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By Loretta Hunt 
6'8". 265 pounds. In an age where large doesn't necessarily equate to slow; where heavyweights can be technical as well as brawny, Miletich Martial Arts' Tim Sylvia is looking to etch himself a place among this growing group of mammoth competitors. His journey reaches a new milestone here at UFC 39 with his toughest adversary to date. With a clean record of 15-0 amassed mostly from Extreme Challenge and SuperBrawl action, Sylvia is ready to take on what the next level of competition has to offer. His opponent? A burly Hawaiian by the name of Wes "Cabbage" Corriera, cut from virtually the same cloth as Sylvia himself. Two 265-pounders that BOTH want to keep it standing. (Insert fireworks here.) Sylvia explains how he's up for that challenge and where he's looking to go in the UFC heavyweight class -- revealing which heavyweight is on his own personal "hit list" and another heavyweight whose experience he has drawn from in the last couple of weeks. For this easy-going Maine native, Friday is only the beginning.FCF: Let's first start with your earlier days in the sport. How did you get into mixed martial arts? TS: I wrestled a bit in high school. I wasn't good at all. I was fat, short, and out of shape, but I loved to compete. I always did karate all through grammar and high school. I have about seven years of karate under my belt. I held a black belt in Okinawan karate and held a brown belt in an Americanized version I studied. Something I've always enjoyed was martial arts. I moved to another town and started bouncing at a place where all the other bouncers were doing grappling. They would just do it on the side and I started going to classes and really enjoyed it. We'd get together a couple of times a week at the local Gold's Gym. We were doing it mainly to protect ourselves when we were bouncing. We were choking guys out instead of punching them, which was much easier. FCF: Where were you and the other bouncers getting your grappling knowledge from? TS: One guy learned from Boston Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Marcus Davis was a pro boxer out of Bangor [Maine]. He was teaching us the sambo part that he had learned in Boston. I also got all the Mario Sperry tapes that we'd all watch together on the weekends and then go and practice. I guess I was mostly self-taught for that first year. FCF: How did you progress from grappling to MMA? TS: I had the opportunity to compete in a couple of grappling tournaments and took first place in both of them. Then, I had the opportunity to do an amateur NHB fight, open-handed, in Rhode Island. I knocked the guy out in twelve seconds and thought, 'Wow, this is kind of fun. I kinda like doing this. I don't get in trouble for it and it's a great way to release stress.' And it kinda started from there. The next time they had a fight, I came down and won again. They gave me a title shot with Rhode Island Vale Tudo -- that's Kipp Kollar's event -- and he got me involved with the IFC. I went to Atlantic City and won there. FCF: From there, how did you connect with the Miletich Martial Arts team? TS: I went to the next UFC and met Pat [Miletich] and those guys and just started talking to them. I had a big fight coming up in World Extreme Fighting and knew that my competition was going to be tough. The guy I was training with at the time was talking to Pat and he ended up inviting me out [to Iowa] for a week. I came out and trained my ass off for a week and Pat said, 'You know, we could always use a hard working heavyweight. Why don't you come out and live here?' That's all I was waiting for and a month later I moved out here. FCF: At this point, was there an assimilation period where you didn't fight? TS: No, not really. The first week I was at Pat's, I had a fight in California for Gladiator's Challenge. It was for the Super Fight title and I won that. About two month's later I fought for Monte [Cox at Ultimate Wrestling Minnesota] against a guy named Greg Wikan. When I came to Pat I was 2-0 [professionally] and now I'm 15-0. FCF: Did you have any losses as an amateur? TS: Yes I did. FCF: Was there a bit of a culture shock moving from the East Coast out to the mid west? TS: Believe it or not, there's actually more to do out here in Iowa then where I'm from. Maine is just real laid back. There are really no distractions out here in Iowa. All we do is eat, sleep, and train -- not like the guys in California. They have so many distractions with the women and the bars and there's so many different things to do. Out in Iowa, there isn't much to do so we have an advantage in a way. It's good because everyone here is so close. You'd think it'd be hard to move away from home, but when you come into an atmosphere where everyone is like a big family, it's really easy to get settled in. If it wasn't for Tony Fryklund -- he's from Boston -- I don't no what I would have done. Him and I have become best friends. We live together now. We're from the same area, so we reminisce together. FCF: Are you excited to be returning to the East Coast for this fight? TS: Very excited. I'm actually staying for two weeks longer after the fight. I'm going back to Maine. FCF: Has your training for this fight differed in any way from how you've trained in the past? TS: Well, Randy Couture is flying me out to train with him for two weeks. [By this time, Sylvia has completed his two weeks of training with the former champ and is at the Mohegan Sun]. FCF: And Matt Lindland just spent ten days with the Miletich camp. It sounds like an exchange program of sorts. TS: Yeah. Matt came out here and I just beat the hell out of him every which way I could. I guess he was pretty impressed with me and told Randy that he should have me come out. Randy called and said, 'I'd like to fly you out for a couple of weeks and keep you at my house.' What a great guy. He's doesn't even know me and he's having me come out and train with him and stuff. FCF: But if you do well in this next fight, there's potential for you to meet Randy down the road... TS: This is true. We're both after one thing -- our next fight. We'll take it one fight at a time though. I'm going to help him beat Ricco [Rodriguez]. I can't stand Ricco, so I'm really happy Randy is fighting Ricco so he can beat his ass. FCF: You don't like Ricco? TS: No. He had some bad things to say about our camp and about Matt Hughes. All he likes to do when he commentates is talk about himself and himself only. I really don't think he's a great fighter. He's gun shy. He doesn't like to get hit and I'd really like to see if I could get a fight with him down the road. FCF: So, I guess the rumors about the Miletich camp and Team Punishment having some rivalry, especially following the UFC London after-party fight, hold some truth. TS: [Coyly] Yeah, there could be. I like Tito [Ortiz], but I'm not happy with the way he's acted about this. I wasn't in England so I don't know, but I'm going to believe my guys' story. Pat's never lied to me. Tony never has. Matt [Hughes] wasn't there, but Mark's [Hughes] never lied. I know Lee [Murray]. Lee has come to train with us in the past. I think their stories seem to be the truth. Tito was drunk and things happen when you get drunk. He got beat up and I should just leave it at that, but his story doesn't make sense compared with everyone else's. FCF: Let's focus on your impending fight with "Cabbage". What are your thoughts on him? TS: It's going to be a good fight. I'm happy about him being my opponent because it'll give me a good chance to show off my skills. He's a stand up fighter like myself, so it's going to be a stand up war. He's going to have problems dropping weight. He has to get down to 265 and I think that's going to be an advantage for me because I naturally walk around at 265. I'm big and strong at that weight. I'm going to come in around 260, 265. FCF: For the fans that have yet to see you in action, how would you describe your fighting style? TS: I'm a stand up fighter with good takedown defense. People have a hard time taking me down; therefore I can keep the fight standing up, which is what I want to do. I have a really good reach. I use my jab well and set up my punches. FCF: As the largest member of the Miletich team, all of the other teammates must "fight over" you to get in some sparring time. TS: I wrestle with Matt every now and then. We do takedowns every Monday night and always cross each other. I wrestle with Pat every now and then, but I spar with him a lot. He'll get "froggy" and want to beat on me. He grabs me and gets to beat up on me. Of course, it makes him feel good. [At this point, Tim announces that Jens Pulver has just walked into the room.] He has Jens running around in circles thumping him, so when its his turn to run around someone in circles, he comes after me. FCF: As a fighter, what do you feel your weaknesses as a fighter are? What do you need to work on? TS: I really don't know. Jens says I have two left feet. (Tim laughs, then pauses.) My footwork. I'm probably a little slow. Other than that, I think I'm pretty well rounded. FCF: It sounds like you prefer to fight standing. How's your ground game? TS: It's not bad. I don't see "Cabbage" taking me down though. He doesn't have anything on the ground from what I've seen and I don't think he's going to try and take me down. Then again, when you take someone out of their element -- he's a stand up fighter and I'm going to stand up with him, so he might be forced to take a shot because he's going to get punished standing up. 
FCF: We're you a "big kid" growing up? TS: No, in high school I would get beat up all the time. I didn't grow till my senior year. I think I got my driver's license at 15 and I was 5'9" and 200 pounds. I was fat, out of shape, and always picked on. But, then I walked in my senior year at 6'4". I was a late bloomer. FCF: What do you enjoy filling your time with besides MMA? TS: Playing video games with Jens. FCF: It seems like the entire Miletich team does that in their free time. TS: Yeah, I know, but he has the Playstation and the X-Box. We also like to meet up and go to the movies. FCF: Video games and movies -- pretty tame fare for a bunch of ultimate fighters. TS: Well, the only other thing that we do on the side is mountain biking. We get pretty crazy actually. Pat's always yelling at us like, 'You guys have fights coming up. You shouldn't be out there doing that shit.' We do some crazy stuff. We jump off four-foot drops and wipe out at least once each. We come back and our knees and elbows are all gauged out. FCF: Were you a fan of the UFC prior to your own fighting career? TS: Back in 1992, I think, UFC 2 came out and a bunch of my friends were like, 'You've got to see this Gracie guy. He's phenomenal. He's this little guy and he's grabbing all these big guys and choking them out.' I was watching it then and just got hooked on it. FCF: What does fighting in the UFC mean to you? TS: It's a goal I set three years ago. I said three years from now I'd like to get into the UFC and low and behold, here it is. It's a dream come true and I'm really looking forward to making an impact on the sport. I think I'm a different heavyweight fighter than everyone has seen. I think I'll surprise a lot of people just for that reason. All of the UFC heavyweight fighters I've seen so far, they aren't as well rounded as I am. My endurance is phenomenal. I can honestly say I have the best endurance of any heavyweight in the UFC. I just want to work my way up the ladder and keep fighting. I'll have a title shot when they think I'm ready for it. I just want to fight and get big where people know me. Tomorrow we visit with the one UFC 39 competitor that's even heftier than Sylvia and "Cabbage" -- SLO Kickboxing and Chuck Liddell protégé, Gan McGee. After a personally disappointing UFC 28 premiere (November 17, 2000) versus Josh Barnett, McGee gets his second shot at glory this Friday. His task at hand will be no easier -- Pedro Rizzo is looking to resume his climb back up the heavyweight ladder and McGee seems only an obstacle (albeit a very large obstacle) in that path. McGee talks about second chances, cutting from 300 pounds to make weight, and just how he stacks up next to the Brazilian known for his third round knockout magic. Don't miss it. |
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