UFC's Mackens Semerzier Talks PEDs, Family and Cherry Coke in Exclusive

This interview was originally posted at Sprawl N Brawl MMA, and done prior to Mackens Semerzier vs. Alex Caceres at UFN 24 being officially announced by the UFC.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (January 7, 2011): Someone who can be described as both reserved and outspoken, Mackens Semerzier (5-3 MMA, 1-3 WEC, 0-0 UFC) is a man who has been both a fighter in the military and the cage, yet it is his passive demeanor and intellectual approach to conversation which sends the biggest message.

Depending on the situation, the message he sends could be one of welcome friendship, or by contrast it could very easily be one of utter destruction.

The better question is, what message is he sending to you? The answer all depends on what side of the cage you are on.

It has been reported Mackens will be fighting Alex Caceres at Ultimate Fight Night 24, scheduled to take place in Seattle, Wa. in March, but to him, “it’s a rumor.” Neither him, nor his management has seen any contracts or paperwork on the matter. Apparently, he’s “just one of the people that was brought up in a conversation” of him fighting, and “there’s been no confirmation to it.”

Even though “as of right now it’s not happening,” the good part is we will definitely be seeing Mr. Semerzier make a UFC debut. As one of the featherweights brought over by work of the final WEC-UFC merger, he’s been given one more chance at success, despite currently being on a three-fight winning streak.

Regardless of if this fight happens, Mackens is focusing on a “late March, or early April (fight). Somewhere around there.”

In preparation for his next bout, Mackens has made some changes to his training camp, which includes the addition of a new strength and conditioning coach, Jeremy Lavin, and a new wrestling coach, Josh Feldman. The way he sees it is, “those are the two pieces I was missing, or I was kind of neglecting.”

Before now, he “just really didn’t see a need for it,” but now, “when you are fighting with guys that are excellent at all positions, you have to have all those positions covered to.”

Despite shortfalls in the past, Mackens remains dedicated to his training camp in Virginia Beach, Va. When the question about moving is raised, the thought crosses his mind, but the response is that he is “doing pretty good right here.”

“I’ve been a lot of places. I can’t say everywhere, but I’ve been (to) a lot of places to train, and there’s not much going on different than what we’re doing right here.”

His mind set is “during training camp you have to have guys that are equal to you, guys that are better than you to push you, and you have to have guys that are a little below you for you to work technique on. If you have everybody that’s better than you every day, then it’s going to start to affect your confidence. It’s going to start to affect your game, so you have to find a good mix of guys, and I think that I have that here.”

Although Mackens says he falls “right in the middle” of the pack, self-proclaiming that he is “not the best at everything,” his only goal is to just “try to mix it the best, weather the guy is bigger or smaller than me.”

Of course training camps are not the only motivating factors for a fighter to consider when choosing where to reside, and Mackens is no exception to the rule, because by his word, “my kids are here. They live in Hampton. I live in Chesapeake. My work is here,” and the thought of moving is not going to happen “anytime soon.”

But when it comes to bigger training partners, one person sticks out more than the rest. His name is Antwain Britt, the Strikeforce Light-Heavyweight and Heavyweight pro-boxer, who often times makes fun about throwing 145-pound Semerzier around.

When it comes to training with Antwain, Mackens simply asks, “Is that even fair? The Juggernaut fights at 205, I fight at 145. That’s crazy!”

But joking aside, Mackens always gets “good work from Antwain,” because “he’s a hard worker, always pushing the pace,” and he’s also “a guy I look up to. He does a lot of things outside of fighting. Different programs, different non-profit organizations he works with.”

Aside from fighting, Antwain Britt runs a military combatives company called A2 Training Systems, and has founded his own non-profit organization called Women’s Initiative for Strength and Empowerment, or WISE, which focuses on giving women confidence and the tools to defend themselves.

Mackens see this and realizes “that is something I aspire to be like in the future.” To him, “Antwain is a good guy, as well as all the other guys I work with.”

As Mackens prepares for his UFC debut some might think the new stage he’s expected to perform at would have him worried, but the reality is the only new thing he’s taking into consideration is the actual stage itself, which is the varying cage sizes.

By his word, he thinks ”the only difference you really have to worry about as a fighter is if you are fighting in the PPV cards or if you are fighting in the non-PPV cards,” because the non-PPV cards use a smaller cage.

Be it WEC, or UFC, the only other change Mackens is preparing for is “instead of (everything) saying WEC, everyone will be wearing UFC t-shirt,” but other than that “it’s the same people.”

At the end of the day, the “only thought is that I have to execute. I have to prepare myself properly, and execute on (fight) day.”

Not only does working under the UFC brand of MMA bring with it a different cage size, but as anyone know, it also brings with it Dana White. Although many might think a lot of fighters interact with the UFC President regularly, Mackens is quick to discount those thoughts and describe his relationship with the boss, because to him “it’s not really a relationship.”

Mackens tells a story of how he “sat next to him during dinner. During the symposium we had, actually in 2009, around November, and he was telling me some business stuff. But it wasn’t, I don’t think he was talking to me; just in general it was like a couple guys before the dinner started.

“It was like me, Urjiah Faber, (and) two or three other guys were sitting there and he was talking to us and he’s like, ‘yeah, you guys should do this. Man, this thing is going to blow-up, you guys watch. Watch, big things are going to come from this company.’ He probably was talking about the merger. I didn’t realize it then, but he was talking to us (about it).”

Other than that isolated incident, Mackens “doesn’t necessarily have a relationship” with Dana White. In his own word, “it’s like in the office, and you have a good position in the office, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be friends with the president of the Fortune 500 Company you work for.”

Happy to still be a part of the Zuffa, LLC family, there is no doubt in Semerzier’s mind the UFC is the best place to be for exposure and top competition, especially with a new presence on broadcast network television, like the recent airing of preliminary fights on Ion.

“The boss man, Mr. White, is very smart, very tactical on the way he does things. He doesn’t rush deals. Obviously because you can see, because we were going to do a TV deal years ago, but he didn’t do it because it wasn’t the right deal,” speaking in regard to how other promotions have made TV deals, but under less than ideal circumstances.

To him, the deals with Spike, Versus, and PPV speak for themselves, even if it’s not on NBC or CBS. “If you’re a part of the UFC, or you have the UFC brand, (then) people will follow the UFC and they don’t even know there are outside organizations besides the UFC. They think MMA is called UFC.”

That’s why Mackens is glad he has a home at the UFC, because to the mainstream fans, “they don’t say ‘that MMA stuff, they say, ‘that UFFC stuff.’ So when you attach yourself to the top brand name, everything is going to come to you with time.”

The thought of Strikeforce or Bellator competing with the UFC seems like a moot point to Mackens, regardless of their roster. “They have great fighters in Strikeforce, Bellator, and these different organizations (that) can be popularity wise be close to what the UFC guys do.”

Of course he’s not talking about “being popular with (hardcore) fans of the sport.” He’s talking about “being popular with everybody outside the sport. That’s what’s important.

It’s easy to be popular with the hardcore (fans), because the hardcore (fans) know everybody. They know people you’ve never even heard about. But it’s really hard to be popular with people that don’t really have an interest in the sport.”

Like it or not, what Mackens speak is truth, and to him the UFC is “like the Super Bowl.” Despite watching mainstream sports, he admits he, like most people, “don’t’ even watch football until its playoff time.” With so many teams, and games available in football, baseball, and basketball, it’s not until playoff time where he goes and says, “Alright, now let’s watch.”

Not to take anything away from the talent in rival organizations, but also like many people, Mackens “never sat down to watch an NBA D-League game,” or take time out of his busy day to watch “a UFL game now that they got that. I don’t even know what that is.”

He sits down to “watch the NFL, because the NFL is the premiere league.” So if the UFC is MMAs premier league, then “you might as well watch the best guys do it.”

Having been ranked as high as #18 in the last year on the USA Today/SB Nation Consensus Rankings, Mackens has now fallen completely off the list. But at only 30-years old, he’s got “years ahead” to work his way back up.

Like any sport, the fans want to see “the next invincible warrior,” like Anderson Silva, but even Mackens admits “Anderson is just one of those lucky, rarely see individuals. There (are) a lot of great fighters. Great fighters are everywhere, (but) for everything to come together on that certain day for you, multiple times, it takes a little bit of luck.”

Mackens even likens Anderson Silva to Michael Jordan, but not in the way you might think. “Michael Jordan isn’t the best basketball player in the world. There is somebody better; they just haven’t had the opportunity.” To him, there are guys who just haven’t “had it line up for them right.”

But when it comes to Mackens’ own ambitious, one word comes to mind, and it is “execute.” If he doesn’t execute, and “continue to execute on the day that I am supposed to execute,” then he hopes things will fall into place, and it “will work out fine.”

At the end of the day, “you don’t make any more money for being ranked.” Think of the paycheck Frank Mir gets compared to Fabricio Werdum. But you do get more “if you win the chip. You’re only the top dog if you beat the top do. So everything else doesn’t really matter” in the world of Mackens Semerzier.

But regardless of feelings, rankings and position matter, especially when you’re a fighter like Mackens who is coming off a three fight losing streak. So his strategy is to take his fights “one at a time,” much like his approach to life, “focus on what’s in front of me, and then bigger things come.”

As a veteran, Mackens definitely feels a little bit of disappointment he wasn’t offered a fight on theUFC Fight For The Troops 2 card. To him, fighting on those types of events, or patriotic holidays gives him “so much energy to fight,” that he wants to “fight on all the Fight For The Troops events.”

But the buck doesn’t stop there. Mackens would also like to fight on the Fourth of July, the Marine Corps Birthday, and Veterans Day, or as he puts it, “all of those.”

Unfortunately he didn’t even know until recently it was a Fight For The Troops card, because he wishes he ‘could have got there,” and might have been able to press his management to make it happen, had he known.

As a former Marine, if there’s one thing Mackens brings over to the fight business, it is “tenacity.” For him, “tenacity, and knowing that no one is going to give you an inch in a fight,” is what’s most important.

His “never give up, never back down” approach are what keeps him going in a fight, and few can dig deep to resources his background can provide.

“During my fights, I get hit hard enough that some guys would probably be like, ‘man I need to look for a different route,” but I blow right through it and take it, and another one, and keep coming forward,” says Mackens, in true Rocky Balboa fashion.

No stranger to the issues and controversy surrounding judges-decisions this last year, Mackens feels no ill will towards the judges. His approach is that “this is a sport and they say they say this is how you win, or these are the criteria for winning, you should be smart enough to say that I need to do this to win.”

With no one else to blame but yourself, Mackens also realizes that for some people it’s not just about winning, but how you win. He is fully aware “some guys fight to express themselves, and through expressing themselves they get victories.”

If winning isn’t enough, then he’s also aware “some guys fight to prove that their particular style is dominant, even though they are mixing all styles. A really good jiu-jitsu guy wants to prove that his jiu-jitsu is superior to everybody else’s and he’s just going to go for the submission.”

But if Mackens is fighting that jiu-jitsu ace, then he’s also aware if the guys “doesn’t get the submission, and he loses, then can’t turn around and say, ‘well it’s not fair, I tried so many times.’ Well that’s just how it goes. We have to be adults and we have to evolve with the sport.”

With MMA ever evolving, Mackens is aware “the sport is just getting better and (we) are going to figure out ways to win.” Unlike other top level competition, MMA is still exciting at elite level. In comparison to wrestling, Mackens says “if you watch top level wrestling, it’s not that exciting. The score is usually 1-0, with 0-0 over time.”

Likewise with boxing, Mackens says, “high level boxing is not that exciting because guys learn how to defend themselves. The better you get at defending yourself, the hard it is to finish guys, the harder it is to knock them out.”

Honor is something that comes to mind when a person pictures a Marine, and as a man of honor, Mackens sees the use of Performance Enhancement Drugs, or PEDs, as one of the most dishonorable things a fighter can do. Even though he’s competed at top-level MMA for half his career, Mackens has still “never encountered anybody that uses (PEDs).”

Even though fighters get busted, Mackens makes sure to surround himself with people who avoid PEDs, because to him, “that stuff is whack.”

With pro-MMA a form of prize fighting, it’s understandable to think a person might do whatever they can do win the prize, which in this case is money. But for Mackens, “guys cheating to win, or giving themselves an extra boost” brings nothing good.

And what does he say for the classic excuse of “I’m just using it to recover from an injury?” Simply put, Mackens says, “we all get injured, and everybody’s hurt. You’re not the only one hurting! It’s just not the way we do things.”

Mackens is not a man who wants that on his conscience, because as he puts it, even if you don’t get caught, “you have to sleep with that, you have to eat that every day. Every day that someone calls you champ, you know in the back of your mind you cheated to do it. Kids are looking up to you. You know you cheated to get there.”

So how does Mackens Semerzier get an edge the healthy, legal way? According to him, “do a lot of conditioning,” and while you’re at it, “press it.” It, of course, is the fight.

For him, “to take a man’s will, especially not just a normal guy that doesn’t know what you are going to do to him, but a guy that has time to prepare. You come in there, you both are at your best, you’re just that much more of a man than him to make him quit.” To Mackens Semerzier, that “is the best thing.” He would go on to say, “that’s how you really know you’ve beaten somebody. You make them mentally quit.”

As if fighting didn’t bring enough stress with it, having kids adds a whole other level of challenges. For Mackens fighting is an addiction, and he fully admits he has “had a lot of relationships ruined” because of it. But like any challenge in his life, the hope is that “even though it sucks right now, it’s going to hurt right now, in the end when it’s all said and done, it’ll put everybody in a better position, from fighting.”

Living alone, the highlight of Mackens week is when he gets to see his daughters, who are 7 and 9, age where “they’re fun to talk to, play games, and just hang out,” he says. But it’s still tough, because “they’re not there every day.”

Not one to let his life get completely consumed with fighting and family, Mackens does find time to experience and enjoy the simpler things in life. When presented with the choices of Wal-Mart or Target, his answer was “Wal-Mart,” without even the slightest hesitation.

He also chooses to sport an automatic transmission, and I dare anyone to try and call him less of a man because of it. But when it comes to choice of caffeine fix, such as Starbucks or Monster, Mackens chooses a different route, fitting to his character, and prefers Cherry Coke.

Also a fan of Vanilla Coke, he didn’t become aware that a Cherry-Vanilla Coke existed until this interview, or in his word, “I wish they made that. They do? You’ve started something man!”

So while he splits his days between training, drinking Cherry Coke (and soon Cherry-Vanilla Coke), and spending time with his kids, Mackens hopes in the next  five years he’ll “feel satisfied” and “can retire, and move on, and start doing different things.”

But until he’s satisfied, and until he’s peaked and had a chance at a title, Mackens says, “I don’t see myself retiring,” but his main concern “is the next opponent put in front me, who’s not going to be the champion, so I don’t have to worry about (the champ).”

If there is one message Mackens Semerzier wants to get across to everyone, it is to “be a role model to your kids. Don’t let other people be a role model to your kids. Even the best guys have their short comings. You’re the best example for your child, not someone else.

“We as a people, citizens of the world, we’re all one group of people, no matter what we look like, what language we speak, or what name we call god. Respect everybody.”

If there is one constant about the message Mackens Semerzier sends, it is that it is always clear. He does not misrepresent himself to the fans as a human being, nor does he offer a hand of friendship, only to take it away when things get rough.

But if you are on the wrong side of the cage from him, the message is even clearer: be ready to have your will taken away from you.

Mackens would like to give special thanks to his management team, Sucker Punch Entertainment, and specifically Brian Butler, his main man.

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