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Interview with Jens Pulver- Part I
Reported By: Boxing Insider - 02.09.2004 12:44 AM
By Chris Colderley
BoxingInsider.com: First thing, let me ask you a little bit about the book and why you wrote it?
Jens Pulver: I think it was first just a way to hear what I grew up with. In the beginning it was just an exciting thing to be able to write a book after the B.J. fight. I wanted to get my life off that. I figured enough people knew who I was being the champion, but not many people knew who I was growing up. It was one of those things, it was hurting so much, not being at home -- I've been in Iowa and my home town is Seattle. I haven't seen anybody for a long time.
I think this is just a way to let my fans know who I was. Also, I wanted to help people -- that was really big for me. And that's basically why I wrote it in the beginning.
BoxingInsider.com: Since you have written it, what kind of response have you received?
Jens Pulver: I've received a great response, actually. I became really paranoid after the book came out, because I'd wanted to edit so many things and I never really got a chance to edit a lot of things. There are minor mistakes in there, like where I went to school -- not in Tacoma. Little things like that I wanted to change. But overall, it was basically just that I was really nervous -- I felt really naked to the world, so to speak. So for the first month after it came out, I just put it away and didn't think about it. I just wanted it to disappear.
But then people started writing to me. People who were twenty-one, twenty-two years old, some older -- I got some from the army base in Italy -- telling me how much it helped them. And people started talking to me about what they went through. One guy wrote me that he had dropped out of college and he was disheartened and wasting his time and, reading my book, the next day he went back to Community College. He signed up for college and has every intention of graduating from a four-year university and showing everybody that he's not going to have a nine-to-five job; he's going to do what he wants to do.
So, after starting to read that and getting one after another, I started feeling a lot better. That's why I did what I did. I overcame all kinds of obstacles to become the champion. I didn't want to tell people, "Look, it can't be done."
So, when it first came out, that was the positive response to it. It helped people and made them feel better and gave them some motivation. And it made it all worthwhile, and it made me feel a lot better and it made me feel a lot more comfortable after I'd been so nervous at the beginning.
BoxingInsider.com: What's up with your fighting right now? I know you've been involved in boxing and a few other things. Can you tell us…
Jens Pulver: Well, the boxing is just… I have some time before my fight in March, and I've always had a love of boxing, I've always wanted to do it, all my life -- be a boxer. In fact, that's why I got into MMA, because it's more my style, being able to wrestle. And that's what I did. To box now, you know, I boxed Matt Hughes, Robbie Lawler and Pat [Miletich] -- all these guys who are thirty pounds heavier than me. Why not one of the pros? Find somebody my own weight. It’s not even really about the money, it's just a way to improve my technique and learn how to crisp up my hands for MMA.
I tell people, "I'm not trying to win a world title in boxing. I'm already the world champion in what I do." It can only help me -- give me that much more strength. When I go into MMA with boxing, I start letting go of my hands that much better.
That's basically why I'm doing it. It gives me the motivation to train, it gives me something to focus on -- and I need that to keep training day in and day out.
BoxingInsider.com: You mentioned your fight in March. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Jens Pulver: It's going to be in Shooto. I'm not clear on the opponent at this time. They haven't decided if they want me to fight at one-hundred fifty-five or forty-five. But it's definitely going to be March 24th in the Shooto Show. I've said it before, I'm looking to go out there and take both belts. I want the one-hundred fifty-five pound belt and the one-hundred forty-five pound belt. So the faster I can get in and do those fights the better off I'll be.
Right now, it's guaranteed, Shooto, in March, and the opponent will be made know really soon.
BoxingInsider.com: Last night I was looking at some old tapes. For a stretch, Jens Pulver was just about the headline fighter on every card in the UFC. There hasn't been a lightweight champion since you left. Give me your thoughts on the current state of the lightweight division in UFC.
Jens Pulver: I feel as if it's just getting dismantled. I don't think there is a lightweight division in the UFC right now. I know that they are allowing some people to fight, but I don't know if they are building them and they're going to have another run at trying to have a champion at that weight? But I've always said, the lightweight division is the best class -- you've got really tough opponents fighting each other right now. I believe -- it's still my favorite weight division even though I'm in the weight class, because there are so many good possible match-ups.
I don't know if they have fully decided to let it go or what they're going to do. I'm not sure what's happening -- whether people are being built for a title shot, whether there's going to be another title shot, or what's going to happen.
It's kind of confusing. I don't really know what the UFC is planning for that weight class, but I hope to god they don't let it go.
BoxingInsider.com: Do you have plans to return to the UFC -- ultimately, to go back and "take back the belt"?
Jens Pulver: I've made it clear for a while now that I want to go back. I want to rewrite some of the choices I made, I want to show my loyalty to the UFC, and I want to let Dana know that I was wrong. I've been the bigger man admitting it -- I made the wrong decision.
I would love to come back. I would love to fight in the lightweight division -- win or lose, at least there can be a direction to go with the lightweight division. Whether or not I lose the belt or I win it and I keep winning it that remains to be seen. But, I definitely want to be back in there. I want to get into the UFC. I want to get back in there and straighten out a weight class that I know people love. I know it's a job, and I know it’s a really big job, because of the excitement. I definitely want to come back. I want to come back -- and Dana's heard me say this -- I'll do the first fight for free! I don't even want money. I just want to come back and straighten out the weight class that I started. That's what I want to do. I want to give it direction. Whether I win or lose, I feel I need to be back in there. I need to finish what I started. I made a decision to leave a while ago and I live with that decision, but I really don't see why I need to live with that decision when I can help out so much and prove my loyalties if given a second chance.
BoxingInsider.com: Could you jog my memory the circumstances around you leaving?
Jens Pulver: I wasn't after large sums of money. I was just asking to be the highest paid lightweight. It was just one of those things where we disputed it my place in the lightweight division. What they offered me was extremely fair. It wasn't something that I was fighting, but I was looking at other offers and other places and just asking for fair compensation. Basically, it boiled down to a business decision, nothing personal -- you can go and fight elsewhere. It was just a contract thing.
BoxingInsider.com: Since then you've had a couple of high-profile fights which, unfortunately, you came out on the wrong side after the match. Talk to me a little bit about the fights against Duane Ludwig and Jason Maxwell.
Jens Pulver: Well, definitely, the Jason Maxwell fight -- he caught me at the right time. And the same with the Ludwig fight. I'm not taking away from what they did. They came to fight, they followed their game plan, and they beat me -- that's the bottom line. But were they fighting hundred percent Pulver? No. They won fighting a fifty percent Pulver -- and it wasn't injuries. It was me trying to learn how to be a father.
In England I'd just had a child (out of wedlock), we were having problems with the mother, where they don't get along -- you understand where I'm coming from?
I was not there. I am just now starting to come round. I'm just now starting to feel better. Jason found me at the right time. I did both those fights for money, not for desire -- and I got caught. I got caught and I got beat and it's one of those things that, if given the opportunity, I would fight again in two seconds. I would show both of them how lucky they really were. Like I said, it's not particularly what they did the first time. They had their windows of opportunity and they made the most of them, but, give me a second chance and I'll show them for real and there's no way they could beat me.
That's what it was. Some people -- they've never experienced it and I hope they never do -- where you're just so mentally gone. I don't remember anything about the Ludwig fight. I was too busy drifting off about what was going on at home and the problems, even in the locker room. I never focused on that fight, not one moment in the actual fight. I didn't train, I didn't do anything. I never focused on that fight. I just did it for money.
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