Jamie "The Worm" Varner stepped into the WEC cage on February 13th a decided underdog in his fight with WEC Lightweight Champion "Razor" Rob McCullough. Entering the bout, the 23 yr old Varner was mostly known as a strong wrestler with a great ground game. Against the WEC champion Razor Rob, a fighter known for having strong hands and a powerful standup game, most predicted that Jamie had little chance to compete with Razor Rob on the feet. So of course, Jamie not only kept it standing up, he dominated by punishing Razor Rob throughout the first two rounds on the feet. In the 3rd, Razor Rob caught Jamie square on the chin, knocking out his mouthpiece in the process.  Jamie went into defensive mode, shot for the takedown, and did well in nullifying Razor Rob's attempt to finish him on the ground until the fight went back to the feet. As the fighters separated, Jamie signaled timeout and pointed to his mouthpiece and referee Steve Mazagatti called timeout. Much was made of this in the internet forums, with many feeling the timeout gave Jamie the chance to catch his breath and gather his senses. But there can be no denying however that Jamie came back out and continued what he had done in the first 2 rounds by punishing Razor Rob and finally dropping him and finishing with a flurry of bombs, giving him the WEC Lightweight Championship. The fact that Jamie had decided to stand and bang is not a surprise considering Jamie regularly trains with world-class boxers and kickboxers at Arizona Combat Sports, and in 2006 Jamie won the National Collegiate Boxing Championship at 165lbs. On April 5th, Jamie ventured up to the Pacific Northwest as the coach of a tough squad of 4 amateur fighters representing Arizona Combat Sports. (Carnage at the Creek 2 pics/review HERE).

NW Fightscene had a chance to speak with Jamie after the fights...

NW Fightscene: We are here with Jamie Varner. How's it going?
Jamie Varner: Its going wonderful man. I had 4 of my fighters fight and we went 3 and 1 tonight. 3 TKOs, so I'd say it went pretty well.

NWFS: Representing Arizona Combat Sports...
Jamie Varner: Yeah, in Tempe, Arizona...

NWFS: [Arizona Combat Sports owner] Trevor Lally is originally from this area...
JV: Yeah, he's actually a Seattle boy, him and his twin brother Todd. They were both trained at AMC with Maurice Smith and Matt Hume, and one of them moved to Las Vegas to train at J-SECT with John Lewis and Skipper Kelp. And then Trevor Lally came down to Arizona and opened up his own gym: Arizona Combat Sports.

NWFS: How long have you been fighting with Trevor and AZ Combat Sports.
JV: I've been with them since 2004.

NWFS: You are now the WEC Lightweight Champion of the world.

Anything lined up next?
JV: There's been some talk of possibly me fighting in August against the number one contender who's Marcus Hicks at this time. Its either him or a rematch with Razor Rob [McCullough] or even Richard Crunkilton. So, nothings set in stone yet but there is definitely talk of August and a fight.

NWFS: Who would you prefer to go against?
JV: Any of them man. I'll knock all of them out.

NWFS: That was an impressive fight with Razor Rob. I thought you dominated pretty much the whole time. Now the mouthpiece... it looked to me that you were fine. 
JV: Yeah, he caught me right on the mouth. I took his best shot and it knocked my mouthpiece out but it didn't stun me and didn't daze me, and I was able to keep fighting. It was the ref's job to stop the fight, call time out and give me my mouthpiece back since there was a break in action... So I wasn't really worried about Rob and to fight him again would be an honor.

NWFS: What do you think about coming up here to the Northwest?
JV: Its my second time up here and I love it. The fans are awesome, the show was great. This is a great platform for my amateurs, for the amateurs to go to the next level, to see what its like under the lights and this is a great venue. This is an awesome opportunity. I didn't have this kind of opportunity when I was coming up in the sport five years ago. So I really like it man. This is awesome.

NWFS: You still got Rage in the Cage down there in Arizona, in Phoenix...
JV: Yeah, they still got Rage in the Cage but the rules... We're working on the rules getting changed to New Jersey rules. We are trying to get them to adopt those, but right now its all slap fighting and that's not real fighting.

NWFS: Are you back training everyday now?
JV: Yeah, back in the gym. I have about a 4 month training camp ahead of me. I'm going to take this whole month of April to kind of build up and get ready and then the next three months are going to be rough.

NWFS: Who are you training with?
JV: I've got Gustavo Dantas as my jiu-jitsu instructor. Two time Brazilian Jiu-jitsu world champion from Rio. I've got Steve Rosenberg who was a Pan-Am Champion and also he's a Brown Belt. Jacob McClintock who is also like a 2 or 3 time Pan-Am Champion and a Brown Belt in Jiu-jitsu. So I got a lot of really great Jiu-jitsu guys. There's too many to tell. Ray Steinbeiss, Steve Steinbeiss... Ray is mostly my MMA training partner, Steve for kickboxing. I have the Lally brothers who really help me out a lot. I mean my gym is really deep, we have a lot of depth there.

NWFS would like to thank Jamie for taking the time to speak with us.

Fans can visit Jamie online at JamieVarner.com and myspace.com/fightkidd.

Check out the Arizona Combat Sports website at www.azcombatsports.com.