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Interview with Cody McKenzie - December 22nd, 2009

Interview and photos by Mike Renouard


 

Spokane based MMA figher, Cody McKenzie, enters 2010 with an unblemished professional record and will be putting that on the line against Len "The Liger" Bentley Saturday, Jan 9th at Rumble On The Ridge VII inside the Snoqualmie Casino just East of Seattle. McKenzie ended the 2009 year on a high note with a first round submission victory over tough Ryan Farhat at RAW POWER, the Middle East's first ever MMA event that took place in Bahrain Dec 10th. McKenzie grew up in a small town in Alaska and moved to an equally small Metaline Falls, some 100 miles North of Spokane when he was in High School. It was his senior year, he began training MMA and some 4 plus years later, he now trains with the undefeated Lyle "Fancy Pants" Beerbohm and is part of the Fancy Pants fight team. NW Fightscene recently spoke with this up and coming fighter about his career and more...


NW Fightscene: You're coming off a win in Bahrain. What's your pro record now?
Cody McKenzie: I'm 9 and 0 pro with all first round finishes except for one 2nd round finish. And mostly guillotines.

 

NWFS: In your last fight, the paper in Bahrain reported a finish by McKenzietine...
McKenzie: Yeah, that's my signature move. It's like a guillotine but its a modified guillotine. Its what I finish my opponents with, most of them. I think 7 out of the 9, I finished with Mckenzietine. Its just my own move. Its not a guillotine. People think it is and it looks like it because its a head lock choke but its different.

 


NWFS: Are you looking to go out there to finish with that move or is that just something that presents itself?
McKenzie: I'm looking to finish anyway I can finish. How I look at MMA when I get into that cage is my job is to get in there and get out of there as fast as possible. I mean I'm still patient. I understand that I cant just go rushing in but I do go in there with intentions to finish any possible way. If I could knee the guy in the face. If I could rear naked choke him. I don't even know how to do ankle locks but if I could ankle lock the guy I'll try one of those.

NWFS: Once these guys start seeing that you're finishing the same way almost every fight they're going to start looking for it...
McKenzie: Yeah. This last opponent, he knew about my guillotine. His coach was yelling it from the corner the whole time, "He's going for his guillotine, he's going for his guillotine."  His team knew what it was about. He was a Miletich fighter and he's had 53 fights and never been stopped and fought people like Mark Miller from the WEC and he's fought a lot of tough pros so he's a good fighter. He did his homework on me and knew that I was a guillotine guy but that doesn't bother me.

NWFS: How old are you now?
McKenzie: I just turned 22.


NWFS: How'd you get into the sport?
McKenzie: I was a senior in high school and I saw it on TV, and right when I saw it 

I knew that's what I wanted to do... That's what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. That's a lot better job than I could ever imagine having. I've never worked a regular job. I've only commercial fished up in Alaska and fought.

NWFS: When you were in high school did you have any athletic background?
McKenzie: I grew up in Alaska. Did a little judo there. And my senior year, once I found out about MMA, we didn't have a wrestling program at my school and I started one. But for the first two years it was just on a trial basis. It was non league. And now its a league wrestling program. They just kept it going. I go back up and try to help coach when I can.

NWFS: Tell us about your family background.
McKenzie: My family is amazing. My mom, she cuts hair. She's been a hair stylist for many years, also has owned her own business. And my dad commercial fished and that's what we did in Alaska. But my dad lost his boat when I was a freshman in high school. That's when we moved to Metaline Falls. And I also have one brother and he still works in Alaska and commercial fishes. They all love what I'm doing. They support me 100 percent. I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing without my family for sure.

NWFS: I saw that the Pride Gym up in Trail, BC has you down as one of their fighters, and I know you've been training at Sikjitsu in Spokane for a while. Tell us about your path in MMA training from when you started up to the present. 
McKenzie: I started out in Canada. I lived in Metaline Falls and the Pride Gym was like an hour and fifteen minutes from my house. So I'd go to high school and then go to wrestling practice and then head up to Canada and go train there all night and come home and I did that about five, six times a week. As often as I could get up there. I didn't have much of a social life except for guys in my gym. And then right out of high school, once I graduated I made a bunch of money in Alaska and that's how I live. I go up and commercial fish in Alaska. Then I moved right down to Team Quest and I trained with Team Quest for six months. I was supposed to train with them for a year but that didn't work out so I moved back to Spokane. And in Spokane I started training with Bart Smith at first for a little while until I found my team and my team is Mike Hanks, Lyle Beerbohm and a bunch of other tough guys. Those are my two main training partners [Hanks and Beerbohm]. And we train at Sikjitsu and a few other gyms in Spokane.

 

Lyle Beerbohm with Cody


NWFS: Who are your coaches?
McKenzie: Truthfully, we all just kind of work together. We're all training partners. If there were to be a coach it would be Lyle "Fancy Pants" Beerbohm and the Fancy Pants Fight Team is what we like to call it. Lyle because he is the best pro, the best record so he's the main guy. But when it comes down right to it we all have our own individual talents you know. We all learn things off the internet and wherever. Spokane doesn't really have a main coach that sits there and is yelling at us to do this and this. Lyle is the definitely the head coach when it comes to it.

NWFS: Do you have a manager, or are you booking your own fights? 
McKenzie: I get myself fights and Lyle helps me get me fights. I have no manager and will take any fights from anyone who will give them to me. I'm always in the market to fight for any promoter against anyone, preferably anyone good.

NWFS: Lyle has the nickname "Fancy Pants". How about you?
McKenzie: They call me Kitty Hawk, I don't always go by it.


NWFS: Kitty Hawk huh? 
McKenzie: It kind of means getting girls in a way like a hawk swooping down on a kitty.


NWFS: That says something about you then.
McKenzie: Its rhetorical. I forgot to mention that. They call me that because its a joke. Because I don't. I didn't want to sound like a cool guy or anything there. (laughs)

NWFS: You've fought at 155 and 145. Do you have a preference?
McKenzie: I can make 145 no problem. I walk around at 150. But I don't think that fighting is just about weight as much as a lot of people throw it in there as. I'll fight at any weight. All my training partners all walk around from like 190 down to like 170. None of them really walk around at my weight. All of them are a lot bigger. Travis Bush, he's another guy. Dave Courchaine. They're both real big right now, like 180 to 190. Big macho guys. And then Hanks and Lyle, they both walk around at 170 usually. All my training partners are bigger so I don't mind fighting at 55 one bit.

 


NWFS: Tell us about the Bahrain experience. How'd that go?
McKenzie: It was amazing. They treated us so well. They flew me and my brother over because my training partners couldn't go. So I took my brother who really doesn't know anything about MMA. (laughs) We went over there and had a great time. Jeremy Horn was over there, Gideon Ray, Shonie Carter, Maurice Smith, all these veterans. I really had a good time sitting down and talking with them and learning the sport better and learning the game. Just asking them for any advice they could give me so that I could further my career. They were more than happy to help me out. The fight went well. They paid me really well. They paid me 2000 to fight and 2000 to win. That was my best pay day so far. Gave us food, drink, transportation. They really treated me like a show really should treat its fighters. Shows when I was coming up always made me drive, pay for gas, pay for my own food and I've never felt that that was right. Especially when I was an amateur and fighting for free.

NWFS: So what's coming up next for you.
McKenzie: I'll be fighting at Snoqualmie Casino. Rumble on the Ridge.

Fighting Len Bentley, 8-3 professional I believe out of Dennis Hallman's camp.


NWFS: Are you training full-time?
McKenzie: Yeah, I've been training full time since I've gotten into the sport. The only time I've ever taken off from MMA is to go commercial fishing in Alaska 3 months out of the year. So I've always been a full-time fighter. Right from when I first watched the sport I knew that you had to dedicate yourself 100 percent to the sport otherwise you couldn't make it. I see a lot of guys trying to hold jobs and trying to be part-time fighters and wanting to do this while they're still fighting but its not like that. If you're a fighter, you're a fighter. You have to dedicate yourself 100 percent to the sport and love the sport... You cant fight half-assed and expect to become the world champion.

NWFS: What about sponsors?
McKenzie: I've been talking to this company named Full Armor. They're amazing. They've been treating me really well. Hoping to do business with them. They've been writing me good things and I'm hoping to tie it up really soon.


NWFS: Good luck there. Anyone else?
McKenzie: Fight University has given me like 50 dollars a fight. A little bit of free clothes. And then Hood Revenue has given me a pair of shorts and a shirt here and there.

NWFS: How about an online presence for you?
McKenzie: I did just get my myspace up and running again, I had one a while ago and I just deleted it. No one would even talk to me on there. I just got it up and running again. I've been hitting up sponsors again and that's how I'm talking to Full Armor. So I'm glad I did it. I've been told to get a Facebook and a Twitter but Twitter kind of sounds kind of girly to me but I'll give it a try I guess.

NWFS: Anything else you want to add?
McKenzie: I just want to thank all my training partners, my family, and all my friends who have supported me.


NW Fightscene thanks Cody for his time in granting us this interview. Watch him fight in the Co-main Event against Len Bentley Sat, Jan 9th at Rumble on the Ridge VII at the Snoqualmie Casino in Snoqualmie, Washington. More info visit, snocasino.com.

Check out Cody online at this myspace page HERE.

 


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