What a wonderful departure from my day job it was when I received a phone call at my office from Dan Magnie, President of ColoradoFightEvents.com, extending an invitation from Keith Schmelzer of Rocky Mountain Bad Boyz to interview Georges St. Pierre the at T’sKO Fight Club in Wheat Ridge.
WOW! Was it hard to concentrate for the rest of the day? Did I carefully choose what I was going to wear for the interview? Georges St. Pierre? What brought him to Denver? I couldn’t wait to find out!
After a call to ensure that local sports photographer Kathy Framarini was available, we agreed to meet at the gym at 10:30 AM on that Thursday. Trevor Wittman, the owner, head trainer, and striking coach at T’sKO had invited us for 11:00—but who could wait?
The day before, not only was Georges St. Pierre working out at T’sKO—but the ferocious Keith Jardine, Nate “The Great” Marquardt, Duane “Bang” Ludwig, Diego Sanchez, and Greg Jackson were also there.
For an MMA enthusiast, this was the Power Ball!
Upon our arrival at the club, Kathy, Dan, and I met with Keith Schmelzer, who introduced us to former IBF middleweight world champion Verno Phillips, who had just arrived at the gym to train for a Madison Square Garden match scheduled for February. Verno had been slated to fight middleweight world champion Cory Spinks this month, but for unknown reasons that matchup had recently been scrubbed. I was fortunate to get an interview with the soft-spoken Verno, who graciously answered my questions about his life and career.
Verno speaks with a gentle, lilting accent from his early years in Belize. He was brought to the United States with his family when he was ten years old, after already having had his first ring experience in Belize at the age of eight. His next fight came at age 14, and he has methodically built a sustained and successful career ever since.
Among his many accomplishments, Verno has been the recipient of over 1,000 trophies, including the IBF Light Middleweight Championship and the WBO Light Middleweight Championship. Verno’s parents are now deceased, but would be proud to see that their son is a successful, thoughtful, and strategic competitor who has a lovely wife (who is also his manager), a beautiful home in Parker, and a seven-year-old son who is being groomed by his parents to make his way into the professional world, rather than that of the ring.
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