Medford OR based fighter Travis "The Nightmare" Cavalli, a veteran of the amateur fight circuit in Oregon & California, recently was chosen as 1 of 4 winners in BJ Penn's "So You Think You Can Fight?" contest. Cavalli recently spoke with NW Fightscene's Spaniard about the BJ Penn contest, his recent fights, his training, and much more...

NW Fightscene: Congrats on your latest win. You got fight of the night honors for your win over Gary Thompson at Budo fights 4.  Did you come away from that fight injury free?
Travis Cavalli: Yeah, I got out of there injury free, but it was a war. That kid is super tough.. I had him in all sorts of bad positions, knocked him unconscious once, and he came back from all of that. Tough kid.

NWFS: Did you think coming into the fight that he was going to be that way?
Cavalli: I'm a big believer in watching tapes of people and finding out whatever you can on them. I watched a lot of his fights and I knew from the start he was a tough kid who got out of tough positions and never quit. I knew what I was getting into.

NWFS: Talk about the fight and how it played out.
Cavalli: I think Gary's a real popular guy in Bend so first round come out and the fans are not to hot to trot for me but they're big for Gary. By the end of the fight, I think I actually won some fans over which is cool. That fight, it was hard for me. Bend is a mile high. I'm an old guy, I was sick for about 3 weeks before there. Having a tough time with my gas. I kept on getting this kid in bad positions, thinking 'This is it. I'm going to win and get out of here'. But he kept on fighting his way through it. Super tough kid. Definitely if he gets into the sport and he can learn some more technique, he'd be top notch in MMA.

NWFS: What's next for you?
Cavalli: I got a big fight coming up in Reno on June 10th. Its going to be for a 155 lb title fight. Their current champ has a defense coming up this Friday and then I get the winner of that. I'm real respectful of those guys giving me the title shot right off the bat. I've never fought for them so I'm super stoked about that.

NWFS: So just trying to collect as many titles as you can before you go pro?
Cavalli: ..Not necessarily collect titles, but I just think I've put in my work and that I deserve some title shots. I've fought all over Oregon and California and have done pretty well.

NWFS: Tell us about where you're training at.
Cavalli: The main school I train out of is called Pitbull Jiu-jitsu. Dietrich Caillier is our main jiu-jitsu instructor there and he's a Black Belt under Marco Nascimento. But I've found in doing this stuff - I've been doing this for about four years - is that you really need to cross-train. So I go to a lot of others schools all throughout the week to train, so I get different bodies, different things because I think its real important. If you go to the same school every night, you learn how to beat the same guys. You need to mix it up a little. So I go to Oregon Combat Sports with Greg Jones. I've been going out to Ashland MMA with Brett Shields. I'm going to start going out to Fabian's MMA in White City. Just mixing it up with a lot of different people. I've also incorporated cross-fit which I think every MMA guy out there should try, because it'll really boost your cardio and strength.

NWFS: How much longer will you be doing the amateur circuit before turning pro? 
Cavalli: It's really my manager's call. I'd like to by the New Year 2012 go pro. The problem that I've seen with my friends that've turned pro, at least here in Oregon, is that it is really tough to find fights as a pro in Oregon. Because the amateur promotions make just as much money than if they'd throw pros on the card, so the promoters aren't really willing to pay for pros.

NWFS: So how is it for you, balancing everything with a day job, and doing training, and you got a family, and still thinking about MMA as a career?
Cavalli: Even if I go pro, I know there's not enough money in it for me unless I get lucky and like land on The Ultimate Fighter or something. I just balance it man. I'm blessed to have a kid who's going to be 12 this coming Saturday who's really into the MMA stuff. He rolls with me, goes to all the schools, does all the training. So I'm really blessed. I've been doing this a long time. At first I was working full-time, going to school full-time, and training. Now I don't have to go to school. I just work so its kind of like a vacation. The family, I got it worked out. Just schedule the time that I train around the time my fiancée works.

NWFS: Recently you and your friend, Jeremy Johnson got selected for "So You Think You Can Fight?" with BJ Penn.
Cavalli: Yeah that was super awesome.

NWFS: Tell us about all the selection process and traveling to Hawaii.
Cavalli: Jeremy actually entered this contest and I saw him post something about it on facebook. So I went and entered it too. It was through the BJPenn.com website. The basics of the contest were that you send in video every two weeks for 8 weeks that you could fight, showing your training, your day to day life and what you're doing with your MMA stuff. And then at the end of the 8 weeks, they let everyone on BJPenn.com vote. A little background. Jeremy Johnson is my old coach. He used to have a gym up here in Medford, but he moved to Redding CA. But we've known each other and have been really close for a long time. Anyway, through this selection, we both sent in our videos and it got narrowed down. It started out at like 200 people and it got narrowed down to 15 and we both made it through all that. And at the very end we were 2 of the 4 people that got selected by the public to go to Hawaii for two weeks and train at BJ's facility. And then we had a fight in Hawaii. It was just all super sick man.

NWFS: How did the fight go?
Cavalli: The fight went really good. I won in the first round. Jeremy won his in the first round. The training there was amazing. It was like if I was a pro and got to train everyday and that's all I did for my job. I'd wake up in the morning, eat a nice healthy meal, go do some training. Come home, take a nap, go back in the evening and train. There at the Penn facility they got some really great instructors. Ross 'The Boss' Ebanez, 'Iron' Mike Aina, Chad Ho, Shane Nelson. Just top-notch instructors.

NWFS: What was it like to roll with some top level pros like that?
Cavalli: It was a humbling experience. It was good. I think in that two weeks my game, I learned a lot of new stuff, the way they broke it down, I was able to take it home with me. It was really good

NWFS: So did you get in any recreational activities there like surfing?
Cavalli: Oh yeah. The whole thing was like a TV show so they had places they took us to make us look bad. (laughs) Surfing, paddle boarding, going up to some of the waterfalls, jumping off that. We did all sorts of cool stuff. Got to hang out with BJ Penn a couple of times. Super humble guy. It was a trip of a lifetime man.

NWFS: Anyone you'd like to thank?
Cavalli: All these people that have made it possible for me. 123stickers.com.

No Pain Just Glory, Women's Fitness Center hooked me up. Den CrossFit. Death Touch MMA. NW Fightscene for covering the NW. Without you, nobody would even know about us.