Ride Home Rants
Ride Home Rants
From Fighter to Coach: Billy Freedson's Combat Sports Journey
The journey from fighter to coach often reveals the deepest insights about combat sports. Billy Freedson, standing at just 5'5", began his martial arts journey with what he calls "Napoleon syndrome" – a chip on his shoulder and a readiness to fight that eventually transformed into a sophisticated understanding of striking, grappling, and the intricate dance between them.
Billy's expertise spans multiple disciplines: Muay Thai, K-1 kickboxing, wrestling, judo, jiu-jitsu, and even Filipino knife fighting. This comprehensive background has made him a valued coach at Cleveland's Upgraded Industries, where he's helped shape numerous fighters including Tony "The Latin Assassin" – a wrestling specialist whose striking has evolved from "brutish" and forward-charging to technical and angle-focused under Billy's guidance.
What makes Billy's perspective particularly valuable is his willingness to acknowledge the hard lessons of his own fighting career. From backyard brawls to a knockout loss against future UFC champion Cody Garbrandt, Billy understands the painful education that combat sports provide. After going 3-0 at 135 pounds, his fighting career ended with a difficult weight cut that drained his performance – experience that now informs his coaching approach.
The podcast explores fascinating aspects of the fight game: how wrestlers can use striking to set up takedowns, why women fighters often underestimate their own power, what six weeks of training in Thailand taught Billy about authentic Muay Thai, and even a candid assessment of Jake Paul's boxing skills ("high level amateur"). Throughout these topics runs a consistent thread – Billy's dedication to building Cleveland's combat sports community through collaborative training rather than gym rivalry
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Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ride Home Rants podcast. This is, as always, your host, mike Bono. I got a great guest for us today. He is brought to us by Tony the Latin Assassin, another MMA fighter. He is actually into the coaching realm of that. We're going to get into all that coming up here, but Billy Friedson joins the show. Billy, thanks for joining, man, hey no problem, mike.
Speaker 2:Good, good to be on with you, man yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 1:Um, like I said, uh, tony actually connected us. So you know, how do you know the latin assassin there? Huh, how did that relationship come about?
Speaker 2:well. So I started uh cross training with a place called upgraded industries and that's actually where I met tony. Uh, they used to do do these things every Saturday where it was open sparring. You can go up, you can, you know, basically just get sparring with all the fighters that are around the area Um. And that's actually where I met Tony the first time. At that time he was just kind of getting into striking um, which is my expertise. I I'm more of a Muay Thai K-1 boxer. My ground game's okay. Tony would dominate me there, but luckily we were just in band up sparring. That's when I met Tony. And then about a year later I actually started coaching the striking program for Upgraded Industries. And then that's when me and Tony really really hit it off and started becoming friends and I worked with him on his striking from then.
Speaker 1:I got you. How is his striking improved since you've gotten to work with him? I know we talked about it with his show um, about how striking was kind of I don't want to say his weakness, because I saw him fight live and it definitely didn't look like it was his weakness.
Speaker 2:But uh well, you know Tony is an amazing grappler. His wrestling career speaks for itself. Three-time state champion wrestler growing up, one in Greco, two in freestyle. The dude knows how to grapple. His striking was very brutish, if that's the right way to explain it Very forward, he would take a lot of punishment to give a lot of punishment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, when I first came on he was very straightforward and he relied on that power. Now Tony's a lot more finesse. He could. His angles are amazing. Now he's got much better kicks. It's something you don't see a lot when you go and watch him fight. He mainly uses his hands, but he has very. He mainly uses his hands, but he has very, very underrated kicks. He can flip them up. Good body kicks His knees are great. One of the things he doesn't get to use is his elbows. It's something we've gone over, but you know amateur MMA, you're not elbowing people, so you don't really get to see that. But you know the dude is known for his grappling. I think if he ever fought somebody who had grappling on his level, I think he'd still be able to show off a really, really good amount of good striking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw him fight live when he won the championship at a mountain air casino a couple of months back.
Speaker 2:Is that the one where?
Speaker 1:he knocked him out. No, he, I think he choked him out. I was the well, it was the final result, but he definitely used his striking to set up his takedowns. Uh, is that something that you're able to coach into? Like strikers and you know grapplers that are, you know they mainly want to go to the ground like, do you coach into that? Like, okay, this, this punch, this kick will set up for your takedowns yeah.
Speaker 2:So for grapplers, I really I really try to use more of a boxing style, a little more forward, something to where you can go to a one, two, an ankle pick, and you know you could really translate from putting your hands in their face getting their chest to rise. When their chest rise it kind of opens up their legs for easy takedowns. Also, you know, if you're doing uh striking into muay thai, you can grab the clinch and greco, roman kind of takes over from there. Um, yeah, honestly, the basic strikes to set up uh takedowns. You know, using your jab to set up your right hand to an ankle pick, using a one-two kind of a spearing jab that the body, things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I, I I do have a black belt in Taekwondo and they brought in for about a month a jujitsu specialist to kind of try to get us a little bit more of the background on the ground game. With Taekwondo being more of a defensive karate style, it helped. I learned very quickly. With my height and my weight and, being as lanky as I am, ground was very formidable for me. Just, I could get my legs around him in a guard and you, you know, really lock into body locks with how long my legs actually are going for triangles, stuff like that. But I'm very easily to take down because I am, I'm six, five and you know, and yeah, so so I'm, I'm very tall, so I, I leave a lot of my lower body open. Uh, because of that, Go ahead.
Speaker 1:No, I was just saying yeah and I just get taken down. So I had to learn very quickly very defensive strategies on the ground in transitions.
Speaker 2:And that's the hard part you have a Taekwondo black belt. I actually one of the schools I learned Muay Thai and K-1 kickboxing it was a Taekwondo school Vanyos in Brunwick. I, it was a Taekwondo school, yeah, vanyos in Brunwick.
Speaker 1:Ok, but I don't know where you were at, but I was back in Steubenville Ohio.
Speaker 2:Oh, ok, ok, yeah, cool. As you know, throwing kicks on somebody who wants to take you down Not the best idea. Yeah, you know, it gives them easy takedown. So, you know, disguising kicks with your hands and and chopping more legs really, really helps, um, with really good grapplers. You know guys like Tony, if I kick his body or try to attempt a head kick, he's just going to dump me. It's, it's not fair. Um, that's Taekwondo. Has got some really good kicks and it's something I use, cause that's where I came from was a Taekwondo school. Right, um, never got belted, but when he showed his muay thai kicks it was more of a taekwondo finesse style. Yeah, um, so a lot of spinning kicks, axe kicks, you know, jump, double kicks, things like that, that if you're not set up properly, you try to throw them to a body.
Speaker 1:A wrestler grappler is just going to take you right down yeah, and we had a couple of guys in um in my class that were wrestlers and um that we were. I was, I was a teenager so in high school and junior high and I learned very quickly when um we went full live sparring with jujitsu and Taekwondo that I was just getting taken down Cause I, I, I'm all legs that, all legs, that for my height. So like I use my kicks a lot for distance to try to protect myself, because with my striking I'm kind of like tony in that sense and I was a brute. I'd always move forward and I'd eat a lot of shots to get the shots that I wanted and it just it was.
Speaker 1:I was on my back a lot of the time in that jujitsu class but it was a lot of fun. I learned a lot of transitions. They helped me out with that a good bit and it was. It was fun, I liked it. I know I probably should have pursued it a little bit more, according to what everybody has told me, but you know you don't get into comedy because you know you're good at anything else. But do you have any other anything outside of like coaching in the combat sports space that you do, or is combat sports kind of. All it is for you.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, so I, I own a plumbing company, so that's my morning job, and then I end up coaching and doing personal training the rest of the day, um, so pretty much from 6 AM in the morning till eight 38 at night, I'm, uh, doing something, I'm moving. Um, you know, I I did some stunt work, some acting stuff. That was really cool Um, with Johnny Wu, a local guy here in Cleveland. Uh, he got me into stunts and I was doing that and then I didn't realize he was the producer, I was bullshitting with him and then he started giving me lines and things like that.
Speaker 2:Never done anything like that before. He was really cool, got to do a lot of cool stunts, meet a lot of cool people. That's actually the person I met who brought me to Upgraded, was through that. So it was really cool. I've made a lot of good connections and then, uh, yeah, I mostly kind of live the sport of Muay Thai at this point. You know, I just got back from Thailand. Uh, I was there for six and a half weeks and all I did was train. It was great, um, and I just was happy to come back and start using some new tricks and teaching some new tricks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say, has that helped with your fighters? Have you seen any of that with the fighters that you do coach from what you learned in Thailand?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean so Thailand doesn't really use well, at the gym I was at in Thailand, I should say not a lot of punches. It was more about the clinch work, the elbows, the knees and the kicks which, if I'm being honest, I think we cause. We have boxing coaches as well, not just me. We have Luke. Fresh hour is golden gloves champion Justin. I forget his last name. I apologize, justin, but he's he's been around the block as well. So we have you, we have two boxing coaches and then me, the Muay Thai coach. So we're more dominantly a boxing style with kicks, but we're definitely getting better at the clinch and we're definitely getting better at setting up the kicks from the boxing the from the boxing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, yeah, it's, it's the combat. Sports has always fascinated me. Um, I like, I love it. I watch the ufc every saturday. Uh, for their fight nights. Um, love it. Uh, it was funny.
Speaker 1:When, I, you know, met my wife, we moved in together. I can't remember what it was. I was watching like an old classic ufc, it was just something that was on the tv on a weekend. Uh, my wife, we moved in together. I can't even remember what it was. I was watching an old classic UFC. It was just something that was on the TV on a weekend.
Speaker 1:My wife was in making dinner and then she came in. She was like what are you watching? I was like, oh, it's the UFC. She was like well, what is that? I was like it's mixed martial arts, but it's basically a big cage street fight. They lock two brutal, brutal human beings into a cage and say have it out for three rounds. And it was a brutal, striking fight. The guys were both just bloodied up and just still throwing haymakers in the middle of the octagon. I felt her sitting down next to me and now she looks forward to Saturday and says, hey, is it fight night? When are the fights on. She looks forward to those fights and watching those. It's become a weekend tradition for us to have fight night Saturdays and you know getting people. I don't think I know it's gotten bigger because of the UFC and Dana White and everything that he's done for mixed martial arts. But do you notice that a lot with there's still not a lot of people that know about the combat sports realm and just how entertaining it can actually be?
Speaker 2:It's hard for me because I'm surrounded by it sport, whether it's boxing, whether it's K one, uh, muay Thai, whether it's MMA. Most of the people I'm surrounded by are are obsessed with some kind of combat sport, which is great for me, cause I'm one of those people too. Um, but you know, when I am out and about or I'm at, you know I do plumbing and and I'm doing that, and people ask you know, oh, you look like you're in good shape, you work out things like that I always say I do Muay Thai. I don't say I lift or anything like that, and they're always fascinated by it. So I guess, in like every day-to-day things, those people I guess don't notice it, but because I'm surrounded by so many competitors and people who love the sport, it's hard for me to say that they don't see it.
Speaker 1:You know? No, yeah, I got you and you're originally from the Cleveland area. Is that where you grew up? And you know? Tell everyone a little bit more about yourself. I guess you know where you grew up and you know schooling and all that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I grew up in a small town called Columbia Station. It's between Elyria and Strongsville. My graduating class was 74 people, so it was a pretty small class. Yeah yeah, we didn't. We knew everybody first and last name, where they lived. I mean, it was not very clicky, which was cool. Um, you know, and I, I'm a, I'm a small guy, you're, you're six, five. I am a foot shorter than you. I am five, five on a good day, with my shoes on, um, um, but so I I like to say I had Napoleon syndrome.
Speaker 2:I was always, like, ready to fight. I was angry, um, I had an older brother who's a half brother, and he is six foot two, 20. So used to beat the crap out of me. It was great, um, so I got into. When I saw MMA, I was like, oh, that'd be cool. We started doing it in my backyard. My dad would leave, uh, to go camping on the weekends and I would have basically fight parties. I mean, we'd have people just come over, we would throw the crappy MMA UFC gloves on you know, they're all tore up and we would beat the shit out of each other. There was no time limit. We would just go till someone quit. You'd fight a couple times or you'd fight, you know, once, just depending on what you wanted to do. People call you out. You'd fight, um, and I thought that was cool. But then, uh, you know, I was like, you know, it's one thing to fight in the backyard with a bunch of random people watching against another guy. You can't fight. But uh, you know, fighting the cage I thought would be cool.
Speaker 2:I went to one event. I was like, yeah, I could definitely do that. I was so wrong, uh, I got my ass handed to me. Uh, my first fight, clint muscleman. The dude was a tank. He went on a fight for a bunch of titles. Dude was super strong, fast, really good, striking.
Speaker 2:I wrestled in high school and uh, school and that didn't help as much as I thought it was going to. I lost my first three fights. Uh, I fought cody garbrandt. Um, oh, yeah, yeah, I fought garbrandt for, uh, dan bobish had a promotion in parma. I was a parma, it was brook park, brook park, okay, um, and garbrandt's guy, uh, had backed out or got hurt. My guy backed out or got hurt and they said, oh, do you want to fight this guy? He's a boxer and I was a wrestler thinking, oh, I'm just gonna take him down. So I said yes, only to find out that cody is a uh, phenomenal wrestler as well. Yeah, um, and then he dominated. I mean, he knocked me out in the first round.
Speaker 2:It sucked, um, I, I shouldn't have been fighting. I had no, I didn't have the right coaching. I was at a small little karate gym, didn't have the right training going in there, I just had a mentality, and that mentality just wasn't enough. So from there I went to Vanyo's in Strongsville Brook Park and he was known as a kickboxing gym. He would not let me fight for at least a year. That was the deal, at least not sanctioned.
Speaker 2:So I don't know if you've ever heard of smokers, yeah, okay. So smokers were a big deal when I was coming up, and that was about 10 to 13 years ago, and I would do a smoker. After the first maybe six months, he started getting me smokers and I would do a smoker once a month at least. Um, and I, I did really well in smokers and once I got, you know, going and and put a string of wins together, he got me a sanctioned fight and I went back to mma where I went three and oh, at 135 um. And then I lost my last fight, mma fight, because I dropped on a one 25 and the way cut was just too much for me. Um and I and I have gas now it it sucked. I I have some issues with that fight in general. Uh, I thought the guy tapped and I let go.
Speaker 1:Dumb dumb on my part.
Speaker 2:Never let go, you. You wait till the ref stops it. You know that's kind of a young mistake. Um had a couple sanctioned kickboxing events. Um went one and one in sanctioned kickboxing. I fought nicolai glanti who was ranked number one in the state when we fought. I went all three rounds with them, lost a two to one decision.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, after that I really kind of looked in the mirror and I was reflecting like, hey, do I still want to do of? Looked in the mirror and I was reflecting like hey, do I still want to do this? I love the sport and I love, you know, training and I love all that. But I don't just didn't know if competing anymore was right for me. Um, so I really buckled down on technique and started learning different styles. I did judo for a while. I've done jujitsu, I've wrestled, I did Kali uh, filipino knife fighting. Um boxing Muay Thai K1. I mean, I've done all these different styles just to you know see what works for me. Um, but it all helped with footwork and it helped with angles and it helped with all this stuff.
Speaker 2:And then I found that I really enjoyed coaching. So I coached for Vanyo for a few years after I stopped fighting. I was going to give it up, but then DJ, the owner of Upgraded Industries, hit me up. Yeah, and that's really when I was like, hey, I'm 100% coaching. I love coaching. I love showing people new techniques and seeing their face light up when they understand it and making you know these guys great, I, you know it sucks. I don't have the resume A lot of these fighters have.
Speaker 2:You know, when you're talking about Tony, he's got four MMA titles. Easily could have went pro and probably dominated as a pro. Anthony Perzoli you had on as well. Well, he's a kickboxer at upgraded industries, worked with him. Uh, you know he's undefeated. He's got a title. Um, you know just, uh, chris draggy I don't know if you've had him on. Um, he's a another phenomenal fighter out of upgraded. He's four and one holds a heavyweight title. Um, you know, ron I, I can't say ron's last name. He's the cuban missile crisis. Uh, guy, we, he's a big cuban kid who anytime he touches you with either hand he can knock you out. So it's been really cool to work with those guys. You got a lot of young and up-and-coming guys coming up for boxing as well. But, yeah, that's where I'm at now, man, that's. That's from the start to where I'm at now. Yeah, it's, it's cool to see the development of other people and that's what I enjoy doing. I don't know if I'll ever fight again. I get the itch sometimes, but I don't want to lose weight so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the hard part of losing weight.
Speaker 1:I was in the cutting of the weight. I just never really understood. I guess I never wrestled or anything like that. So you know, just the weight cut. Like me, for how I am mentally, I would just want to fight at the weight that I walk around at. You know what I mean. Like that would be for me. Um, I understand that. You know, with weight classes you might have to cut a couple pounds here, but you've seen these guys losing 20, 30 pounds to get. I don't understand how they do that. I know they're not fighting at that weight when they get into the ring.
Speaker 1:Obviously, because that is the biggest point of contention for my wife and I when watching the UFC, seeing these guys like 155 pounds. It's like dude, I'm 220 and you're bigger than me right now. Like there's no way you're fighting at 155 right now, like, and yeah, I just, I never got it. The weight cuts, but that's just how I am. You know me mentally and you know now that I've actually put on some weight since I've gotten older I mean I graduated, gotten older, um, I mean I graduated high school six, five, 155 pounds. So I mean I would. I was very, I was very skinny, um, lanky, just long, um, but I was also a swimmer too as well, um, so didn't want to bulk up too much, you know playing football and that because swimming was my main sport. But yeah, you know, it's, it's it again, I didn't know.
Speaker 2:Now, you know, husband, dad, I'm up to 220 pounds, you know, since you know, at six five though, I mean I look, I don't look bad.
Speaker 2:No and you don't need to cut weight, you're. You're a naturally taller guy. Now I'm at 5'5. I can't fight what I weigh, which is I weigh 185. Right now, I get mauled at 185. You know, if I was gonna fight, I'd have to go down to 55 just because I'm so short. I mean, I could always be, you know, short and bulky. That's fine, but even at 55 you look at the pro 155ers when they, when they fight, they look like they're 185ers. Yeah, so you know it's, it's ridiculous yeah, that's, and that's that's my point.
Speaker 1:I mean, you see, like the shorter fighters are normally in those lower weight classes and, you know, when you get to like 155 and up, everybody's six foot and above from what I've seen, especially in the pro rankings it's just like, okay, there's a lot of tall dudes with some weight on them. And yeah, I mean, like I said, I loved it when I was in Taekwondo, did a lot of sparring tournaments back as a teenager. Only lost once, um, oddly enough, it was to um, um, it was to a person that was in the same gym as me. Um, and I hate to say it, but she knocked me out. Um, yeah, uh, we, we, we were at this. I don, everybody loves this story, but I, you know, we were riding up to the venue together and I was like, look, if it comes down to it we've looked at it, we're, we're the top two ranked people at this tournament Like we're going to end up on opposite sides of the bracket. If it comes down that we have to fight each other, I don't, we're not going to hit each other hard, we're going to let it go down to the cards. Whoever wins the trophy is going to come back to our gym anyways regardless. Well, as fate had it, we ended up in the championship round together, fighting each other.
Speaker 1:I may have tagged her a little harder than I thought I did, and as a fighter, you'll notice. Did you ever see the blinders? Come on somebody? They just hyper-focus in on you. Yep, they lock in, they, she locked in. And I was like, oh, she's putting on a show, because we already talked about this, so I let my guard down a little bit. Next thing I know her foot was on the side of my face and I'm waking up to five people standing above me that that was the. That's all I remember from and from what they've told me of 6'5", she was maybe like your height, 5'5", 5'6". At that point they said her one foot never left the ground and she got her other foot up and caught it right on the button, right on the jaw. Next thing I know there's five people standing above me and I'm waking up not knowing what the hell just happened.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's brutal, oh it was brutal. She was an assassin. She was she was tough as nails, one of those chicks that you see like fighting in the MMA. It's like, yeah, I'd probably run from you in a dark alley Like you look tough as nails, like she's. She was one of them and yeah, I probably had like 30 fights, counting that one, and I was like 20, 29 and one. That one still kind of bothers me because it was my own fault. But you know, yeah, brutal, brutal woman. But yeah, the sad thing is to me is that you know I have one KO against myself and you know it was a woman that knocked me out. But you know it is what it is. It's the fight game in taekwondo. There's no like back then. It wasn't. You know, the late 90s, early 2000s there wasn't really like at those gyms like all right, males are fighting males and females fighting females. It was.
Speaker 2:you know, you're in taekwondo, you're gonna, you're gonna catch some shots um, oh, yeah, I mean that's, but that's how we do it at our gym too is like the, the female fighters. We have multiple female fighters and they work in with the guys, they spar with the guys. Yeah, I, I, I would hope the guys would take it easy, but I mean, I have seen, uh, you know, some of the guys turn it up a little bit because the girls hit a lot harder than they realize they do. Yeah, um, you know, I've, we, we have a girl kickboxer, uh, chase, she's, you know, she's newer and she's one to know as a muay thai fighter for us.
Speaker 2:Nice, um, but she hit me with a one, two and I have a picture of it. My head is snapped back and you can see the sweat flying off. I can't let my guard down against her because that shit hurts, man. It's like getting hit by a guy. She hits a lot harder than she thinks she does. You're like I don't want to hit you hard back, but I'm definitely going to cover and at least hit you hard to the body, so you'll leave me alone.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, but you know what? Look at Amanda Nunez. She only sparred and trained with men and she was a two-division champion and was fighting in both weight classes and defending both titles. That was impressive to me. Nunez was just, she was a beast when she was fighting. And I think it helps the women fighters that they train with the men and I think it helps the the the women fighters that they're, they train with the men and yeah, I don't, I don't think it could hinder them at all, but I mean, yeah, they definitely hit a lot harder than than than than you think they do yeah, they, I, I think, because they, they're smaller, they think they're not going to hit as hard.
Speaker 2:But you know, as a guy, you know training with them, I still need to practice good guard and I can't dick around my hands down because you get clipped and all of a sudden you're not happy about it. Um, but as far as like the girls training with the guys, I think it's a good thing to a point. I like when people can work with somebody roughly their size and their power. So you know, like I'm, when I fought, you know I'd be training with guys that are one 55 and I'd, you know, fight down a couple of weight classes at, one 35, one 25, whatever it was. Um, I think the girls can, can do that too. I think it's an unfair tony, tony's, you know walking around 200 pounds at least. Yeah, when he trains, you know, jujitsu and the mma, with holly, one of our female fighters, who's one and oh, she can't take him down, she can't work her jujitsu because he's bigger, he's stronger. She needs somebody roughly more her size. It could be a guy, but it'd be a lot nicer if it was a girl, because then you get the strength similar, you get other things that are similar and it's a more realistic look.
Speaker 2:Um, speaking of which, uh, upgraded industries. We have a all-female sparring day coming up. So you know, if you're a female fighter striking, grappling, all of it that's two Sundays from now, which I believe is May 4th You'll have to go to Upgraded Industries, the Instagram page. We haven't posted up there, but it's an all-female training day. It's a Sunday Come up, get sparring, you know, get rolls, get all that. So it's all the females, local fighters, all in this area coming up. There'll be guys there, you know, whether that they're going to be training on their own, or the coaches. I will be there. We may have our boxing coach there, one of our jujitsu instructors there yeah, we're going to have a bunch of people there. This way, the women can come in and they can work with, you know, other women.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah, I'll definitely put that in the description of this episode. Um, for sure, uh, to help you guys out, yeah, I would love to see that. For sure, that sounds like an amazing, amazing opportunity for them. Um, definitely, everyone. Go and check that out at upgraded industries. Uh, one thing I want to talk about too as well, and this is this is going to be uh, this is going to be a fun conversation about this, but, um and I hate talking about this guy, guy but Jake Paul just announced that he is fighting Julio Cesar Chavez Jr in June in California as someone in an MMA training space. What do you think about Jake Paul's boxing abilities and just him as a fighter?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, first off, I'm not a fan him as a fighter. Well, you know, first off, um, I'm not a fan. But, with that being said, I think what he did was smart. The way he created the buzz around it was very smart. Also, very smart to go against people who couldn't box to start.
Speaker 2:Um, I think jake himself is a high level amateur boxer. I think he's got good amateur boxing um. Um, I don't think he's at that level where he can compete with the real pros in his weight class. He's got power. You know, he looks like he does hit pretty hard. He throws his weight around he, but he throws a lot of looping stuff. Um, if you go and just watch any of his fights, it's usually kind of big haymaker style punches. Yeah, um, you know, I think I I honestly think if he was an amateur fighter, he'd be a decent you know, high level amateur. You know he'd have a good amount of wins, couple losses.
Speaker 2:Uh, I think he's actually a fairly decently trained boxer. Um, he actually started at a place called hooligans in Elyria, um, which I went there to, kind of you know, I was between gyms and I just needed a place to train and, uh, they had a picture of him up, cause he had started boxing when he was younger. I don't know if he stopped, continued, whatever the case is, um, but yeah, I, I think it's a smart, he's smart, he's a smart dude. He's made, made money by kind of being a jackass. You're being a loud mouth, you're creating buzz, I get it. I hope that's not his real personality, I hope that's just stage personality.
Speaker 2:But yeah, as far as his actual athletic ability, the dude's athletic, I think he does hit really hard, but he loops a lot of his shots. I think he does hit really hard, but he's just, he loops a lot of his shots. I think his boxing has come a long way since, if you go and watch his first fight against whoever he fought speed, I don't, I don't know some YouTube guy but I think his ability itself has come a long way and I think you know he's at that point where you know he has to start fighting legitimate boxers to prove himself. Um, yeah, the dude himself is boxing is, though, I think it's decent, I think it's decent yeah, I've watched a couple of his fights.
Speaker 1:I watched the uh, the tyson fight, um, and everything. I think that was fixed. It's a fixed fight. You can see it in the early rounds when tyson wanted to throw a shot and he stopped himself. He had the clear opening, he had the clear shot for his left hook, his knockout punch, and he and he stopped himself yeah, there was a couple times you watch it.
Speaker 2:He does that. He throws, you see, a loop over and he just kind of pulls it right and the biting of the glove.
Speaker 1:I know he did that later on in his career, but a lot more in this fight. Not dudes in his 50s, I understand and like all right, jack, you're, you're in your 20s and you're fighting 50 year olds, um, my it for me to consider him a legit boxer and I know, like you said, if he came up through the amateur ranks like most people and like everyone, um, I'd have a little bit more respect for him as a, uh, as a boxer. But he's not fighting any real boxers, right? He? He was boxing youtube stars, celebrities, mma, guys that were grapplers, um, and then then tyson, you know, it's just like okay, chavez, I, I'm interested to see that fight uh well I think he'll do well.
Speaker 2:I, I am interested in their contracts. Um, I don't know, because I I really do think that tyson threw that fight. I'm really surprised he would. But just just watching that fight drives me nuts, because you see the overhand right coming. He just pulled it a couple times. He stops himself where big shots definitely could have landed and you know, if you watch young Tyson, he's thrown that with reckless abandon. But as far as the Chavez fight, I mean, jake will probably do all right, he'll do like he did against Fury, he'll do okay. But you know, as the rounds progress, chavez is going to start to take over and he's really going to. Just, you know, he'll dominate in the, you know, second third, I don't know how many rounds it's going to go, if it's a 10 round, whatever it is. But yeah, I think a lot more people would have respect for Jake Paul if he did do the amateur ranks, though if he did like golden gloves and you know right Came up the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, yeah, you were a YouTuber that wanted to get back into boxing because you started as as a kid and you know it's fine. You want to get back into it, do it the right way. Yeah, speaker 3, that's my whole hang up with them. Um, as somebody who, you know, loves combat sports, you know I've watched Garbrandt and he came from, uh, near my hometown. You know, coming up through through the ranks and becoming a champion. You know people like that, I like watching that. Um, blake Perry bought out of Cleveland, um, follow him, had him, I've had him on the show. Um, um, oh, my God, taser, and I can't think of his wrong turn taser, and I can't think of his wrong turn Taser, I can't think of his first name, I don't know why. Why do you got a Cleveland MMA guy getting his pro starts fighting on UFC fight pass a lot now, you know. You know I like seeing that progress and doing it the right way. I mean those guys a lot more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, are you familiar with alonzo turner?
Speaker 1:the name. I haven't seen any of his fights okay, so lonzo is he's.
Speaker 2:He came up through the amateur ranks, local guy. He cross trains with us a lot. Um, yeah, I mean the dude, his nickname is, uh, relentless alonzo, uh, relentless turner he's. I think he's seven and one, is a pro now and I mean he's pretty much dominated every fight he's had and I'm pretty sure one loss was a three-round decision loss. But the dude is strong, he's fast, good striking, good wrestling. Yeah, I mean, if you get a chance, man lonzo, go watch some of his fights. Super tough fighter him and tony went. I've seen them go in the gym together and him and tony would go back and forth and lonzo most of the time would kind of edge him out. Um, you know, when it came to like striking, then tony would edge him out a little on the wrestling and they go back and forth.
Speaker 2:It was always fun to watch so another really good local pro who came up from the area, worked his way up through the amateurs, got titles and then went on to be a really good pro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, see, and I love that. Yeah, I'm definitely going to have to check out some of his fights. For sure, I always root for the local guys. You got to almost Well, Billy. We are running down here near the end of the episode here, but I do want to get this last segment in, and it's everybody's favorite segment here, and it is the fast 55. It is five random questions from the wonderful manager of the podcast, johnny fitty falcone. Uh, they have nothing to do, basically, with what we've been talking about for the last half hour. Um, they're kind of rapid fire, but you can elaborate if you need to.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll do my best.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's a fun way we like to end the episode and it gets everyone to taste into the mind of Johnny 50 Falcone. But if you're ready, we'll go. We'll get started. Let's get it All right. Question number one what's the worst day to do laundry? Monday, monday, yeah, start the week. Yeah, can't be doing that. Question number two which is the least intimidating nickname, being called Fluffy or the Quiet One?
Speaker 2:Fluffy Quiet ones are scary. I'll go.
Speaker 1:Fluffy, quiet ones for sure. Question number three If you could. If you could have either a million dollars I'm a little fluffy, quiet ones for sure. Question number three If you could have either a million dollars, but no longer speak for the rest of your life, or $20 million but you have to be alone for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:Which would you pick? That sounds terrible. Either way, I'm going to go with the million and not speak, because I can still text. I can still text, right.
Speaker 1:He doesn't elaborate on that.
Speaker 2:I guess I'm a mute and I'll take my million dollars and just text everybody.
Speaker 1:That's not a bad option. Question number four One word to describe George Clooney is sexy. Can't argue with that one silver fox himself. He's a good looking fella. Good for him, absolutely. Last question here is the YMCA or the electric slide a better wedding dance song?
Speaker 1:oh um I'm gonna go electric slide, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I have to go with that one just for that. But that was the fast 55. Um, I think he took it easy on you a little bit, but that I think he did. That wasn't too bad. A lot of his questions and he asked me these on you a little bit, but that wasn't too bad. A lot of his questions and he asked me these on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:I've known Johnny since college and he comes up with the most random questions possible and it's just how his mind works. It's just like what he thinks about all day in his free time and like a couple of them are like okay, it's you a bear, conor McGregor, and you're locked in a racquetball court and you have a stick of dynamite and boxing glove. Who comes out alive? Like that's kind of like some of the things that he comes up with, like it's okay. So we figured it was a fun way to end the episode for everybody here. But, billy, I do give everybody this opportunity at the end of every episode. If there's anything you want to get out there for your gym, any fights you got for your fighters that you're training coming up, anything like that, or even if it's just a good message. I'm going to give you about a minute and the floor is yours, alright?
Speaker 2:thanks, man. Upgraded Industries is where we're out of. Anyone can come up and train. We have classes jujitsu, wrestling, boxing, muay thai six days a week. Um, you know, we always have a lot of good amateur fighters coming in and training with us. We always have amateurs fighting. Uh, chris the great draggy is going to be fighting for a title here soon. Another title here soon. Ron Cuban Ristal crisis will be fighting for a title soon as well. Got a couple up and young and up and coming guys Logan Morales, a really good young boxer who hasn't had the opportunity to fight yet. We're still looking for a fight.
Speaker 2:So, junior division if you, you know any local promoters want to hit us up for that, that'd be great. Otherwise, promoters want to hit us up for that, that'd be great. Um, otherwise, man, we're here to train. Uh, upgrade industries. We, we pretty much got everything. Um, really would love to see more and more people come and train with us. Uh, even if it's just cross training with us. It's a really good gym, great facility, great people, um, you know, and uh, you just get everybody out here training with us. Help us, help you. I think as a community, if we come together and train together, we're going to be able to kind of take over the sport. I really do like a lot of good MMA fighters out of the Cleveland area and I'd like to do the whole Cleveland against the world thing. So if we pull together, train together, I really think you'll see a lot more Cleveland natives in the UFC. High-level kickboxing like one championship, even bare-knuckle boxing man A lot of good talent around the area. I'd love to train with those guys.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Everybody. Go and check them out. I follow them on Instagram. I've had a lot of their fighters from upgraded industries on the show. Sounds like and looks like a phenomenal gym. Definitely go and check them out. They have a lot of great fighters there and a great coach here that we have on the show here. But that is going to do it for this week's episode of the Ride Home Rants podcast. I want to thank my guest, billy Friedson, for joining the show. A lot of fun to get to talk combat sports. I always love talking to fighters and everything like that on the show. A lot of fun to get to talk combat sports. I always love talking to fighters and everything like that on the show. Really great to have you on. Thank you, everybody. Go check out Upgraded Industries there in Cleveland, ohio. But, as always, if you enjoyed the show, be a friend, tell a friend. If you didn't tell them anyways, they might like it just because you didn't. That's going to do it for me and I will see y'.
