JACKSONS.TV

Leonard Garcia:  For me this is my job.  To be ready by the phone at all times.  When I first started my career I used to get calls like this all the time.  I think taking those types of fights helped me to get elevated to the top really fast.  I was always willing to take fights on any notice.  I think when you train to fight and it’s you job that’s what you should do – you should answer the phone, always answer the bell whenever someone asks you to fight.   That’s the way we’re approaching this one.  I got the call and we’re not jumping into anything we don’t know about.  We have had several recent fights and I feel real confident. 

 jacksons.tv:   You training daily and constantly.  When you get a call like this do you have to get your cardio in shape or are you already in shape?

Leonard Garcia:   For this fight, I’ve already had a fight recently – last month.  I took a week off and my body was well rested so when I came back I felt that I was really in good shape.  I just started pushing it again.  Conditioning is the first thing you worry about when you take a fight on short notice because you don’t want to run out of gas.  I definitely hit the conditioning hard but everything else is just a science.  We’re here at such a great camp and Greg has ways of figuring out what to do in a really short period of time.

jacksons.tv:   Your training is so taxing physically and mentally – how do you keep motivated to keep coming in day in and day out?

Leonard Garcia:  That’s when your training partners have to be really, really interesting and keep things hot and ready to go.  There are days, dead serious, you don’t want to get out of bed.  You don’t want to get up. You don’t want to do anything.  You just want to lay at home but you have 10 other guys at the house that are telling you, “we have to go”.   So you just get up and go.  I think having a team is a big part of that and like I said here at Jackson’s if you don’t show up to practice everybody knows you’re gone.  You got to have a really good camp and you have to be a driven person.  You’re right – you’re beat up all the time, your mentally beat and you just got to keep coming. 

jacksons.tv:   Does it feel good to get any fight either short notice or planned – does your mindset change?

Leonard Garcia:  Yeah, definitely.  You go from training to get better to training to win a fight.  Anybody who doesn’t understand that probably doesn’t win many fights.  Your mindset changes, your whole physical appearance changes.  It’s funny – I can train for two months without having an opponent and I’ll stay a little bit chubby but as soon as I get an opponent you’ll see the weight start coming off, you’ll start to see the muscles coming out.  It’s weird how your body just tells you it’s time to go. It’s definitely a good call when you get an opponent.

jacksons.tv:   How is it out in Edgewood, NM at the Tapout House?

Leonard Garcia:  It’s a great life out there.  We have a lot of fun when we go home.  It’s never a dull moment.  I grew up on a ranch so for me it’s just like being a kid.  You go out there and feed the animals and the animals help the time past.  There’s something different – it’s not just human contact. It’s like when people have an aquarium and they just stare at it for hours a day and you wonder what’s wrong with them but I know what they feel.  I can watch the horses go and the chickens all day long.  By the time you come back in, the sun is going down and then it’s time to train again.  So, it’s a lot of fun.

jacksons.tv:   So, do you guys have a brand for your cattle or are you developing one?

Leonard Garcia:  We’re not going to raise cattle to sell.  What we’ll do is to buy one at a time and take it to slaughter.  I don’t know, maybe in the future.  We are looking at the property next to us, its 20 more acres.   So, there might be some cattle grazing going on.  If we do have to get a brand it will be a cool one.

jacksons.tv:   Would you like to acknowledge anyone?

Leonard Garcia:  My whole team here at Jackson’s.  Tapout always makes everything possible for us and most of all God.  He’s made it possible for me to be out here.  Those 3 things have made everything possible.