Interview with Kolo Koka *KK about his upcoming fight against Michael Brightmon by Robert Fain - MMA Hawaii Reporter (Kauai)

MMA HAWAII; Where are you originally from?
KK; I'm originally from Tonga.

MMA HAWAII; Is fighting big in Tonga? Does MMA even exist there?
KK; No, not that I know of. I don't believe they fight over there, they probably read about it on the internet.

MMA HAWAII; How long have you lived in Hawaii?
KK; About 20 years

MMA HAWAII; How did you get into fighting?
KK; I was always a huge MMA fan, and I just fell in love with it. I used to go to watch the fights and I told myself; you know what, I can do this. I got in the ring and got my ass whooped. I was like, you know what I need to train for this, and I'll be back. So I got a little bit of training and I came back, got back into it and from there it just went off. I used to go watch Falaniko Vitale, Egan Inoue, all these fighters that I look up to. Those are the guys who put Hawaii on the map. I watched those guys and I admire what they did

MMA HAWAII; Tell me about your upcoming fight.
KK; I'm fighting Michael Brightmon [X-1 May 16]. This is a big fight for me, and I'm sure it's a big fight for him, too. He's tough. He beat two of my teammates; Casey Daniels and Anthony Torres. I'm not fighting him because he beat two of my teammates; I'm fighting him because he's the top dog up there. It seems like he's the guy to fight. He's never been tested. I will be his biggest and hardest fight he's ever been into. That's for sure.

MMA HAWAII; What do you know about your opponent?
KK; I think he's the State Wrestling Champ in California, and he has good wrestling. I'm going to try and stop his takedowns, whatever it will be. I don't hate the guy; the guy is a great fighter. Actually, he's a boring fighter to tell you the truth.

MMA HAWAII; What do you think you bring to the table that Michael doesn't?
KK; My conditioning definitely, and ring experience. He's never been knocked out before in a fight. I'm not gonna say I'm that I'm going to knock him out but if he's ever gonna get knocked out it's going to be from me. Like I said, he knocked out one of my teammates so I know that he's got heavy hands, too. But, anything can happen in a fight. Pretty much everyone can get knocked out in this sport, and I don't think he can knock me out. Like I said anything can happen, but I've been hit hard enough from a lot of people and that didn't faze me at all.

MMA HAWAII; You're one of the nicest guys I know, do you fight with anger or is it all business in the ring?
KK; My job is to hurt the guy as much as I can. When I fight, I have no anger towards my opponent, I'm passed that already. I am humble. Why am I going to act like somebody I'm not? There's no reason for that. Before I was a fricken punk, but now it's all business in the ring.

MMA HAWAII; Will the Kauai fans ever see you in the Cage here?
KK; Man, how many times have I tried to get on, we'll see. I know you have connections to that promotion, and maybe you can hook me up. I would definitely like to fight over there. You know that boy Shane Kahananui, that would be a good fight. I fight at different weight classes, 155 lbs-170 lbs. I feel really, really strong at 170lbs. I feel a lot stronger. And it's good to be back at 170lbs for this fight. But I'm still yet looking at 155lbs or 160lbs. If Kauai would give me a fight I will definitely come and fight on the next show. If Randy don't give me a fight, HFC will, and they're coming to Kauai. I don't know when, but we'll see.

MMA HAWAII; How hard is it for you to cut down to 155lbs?
KK; Very hard. And when I get down to 155 lbs, I'm very angry. When I'm down to 155, that night of the fight is business because I'm mad.

MMA HAWAII; What are your goals in MMA? You've accomplished a lot, would you like to continue competing or do you see yourself settling down a little and teaching?
KK; To tell you the truth, I'm not really a good teacher. For me, when I get in the ring, everything I learned pretty much goes out the door. I'm there just to fight. Let's go, let's do this. I don't like to teach because I'm still competing right now, but maybe later. I'm the first fighter out of our team, MMAD. I was the only fighter for a long time. And now we have a lot of young boys coming up. We have a lot of good teammates, we're real tight. We're like a family. I have a lot of fights left in me. The competition in Hawaii is so much better. I usually fight at 170lbs. I used to dominate at 170lbs. Until I started dropping weight to 165 and 160 then I started losing some of my fights.

MMA HAWAII; How is MMA different now from say, 10 years ago?
KK; If I was fighting 10 years ago, I would probably be a champion with the skills that I have now. It's a lot faster now days. Before you could pretty much know that Egan Inoue is going to dominate that guy or Brandon Wolfe is going to KO or tap out this guy. But now it's a fight, everybody has stepped up their game. So 10 years ago until now everyone knows how to fight, they know what's coming. If you give someone an arm before, they're not going to be looking for an arm bar, they'll probably give you the arm. But now days when somebody gives you an arm, you transfer into an arm bar. When somebody tries to grab my arm, hell no you aint getting my arm! That's how much the game has picked up. Everybody knows the game now days. You know what killed the Hawaii fighters was their conditioning. Hawaii fighters conditioning wasn't that good. And that's why the mainland fighters would come in and just dominate. But nowadays, like I said Hawaii boys are getting tough. They all stepped up their game. Everybody before was pretty much a 1-dimensional fighter; stand up only, or wrestling only.

MMA HAWAII; Do you feel like you're able to train enough while working full time?
KK; Well, I use all the time that I have free to train. I do have a full time job doing construction, but I would like to fight and train full time. But the money is not there. So I'm in it for the love of the sport. If I was fighting for the money, I wouldn't fight anymore because there's no money in it, but because I love the sport so much that's why I'm doing it. You know who has a chance at making money? My teammates, the young boys that are coming up. That's their future. They know they're going to have good money. The young boys coming up are gonna make some money.

MMA HAWAII; A few years ago I heard you were selected for The Ultimate Fighter show. Can you tell me more about this?
KK; I did go. I went along with my team mate Anthony Torres, and obviously he got picked. I got picked, too. But I got picked to leave. I was the first one that got picked to go home. I was too light when I got there. My weight was 160lbs. The weight class they were looking for was 170lbs, so Dana White was like, "hey, we can have you stay in the house but it's not going to be fair for all the thousands who applied for the show. It's not fair; we want to see the show more exciting." But like I said, Anthony got picked to stay, I got picked to leave.

MMA HAWAII; Is there anything else you'd like to say to the MMA fans in Hawaii?
KK; Yes. I would like to say thanks. Big mahalo to all the fans, to all the hardcore MMA fans here in Hawaii. They make the fights what it is today. Without them, there wouldn't be us, there wouldn't be the sport. We would probably be fighting on the streets