in 48 seconds. It haunts me. I would be lying if I said otherwise. After the fight, his camp told me they knew they had to finish me early because Tiequan’s cardio was so bad when he arrived in Australia. That was even more depressing hearing that. Damn! I feel like we never fought, but he did a great job.

So my experience was great with all the training but not with the fight. Before I went to Wanderlei’s, I trained with my brother, in Oregon, at Jason Georgianna’s Art of War gym. Georgianna is a complete stud. Without my return, I would have never met these great people who are now my lifelong friends and teachers. I make no excuses for my losses. My opponents were better than me those nights. It wasn’t because they were too big or because I was still fighting out of my weight class. That’s BS. I got beat, fair and square.

JB: You have not fought since that last UFC fight in August 2011, but you have opened your own school. How is that going, and what is next for you in your fighting career?

JR: I opened a small MMA gym in my hometown. I love sharing the knowledge I’ve been given by some very special martial artists and fighters throughout the years. I love learning. You never stop learning in martial arts. It’s very important to keep an open mind. My students are good people who work hard. They are a reflection of all the great instructors I’ve been taught by. And this must be respected. My gym is more of a martial arts academy developing martial artists first, and fighters second. My gym has something for everyone. We have a great kids’ program focused on discipline and respect.

What’s next for me in my own fighting career is getting a small surgery. I definitely want to fight again. Once I get this problem taken care of, I feel I’ve got more left. Win or lose, I will go out on my shield.

JB: You certainly keep up with the sport of MMA and are a welcome presence on the UG forums. What recent issues and developments in the sport interest you most?

JR: I always keep up with what’s going on. When it’s your job, that’s what your responsibility is. I have young fighters now to look after and develop. I think it’s cool to see the women getting their shot. They show so much heart. They fight their asses off. For years, the women never had opportunities. I know what it’s like not having opportunities for years with no 135-pound division and always fighting bigger guys before I made it to the UFC. So I am very happy for this new development.

Another new development I would love to see in the future is an MMA masters division! Why not? They have masters divisions in BJJ. Do you know how many old-school guys, who still have that burning desire to compete, would jump at this? How about in another ten or fifteen years from now? You can’t just tell a guy who has been competing his whole life that it’s over. Where are those guys going to go to get that release? For many, it’s our identity. It’s our lives. I will be forty-four on Halloween. Of course I will fight anybody right now for the right opportunity, but at fifty-five years old that might not be the brightest idea. It’s very depressing to think about something you have done your whole life and something you love so much being over.

So here’s the deal. Over the years I’ve promoted over fifty MMA events, pro and amateur. I have the experience in promoting thanks to Monte Cox teaching me about the promotion side of the business just like he’s helped others. So anyone out there who can see this vision like I can with an MMA masters division, I’m not hard to find. I know that when this interview comes out some are going to think my idea is crazy, but Wanderlei Silva doesn’t! We talked about it and I heard him talking about this when I trained at his gym. I was very surprised but happy to hear Wanderlei loving the idea because I thought I stood alone in this feeling. It’s not like we wouldn’t have the competitors. Can you imagine bringing back guys like Don Frye to fight in a masters division? Old-school guys, that’s my vision. These older guys are sitting at home wanting to fight again. Trust me. It’s not something you can just shut out of your spirit. It’s in your heart forever, and now that there are so many MMA fans, let’s give the old-school guys some love. The one way I know how to do that is opening a masters division in MMA and allowing them to show the world how young-looking MMA will keep you. I believe developing such a division would bring a whole new fan base and be very intriguing to people sitting at home watching, especially when you talk about already established old-school guys. In my humble opinion, it would be an ongoing deal because where are these guys right now going to be in fifteen years? Some will be happily retired, but so many won’t be. So many won’t even be able to watch the sport. They sure would if there was something for them to shoot for and look forward to. I know because I am a fighter. I’m the man for developing such a division with passion behind it. Anyway, you asked what interests me the most in our sport, and this would definitely be it.

JB: What else do you enjoy outside of training and fighting, and who are the individuals who have supported you most in life?

JR: Honestly, the only other thing that interests me other than martial arts and fighting is acting. I graduated from acting school, but pursued my UFC dream instead. Now I’m trying to go to open casting calls thanks to UFC veteran and actor, Rory Markham, who is living with me and showing me the ropes. Rory is a great actor who has been in a lot of cool movies. His Wikipedia page shows the movies that he has done. We spend a lot of time reading scripts. Rory’s knowledge of movies and how the business works is impressive. What’s equally impressive is Rory’s skill as a fighter. Markham needs to be fighting. I took him to St. Louis to a hardcore boxing gym and he knocked three guys out, two out cold. This guy has the world by the tail and often times I wonder if he even knows it. He’s only thirty-one, and he has never looked better in the gym.

The people who have supported me the most are family. My wife of twenty years has been giving me unconditional love and support. I would have gotten divorce papers from any other woman for keeping up with my schedule over the years. My mother and father, sister, and brother have supported me too. My brother, Justin, is also a fighter, so he get’s it. He has had such a huge impact on my career. There are too many other people, and I don’t want to leave anyone out, so I’m just going to answer with my family. Family is the most important thing to a fighter.

JB: Last question, Jason, and thanks for taking the time to do this. What does it mean to you to be a fighter and how much do you enjoy it?

JR: It means everything to me to be a martial artist, first, and a fighter, second. I enjoy helping people. I really do. I enjoy helping my students reach their goals – whether it’s the ones who want to lose weight and get in outstanding shape or it’s the ones who want to be fighters. I love helping young fighters and truly take an interest in them just like so many took an interest in me. I’m a very grateful and lucky guy. Never give up.

 Thank you so much for reading and please follow Jason Reinhardt and Jack Brown on Twitter.

You can also visit JackJohnBrownMMA on Facebook for links to all of Jack’s past interviews. Previous interviews include: Dan Hardy, Rose Namajunas, Joe Lauzon, War Machine, Tom Lawlor, Bas Rutten, Chris Leben, Phil Baroni, Julie Kedzie, Michael Bisping, Duane Ludwig, Sara McMann, Matt Lindland, Duke Roufus, Pat Miletich, Jens Pulver, Dan Severn, Nate Quarry, Ken Shamrock, Matt Serra, Jeremy Horn, Ray Longo, Kevin Randleman, Dennis Hallman, Daniel Cormier, Shonie Carter, Renzo Gracie, and dozens more.

Thank you to @KirikJenness for @theUG.