MMA Plus caught up with Cage Warriors bantamweight Aaron “Smackwell” Blackwell as he prepares to face Kris Edwards at CWFC 60 this weekend. With a standout apprenticeship in UKMMA, Aaron talks of how past experiences have served him well, and that refocusing his no nonsense attitude was key to making the right career choices thus bringing him to a current 3-fight win streak.
What are your thoughts on how the bantamweight tournament played out?
It was interesting to watch the guys and talent they had fighting for the title. I didn’t necessarily think they were the best fighters in the world to fight for a world title.
I thought they were the best guys in Britain possibly, but I didn’t think they were world class as the title suggests. But in saying that I feel that each of the guys who fought in the tournament are all talented individuals and deserved their place in the tournament for sure.
How hopeful we’re you as a reserve competitor?
I was ready for anything to be honest. When the pull out was announced of course I knew there was a possibility that I would be entered into the tournament but then they chose Edwards and I was left without an opponent, but I was aware that could happen, I just didn’t think it would happen so close to the show.
How happy were you to still be facing Kris Edwards, having been scheduled to face him originally?
It’s great for me as I was preparing for him anyway. In my eye I feel that Kris is at a disadvantage going into our fight, as he had to cope with preparing for me, then he’s had to prepare to face Pennington and then go back to preparing to face me.
He has had to do all this in a short space of time, which put Kris under a lot of pressure where as all I’ve had to do is forget about him for a few weeks and then continue my preparation for the fight as soon as the fight was announced. I’ve not had to change my preparation and I’ve benefitted from having even more footage of Kris to watch, so all in all I’m quite happy how things have worked out if I’m honest.
What do you believe Kris’s strengths are?
Well Kris is good on the ground and is good off of his back. He has also shown us that he has decent hands and is about to throw some good strikes, which he uses to set up takedowns so I think he’s pretty well rounded.
Before getting onto your current win streak, you ended a two loss run with a tie, how frustrating is a result like that?
The losing streak was frustrating as I was losing to top guys, but not fighting out of my weight class a lot of time, which often happened to fighters 5 years or more ago as it was harder to be matched with fighters in your own weight class back then.
So when I got the opportunity to fight in my weight class, to get a draw after back to back losses was frustrating but these things happen. Upon reflection I was fighting in the guy’s hometown and when you leave a fight in the hands of the judges anything can happen. That result helped me to change my mindset so I wouldn’t leave it in the hands of the judges in future, to always fight for the finish.
Can you give us some insight into what changes you have made to allow you to go on a 3 fight win streak?
To be honest the main change I made was to be more cut throat as a fighter and I made the decision not to take anymore fight’s outside of my weight class.
I also made the decision to make my training environment more stable. I was training at quite a few places that had some good fighters, but they weren’t very stable environments.
I need to have a base as at some of the places I was training at some of the people didn’t really care about me and had know real interest of helping me evolve as a fighter. Once I made the decision on where I was going to base myself I was able to focus more on being a fighter, which in turn helped me to focus more on getting the win.
Is there a little less pressure now that you have momentum back?
The pressure is always the same. I think a lot of people look at my past, they realize they haven’t had the apprenticeship that I had and they haven’t fought the level of opponent I’ve faced, when people look back on what I’ve achieved and who I’ve fought, it keeps the pressure on me as every fight is as important as the next one.
You’ve fought and lost to likes of Terry Etim, brad Pickett and fellow CWFC fighter Ronnie Mann. Despite the losses what positives if any can you take from those defeats?
Every defeat brings a massive learning experience with it. Obviously the goal is not to lose, but if you’re going to lose you should learn from it. As I’ve said before I don’t think anyone has an apprenticeship like me and losing to those guys diffidently helped with that apprenticeship.
You took a 2 year break from fighting before returning this past May when you defeated Mike Cutting, what prompted you to make you return to fighting?
The funny thing is that period of inactivity wasn’t a conscious decision to stop fighting as I was on a bit of a role at the time. Because I had made the decision to only fight in my weight class I found it very hard to get match-ups especially after my two previous performances resulted in me knocking out my opponent in the 3rd round and me breaking an opponents arm with a head kick. I think that put a lot of fear in a lot of coaches matching me up with their fighters.
Also, for a long time I would get matched on shows like Fusion and organization’s up and down the country but a lot of time the fights would fall through as the coaches would pull their fighters saying “we don’t want our guy fighting Aaron” and the promoters couldn’t find a replacement for me.
So it was more circumstantial than choice, but it allowed me to train more and become a more complete mixed martial artist.
Can you give some insight into the influence your coach Rocci Williams has had on your career?
My coach Rocci Williams has had a massive influence on my career. Like me, the guy is cut from a different cloth, we understand each other and like me he has the “we would fight anybody” attitude. But what Rocci has helped me do is refocus that attitude from I would fight literally anybody to fighting anyone in my weight class. He has given me a mental edge over my opposition as well as key guidance over the years he is like a father figure to me.
Anyone you would like to thank?
A dedicated thank you to Rocci Williams, Matt Walton for all his help with my preparation, my team mates at Nova Forca and coach Ricardo Da-Silva, thank you to my sponsors Forca Luta and my friends, family and anyone I’ve forgotten for all their continued support.
