UFC Fighter and Portland, OR resident, Ed "Short Fuse" Herman, went to UFC 97  April 18th where he dominated David Loiseau in taking home an unanimous decision victory. NW Fightscene's  Steve "Spaniard" Valentine had a chance to speak with Ed on his return to Portland... 

NW Fightscene: How was your flight from Montreal?
Ed Herman: It was all right. I was a little hungover so it was a little rough.

NWFS: Did you party hard after the win?
No, not too hard. 

NWFS: Talk us through the fight a little bit. You went to a decision. You controlled pretty much the whole fight, kind of go through the fight a little bit...
I went in and followed my game plan. I was looking to take him down. I knew that I could kind of mentally break him, by keeping the pressure on him and grind him out on the ground. I didn't expect him to kind of stall so much on me as he did.

NWFS: Did that frustrate you?
No, not really because I kind of expected it. What he tries to do is bait them to put their legs in and go for the hooks. Then he does a real good job of rolling and escaping out of that. So he baits guys with that and he's gotten a lot of guys with this. I studied that and I wasn't going to fall for that so just stayed there and let my wrestling work... It didn't really frustrate me. I knew it was going to happen so I just kept working, staying busy and looking to break him down. I mounted him a few times and stuff, but he's a hard guy to finish. 

NWFS: Now a couple times, I'm not sure if it was the second round, he might have landed one or two shots that got you. Did you feel any of those punches?
I think it might of have been the third, he caught me with like a left hook and an elbow or something. I remember feeling a little flash but luckily I got a good chin and I was able to recover and keep coming forward. He definitely cracked me good but I'm tough, you know. 

NWFS: So what's next for you?
This week I'm relaxing. I'll get back in the gym next week and just wait to hear what happens. I'd like to get on that Portland show in August but I don't know, I've heard its full. 

NWFS: When you say relax what do you do for hobbies?
Hang out with my kids. There so young right now so I try to spend as much time with them as I can. I like to ride quads. I go rip it up in the dunes here next weekend. Just try to relax and spend time with my friends and family. 

NWFS: You say you're going to take a week off and then jump right back into training. Are you planning on trying to set a fight immediately?
I'd like to get a couple of months at least you know. Every two to three months is a good time for me. That's why that August show would work out so great, it'd be like 3 and half months. Give me a little time to kind of ease back into it. Be ready and then hit it hard in training camp again.

NWFS: Are you feeling pretty healthy, everything good after this last fight?
I do, I feel great which is awesome. Yeah, I feel good so I want to get back into the gym and stay in shape in case something does come up a little short notice so I'll be able to take it if I need to.

NWFS: What did you think about Nate Quarry's fight?
He looked great man. I was super impressed. I've been training with him for this fight, a couple times a week. Our schedules are kind of crazy so we don't get to work out together a lot but we try to do a couple of days a week at least. He's tough man. He surprised me in how fast he pounded MacDonald. That was awesome man. 

NWFS: Do you ever want to get a rematch with MacDonald?
I'd love a rematch with MacDonald but there's a lot of guys I'd like to fight now. Shit, I've lost to five six guys now which sucks to say, but I want rematches with all of them. I revenged one against [Joe] Doerksen. I want to fight [Kazuo] Misaki again. Every fight I lost I think I could have won. Nobody just kicked my ass. MacDonald caught me and beat me with a submission fast. I'm telling you it'd go just the opposite way if we fought again.

NWFS: Often fighters, when they get a loss, they go back to the drawing board and say I need to do this or do that. On a win like this where you were pretty dominant and had a great performance, what do you do when you go back to the gym?
Just go back and continue to work on the things that I need to. I did what I needed to do in that fight but I'd still like to improve on a lot of things so I can go in and finish guys like that. He was real fast so I had a little trouble on my feet with him with the timing. So I need to continue to work on my stand up, and my jiu-jitsu. I might try to get into a couple of jiu-jitsu tournaments this year. Start competing a little bit for fun.

NWFS: A couple of his shots it seemed you were able to duck pretty well. You were able to pick up on his timing well, did you work on that in training.. those spinning kicks and whatnot.
Yeah I was. Not a ton but a little bit. I was trying to pick up on that timing. He was still able to land a few strikes, but I guess if you don t get hit you're not in a fight right. He only hit me a couple of times. Yeah so I was happy that I was able to duck some of those and time some of those. 

NWFS: It was an exciting win and you did what you said you were going to do. Congratulations. Anything you'd like to say to your Northwest fans.
I just want to thank all the fans who back me up dude. All the people, all the writers, journalists who continue to support me and interview me. Hopefully they [the UFC] put me in Portland so you all can come and watch me in my hometown, its been a long long time. 

NFWS: That's UFC 102 in August? They're talking about Evan Dunham who just signed against Veach, and maybe Leben was rumored to be on there too...
Yeah, Leben and Chael are on that card, and I'm pretty sure Randy is too. 

NWFS: Yeah, that'd be awesome, hopefully they'll get you on there too. I think everyone would like to see you in some of those submission tournaments too.
Yeah, I'm going to start doing some Gi ones, a little different from the No-Gi ones. I'm going to go and try to do Worlds maybe, like the blue belt division. [Laughs] We'll see what happens. 

NWFS: Keep us posted on that.
All right bro.

NW Fightscene would like to thank Ed for taking the time to speak with us.

Check out his website at www.ed-herman.com