Jeff Monson on mushrooms, Kimbo, Gaddafi, and poopy pants

MiddleEasy: What ever happened to you dropping to 205?

Jeff Monson: King Mo needs an opponent in June… You know it looks like I’m going to cut maybe this summer if I cut to 205 I want to fight tough people an put myself in line to fight for a title, that’s what we do that’s the whole point of being in the fight game for me, he’s a tough opponent.

ME: Can you clear up whats going on with Jorge Santiago and JZ Cavalcante leaving. You haven’t left have you?

JM: No, no. The thing is Jorge and JZ are good friends and my team, it’s like a big family we had Liborio and guys who fought in Brazil maybe jiu-jitsu and we brought them here and got them Visas and got them training all world class. Got them fights in Japan making money, now they are headed to the UFC. Sometimes people see how well you are doing and that attracts a lot of different sorts. Saying hey I can get you this and that, I think maybe they had an opportunity to go with a different manager and make different money that way. We had a big team meeting and said hey if you wanna go go, they said no hard feelings. You want to train with guys who want to be there. If they are questioning it’s not good for you or your training partner. Sometimes there is addition by subtraction. I know we got some new guys, some wrestlers who just graduated from college so we can get some wrestling in there with the BJJ. ATT is my family, they have been there through bicep surgery, a bunch of losses in a row, the Abu Dhabi’s. When I started doing well again they didn’t jump on the bandwagon, they were always there. Loyalty.

ME: You like what is happening in the Middle East being Libya?

JM: Yeah Libya, Egypt you know, Iran, Tunisia, people overthrowing the government, if you want to call it a government, the kingships. It’s amazing the United States and other western countries we are only in Libya a little bit but because of Gaddafi is a known terrorist, he’s crazy and they have oil. Like Egypt, we weren’t sure whether to support it or not because they were a buffer like Saudi Arabia and they were our friends. So even though they were exploiting their people and violating every human rights law there is, they kind of had a democracy on paper and when it comes down to it we would rather keep our friends than some unknown leadership that will not be friendly to us or Britain or whoever. It’s kind of interesting to see this government response to the uprisings.

ME: This is a little odd with your wife next to you, but uh, there is a picture of a naked picture of you jumping on a bed in a hotel room… Oh, she’s not here anymore ugh, haha.

JM: What was the deal with that picture? Yeah I think that was in Hawaii, that relationship didn’t end on the best of terms and so I was just, jumping on the bed and she took it and it of course leaked out, we have since made up. No hard feelings, what can you do? It’s a naked picture of me jumping on a bed.

 ME: I heard they are going to rename you Captain America, how do you feel about that?

JM: That’s a joke, right?

ME: If you could force everyone in the world to take one substance or do one activity, what would it be?

JM: I’d have everyone do mushrooms. I did mushrooms one time and it was the best, well it was probably the scariest experience I’ve ever had, but at the end of it, it was pretty good. It makes you think about stuff. I still think about things that I thought about at that time now and how I would have never thought about it that way.

ME: Back when everyone thought Kimbo Slice was unstoppable, you wanted to fight him. Now that his career hasn’t really panned out, would you still like to fight him?

JM: No and honestly, I never really wanted to fight him. That whole video thing was a spoof. He joined American Top Team after that and I never thought he was, whatever. I met him at the gym and that tough guy thing was just like a persona and he’s actually a very nice guy, he’s very well spoken. He had his entourage and his cousins with him and he had actually never seen that YouTube video and we showed it to him and he was laughing until that part where it said he can’t read and we told him it was just a joke. He was a really good teammate and it was just a joke. I think it’s kind of funny that some people thought it was real, but it was pretty funny.

ME: Please tell us the story about how you pooped your pants in a match.

JM: I was with a friend I was actually training with, Rhadi Ferguson and it was at a tournament. I think it was in California and I pulled guard and I don’t usually pull guard and I was bent a certain way and this was before all the protein powders and stuff so I think I had eaten some raw eggs and got a little something from it. Anyway, I think I was in half guard and then he mounted me, but I had my hand underneath so it wasn’t a full mount and he was squeezing and I was trying to do that half guard sweep, but he was squeezing really hard and I just felt it go down the bottom of my shorts. After I got up and I felt going down my leg I just put my hands up signaling that I got to go the bathroom and we had to actually re do the match and I threw those shorts away.

Read entire interview for a detailed discussion of Monson’s views on anarchy, and other topics.