In a recent interview Nashville MMA Fighter Dedrick Sanders answered questions about his life, training and approaches to fighting. Below are some highlights from his interview. At the bottom will be a link to the full interview.
"...I was born in Chattanooga, but I moved up to Nashville when I was like 10 or 12. I have Been here ever since, so I enjoy the city. I always liked MMA. I started off seeing some of those prop fights. I thought that was the craziest thing happening. I told myself I wanted to do that. So, lo and behold, 40 years later, I'm here.
When asked about some of his favorite fighters back in the day Dedrick responded with, "Back in the day, you know, all the pride guys, man. Fedor, Rampage Jackson, you know, and then some UFC too. I like watching Nate Diaz, just to name a couple, not too specific. Nate Diaz, Ricardo Lamas, all those guys. Some of the best out there."
Taking his first fight in Alaska of all places Dedrick talks about his path to staring at the pro level. "Once I finished my first fight, my first pro fight, I was like, OK, I can do this...They don't have an athletic state commission in Alaska. That's where I first had my fight. And yeah, so I was training with some pro fighters. The guy named Nick Aaron Webb, he was a pro fighter. He was good. He was on Ultimate Fighter. And Shane Carwin, Roy Nelson. And I figured if I can hang with him, I can hang with anybody. I was like, I can do that. So, it gave me the confidence to just go out there and just, you know, just show what I can do."
Dedrick's fighting style is unique in that he forces his opponents to allow him to counter attack. "My fighting style, I guess, pressure to counter. You know, I pressure not like to counter punch. And I'm just going to be all over the place. I'm going to take it to the ground, to the feet. I'm going to keep it standing or take it to the ground.
Just all around fighter. My strengths, it's my left hand and people tell me I'm strong. I don't believe it."
And this weekend he will be fighting Luis Pena. here are some of Dedricks thoughts on the upcoming fight. "Yeah, his fighting style, I mean, he's a pressure fighter. Does a lot of punches and kicks. Good knees up the middle. He's tall. UFC veteran. He's going to be a tough fight for sure.
Dedrick has a good mental approach to pre fight media. Here he explains his method to avoid distraction. "So it's hard for me to see stuff. I'll see stuff, and I'll look at it real quick, but I won't think anything of it until maybe after the fight. That's the right way to look at it." He continues speaking about his training for a 5 round fight, "I may be overthinking it, because we go 25 minutes in the sparring and stuff, but it's a little different when you're in the cage. Yeah, something that I haven't experienced before.
So I guess it's kind of the unknown in a way."
Here Dedrick describes his experience training at Nashville MMA. "Yeah, Nashville MMA, man, it's been great to me.
The facility is nice, man. We've got everything you need as far as weights, striking, and grappling. It's just organized. I love the coaches. I love Tim, BT, and Coach Dustin, and then Ronnie as well. They're all good coaches.
They all have their way of thinking and their style, and I just take bits from all of them. Yeah, teammates. Teammates are good.
We've got some good guys there. Andrew, those are heavyweights though. Rashad, Patrick, Zach Hicks. They keep me working. That's good. That's all that you need to keep you working."
Before finishing Dedrick spoke on his future plans for fighting. "I just like to take it fight by fight. I don't look ahead too far, man. I just try to take it fight by fight, and it could be this one, it could be the next one, or it could even be the next one. If I start thinking about that too much, I'm going to make my head hurt. So I just take it fight by fight, and just make sure the last performance is better than the last performance. So I want this one to be better than my last, and just keep going up and up and up in the process."
Come check out Dedrick Sanders this Friday April 6 in Chattanooga. Sanders vs. Pena. Best of luck to you Dedrick!!!
Here is a link to this weekends fights
