Cung Le: I Will Not Fight “Until The End Of The Year Or Early Next Year”
MMAFrenzy.com recently had the opportunity to interview recently-crowned Strikeforce middleweight champion Cung Le, who revealed to MMAFrenzy.com that he will not be fighting again until late-2008 or early-2009. Find out the reason for the layoff and much more in this MMAFrenzy.com exclusive interview.
Orlando Mac: Tell us about Cung Le.
Cung Le: I’m a single parent with two boys, and I just beat Frank Shamrock for the Strikeforce Middleweight Title. I run and operate a Martial Arts gym called Cung Le’s Universal Strength HeadQuarters. It has weights, cardio machines, and kids MMA programs to adult MMA programs. I just wake up everyday grateful to be alive, and I live everyday like it is going to be my last.
Orlando Mac: Who would you like to get in the cage and KO with a high kick to their head?
Cung Le: Well, I just high kicked to the head Frank Shamrock, I wanted to get him in the cage, I wanted to kick him to the head and I sure did.
Orlando Mac: Who has the biggest mouth in the business?
Cung Le: I think that would be Frank.
Orlando Mac: Your mammoth fight with Frank Shamrock recently some would say already is fight of the year, what was going through your mind during the fight?
Cung Le: Definitely, in my mind I was in a fight! Frank was bringing some heat.
Orlando Mac: What was your game plan?
Cung Le: My game plan was to build my kicks and wherever it lands, make sure it does damage.
Orlando Mac: In my recent interview with Frank Shamrock he had some interesting things to say about you. first he said in reference to what he was thinking during the fight, “I was having fun during the fight, I wasn’t stressed by Cung Le.â€
He also said in reference to a rematch, “I would pressure him more instead of playing with him, I would put him to sleep, Cung is boring, besides his cool kicks.â€
Cung Le: It takes two to make an exciting fight, he can’t just go in there by himself and make it exciting, and I think it was probably one of the best, exciting fights that he has ever had, so he can say whatever he wants to say.
How is he going to put me to sleep? He had his chance, actually during the fight I gave him two to opportunities to put his specialty to work, which is submissions, and he couldn’t do it. Of course, I just think he is upset that he lost and he is a sore loser.
Orlando Mac: He also said, “I was doing what I wanted to do during the fight and Cung was getting the hell beat out of him then I broke my arm.â€
Cung Le: He said he would stand with me, which he did, but in the fight I gave him no chance to do anything else. In the fight, I defended his take-down attempts, I gave him opportunities to take me down, to take my back, which I gave him my back when I gave him that spinning back kick.
Then when he countered my will kick, which I am sure he did allot of training and practice for, what I was going to throw, and he countered me down and tried to jump my back again.
I popped out of it, and he brought me down and got the front choke, but I defended it. Honestly, he had to stand, there was no other way, you can’t just jump into open guard which he did, and invite me into the guard, which I said, “No.†So he had to fight me stand-up and he lost.
Orlando Mac: Another quote that I thought you would like to hear from that interview was, “I don’t think Cung will fight me again.” Is a rematch in the cards?
Cung Le: I’ll give Frank a rematch, he gave me the opportunity. I think right now he is pretty smart, pretty witty, but I know his tricks from his fighting and the tricks that will come out of his mouth. I know he is going to say that I wouldn’t fight him again, but of course he is saying that because he is covering his bases.
If there is a rematch I will give it to him.
Orlando Mac: Is there something you would like to say to Frank?
Cung Le: I hope he has a good and fast recovery.
Orlando Mac: Many fight fans out there would love to see you in the cage against Anderson Silva, what is the chance of that happening?
Cung Le: I feel my promoter is open to do a co-promotion, but I know the UFC isn’t willing to do one, but I am sure that Dana White can come in and borrow me for one fight, but of course he has to pay my promoter something.
I’m sure something can be worked out, if the fans really want that fight, and if Dana could make it happen I am sure my promoter Scott Coker would be open to it.
Orlando Mac: Would you beat Anderson?
Cung Le: I am going to answer you like if I was asked if I would beat Frank, I don’t know. I didn’t know if I was going to beat Frank, I don’t know if I would beat Anderson if I fought him. The only way I would find out if I could beat him is to fight him.
To all my opponents, doesn’t matter if it is Mike Altman my first MMA fight, to an Anderson Silva, who is pound for pound the best in the world, I respect them all the same. They are martial artists and they train, they live the martial arts lifestyle. I have respect for all my martial arts brothers out there, and then if we step into the cage, then we step in the cage, which then is do our best to win.
Orlando Mac: Cung - who can you attribute to having helped you learn the most from?
Cung Le: Wow, there has been so many people who have taught me a lot of things, but I think I have to credit Javier Mendez for really putting my game together. Before I have been very talented and blessed with natural skills, very athletic, and very technical, but Javier Mendez is really the one who put everything together.
Orlando Mac: Who is your best friend in the fight game?
Cung Le: I have a lot of friends but I would say it comes down to two my trainer Javier Mendez and my promoter Scott Coker.
Orlando Mac: If you were training for a fight with a BJJ specialist who would you train with in preparation for that fight?
Cung Le: My camp now with Paul Shriner, the guys over at AKA, and David Camarillo, I have all that I can handle. So, I would stick to my own camp because they know me best, they bring people in if we need, but it would probably come down to Javier Mendez making that decision, but if you don’t get taken down then you don’t need much BJJ.
Orlando Mac: With an excellent take-down defense you don’t need much ground, and you showed those skills highly in your last fight.
Cung Le: Thank you, because you know a lot of people I can never please because after the fight they are like Cung’s ground game hasn’t been tested, or Frank can’t take anyone down. I will just remind everyone that Frank picked up Igor Zanoviev over his head and broke his collarbone on a takedown and he did beat Tito Ortiz.
Orlando Mac: Do you have any advice for your next opponent?
Cung Le: Let’s just put on a good show and let’s go out there with both guns blazing.
Orlando Mac: Tell us how Cung Le got to this point in life?
Cung Le: A lot of hard work, faith in the Lord, support from my family, and being blessed to be around the right people that is how I got here.
Orlando Mac: What would surprise people the most about Cung Le?
Cung Le: I am funny.
Orlando Mac: You’re a scary guy, what scares you?
Cung Le: My kids getting hurt.
Orlando Mac: What was it like as Cung the teenager?
Cung Le: Same work ethics especially in wrestling, but skinnier.
Orlando Mac: Is there a message you would like to send to your fans out there?
Cung Le: Thank you for all of your support and watch out for me on the big screen.
Orlando Mac: Tell us about the movies, you have worked on, and when are we going to see them?
Cung Le: The two recent big movies that I have worked on set for release, one is called “Fighting†and it will be released at the end of the year. I have a big fight scene in it which is exciting to watch. It was an awesome movie, my co-star spent a day in the hospital from our fight scene and I had a sore back for a week, you have to watch the movie to see why.
Then in January for all you gamers “Tekken†the movie will come out, and I play Martial Law which I believe was the most popular character until they added more characters to the game. Martial Law is a character after Bruce Lee who does all the back flip kicks. Game number six is out next year and I think people are ready to see the movie.
Orlando Mac: Who are you fighting next?
Cung Le: I was supposed to sit down with my promoter this month but he said he has the big fight with Josh Thompson vs. Gilbert Milendez to promote, and he told me it’s only been 5 or 6 weeks, to enjoy my win.
I told him I didn’t want to fight until the end of the year, or early next year.
A lot of people didn’t know in November after my fight with Sam Morgan I was already having issues with my elbows, with bone debris in there, and bone spurs.
I had surgery after that fight, after a week or ten days, it was only supposed to be a simple half hour job, and there was a bone spur poking one of my nerves. So it took an hour and a half to fix and they told me I wasn’t supposed to get back in the cage for at least six months.
A week later after the surgery, I found out that Frank was not bluffing about the challenge he accepted after the Sam Morgan fight, and we were going to get it on March 29th, so I sucked it up did some super rehab and came out ahead. I just want to let my whole body heal up this time, and be 100% next time I step into the cage.
Orlando Mac: Is there anyone you’d like to thank?
Cung Le: I got to thank Scott Coker for building me right and taking care of me.
Orlando Mac: Thank you for your time and best of luck.
Tags: Cung Le
Seems like a good guy and I really wonder how guys like Cung or Frank Shamrock would do in the UFC these days ……………
I’ve always liked watching Cung fight and he definitely seems to be as good a guy outside of the ring as he is inside it.
Having interviewed him personally I can say that Cung is a very humble and dedicated man.
I think that the two best candidates to challenge Anderson for his crown are these two gentlemen..
Cung Le and Frank Shamrock…
both are open to fight Anderson but would Dana pay another promoter to borrow their fighters.. I think the answer is not.. but the Middleweight category.. is supremely boring at the moment.. all credit to Anderson.. the guys that they have brought in hav failed.. can we really look forward to Almeida, or Palhares.. for most americans a 3 Brazilian horse race is unpalletable.. Bisping? has looked better at 185..
Lindland would be good, Filho won’t fight his team-mate..
Cung or Frank would be a god send.. highly skilled multi-dimensional fighters..
both deserve that mega spotlight because of their talent..
Do you think Frank has trouble shooting for takedowns because of his knee ? apparently he doesn’t have an ACL or something ??
I hope that the UFC finds a way to open up a little and help make these fights happen.
I met Cung before he started MMA because he was training a female kick boxing girlfriend of mine and he was a great guy. I’m glad he beat Frank ****rock. ****rock can say all he wants but Cung made him look fairly pathetic a few times with sweeps and kicks. At the end of the day Frank is still a big mouth and lost.
frank shamrock is not a top middleweight anymore and hasnt been for some time now. i think anderson silva would put him away pretty quickly. however a fight between silva and cung lee would be good to watch but still i give the advantage to silva in almost every way.
Hey I’m with you gentlemen that think Anderson rocks.. but the truth is the Mid wt category is weak in the UFC.. Franklin is the only challenge and Anderson has his number.. all the rest of the best don’t belong to the UFC..
Just remember that besides Penn all the other champions came from other organizations.. up until now the UFC was a watered down product.. now it is only the Heavies and the Middles that are watered down.. the rest are elite..
GSP is from the UFC .
Mad props to Cung, his attitude make him a world class athlete. Now days a lot of people forget this is a highly respected study of an art form. The lifestyle and discipline fighter abide by is amazing and very respectable as well.
GSP is form TKO or formally UCC
yeah i agree n. whether people came from other orgs or not doesnt really matter orlandomac the ufc is still the place to be.i dont care where fighters come from i just want to see the best mix it up. once they sign with the ufc it doesnt matter where they have signed from they fight in the ufc, so they are ufc fighters.
Belly I agree but some people think with a full UFC bias and are completely oblivious to the fact that there are great fighters out there.
It is our hope as fight fans to see the best fight each other, in some cases you can get that in the UFC but it all depends on Don Dana King’s whim.
A good example of this is we’ll finally get all our Heavyweight answers but one this summer courtesy of Affliction not the UFC. If Fedor can’t beat Sylvia then he could never beat Couture. How good is Rothwell? Well Arlovoski can potentially answer that, with another Fall card ready to handle this heavyweight tournie.. with Couture destined to be on it.. all the answers will come courtesy of another organization.
Let’s make it clear the UFC wants dollars not super-fights… they will bleed you one super-fight a month no more unless it is in Vegas. This reasoning is why everything continually gets messed up, with fighters losing.
Lets see fedor fight in ufc b4 he dies from old age.
the ufc and dana white cant take all of the blame for fedor not signing. some of the amounts of money that were said to be requested were ridiculous. i agree with you that the ufc will not always serve up super fights but even the poorer cards are better than kimbo v james thompson. lets wait and see how long affliction lasts before a comparison can be made.
orlando,
despite the loss, i’d have to say that hendo deserves to be in the category of other MW’s that could challenge anderson. in fact, i’d say between him and franklin, he’s the only realistic one that could win. Franklin was compllllletely dominated by anderson in both fights and although he’s a good fighter, he’ll never match up with silva. Hendo took the 1st round then was submitted in a manner that wasn’t characteristic of him which is why i think a rematch might end differently. who know’s though, it’s all opinion. i like cung but i don’t think that he would make it out of the 1st round with silva. i don’t think shamrock would even make it past the part where they announce the names before the fight. unless hendo can do something, i see silva holding onto that belt for a long time.
I agree with most of what you are saying 2G.. I too rate Hendo highly but his last two fights were atrocious.. he didn’t even do what he is good at… which is greco wrestling.. I figured he would press both guys up against the fence ala Randy.. and tire them out before throwing some huge bombs later when his conditioning as a wrestler would come through a bit more..
I can’t say I have been more disappointed with him.. it seems like he drank too much of his own Pride juice and thought hey I knocked out Wandi, I will easily knock over the Junkyard Dog, and that skinny Brazilian.
I think maybe Team Quest should focus a little less on wrestling..
I think Silva will walk through the LH division just like he did the middle weight, Mind you it may be a lil more difficult, but nobody seems to have the tools silva has, Cung Le is good but he needs a lil more cage experience also plain mma experience before he can test silva, I am going to predict that silva will drop the middle weight title soon to fight LH full time, more to offer and actually that is the big division in mma, heavy weight division is all washed up Light heavy fighters if you look at it minus a few freaks that are just huge men. MW are guys who are to small for LH or on there way there. They need an open weight division, I would like to dana white put faber up against kimbo like he was saying, because I dont doubt that faber could win, he would have to be on gaurd tho because one punch by kimbo could send his head in to the 10th row. Anyways thats all the chat I got back to work for me.
Orlando Mac why don´t you interview Dana Whithe to se what he can say about the fight cung le vs anderson silva
Saludos de Cuba Douglas .
(Cung le the best)
Cung Le vs Anderson silva at 205
Cung Le vs Chuck Lidell at 205
This must be his next fight
Cung le will never fight anderson silva,if he did it would be short lived because not only is silva one of if not the best standing fighter out there right now,he is also great on the ground…cung le is untested on the ground,and look what silva did to dan henderson……as for shamrock maybe ten years ago but he would get smoked now….
I love Cung Le and Anderson Silva,
I love Dana White sits down and talks to Scott Coker to make the fight happen
Actually Dana White is the one to make the fight happen
By the way Marc: Cung Le is only 5f10, he can’t make 205 , he is too small to fight Chuck Liddel; the only way to happen is Chuck has to step down to 185, just like Dan Handerson
I want to see Cung beat up: Tito Ortiz or Chuck Liddell then maybe Anderson Silva
Ruben,
What?!? Please explain more. Silva could flick Cung and KO him. Are you serious?
That was a great fight. Credit to frank for trying his best just was not good enough against Cung. Frank actually looked scared in many interviews prior to the fight.
Cung and Silva would be great, I know Cung would get the win.
But unless Dana pays out it will never happen so till then let’s sit back and wait.
Cungs next fight should be with StrikeForce and should be Robbie but it will be another win for Cung. No fighter in StrikeForce can beat Cung. It would be nice to see Tito come to StrikeForce and fight. Let him fight Frank and the winner fights Cung. That’s hiw I would promote things
G money
I really like the way Cung le fight’s, I would like to see Cung fight Lyota Machida. If Anderson Silva moves to Light Heavy he will have to deal with Machida, that might be enough to send him back to Middle Weight.
True that Silva’s elbows and knees are dangerous to most taller opponents whenever Silva is able to clamp-up the opponent for a take-down or lock-up them up to strike them with his elbows and knees.
However, most asian fighters are shorter, faster, and harder to clamp-up for a take-down.
Cung Le would just slip and slide out of Silva’s clamp and then sweep Silva’s legs and Silva would be flat on his ass in less than 1 second.
Silva’s longer arms a legs are actually a disadvantage since Cung’s powerful kicks would break Silva’s arms and legs just like with Frank S.
I love Cung. His style is so unorthadox and it works. Le vs Silva is just a dream fight, for fans of the fighters, MMA and anybody into combat MA’s. I wouldn’t want to call it but i would like to see Silva getting beat.
I agree with Phirgon, Le and machida are the most dangerous fighters. Also GSP and Anderson. Although Anderson in my opinion is a little over rated. The reason why i believe that Le and Machida are the best right now would have to be because of there perfect records, especially Le whos been fighting on San shou for some time now and if i am not mistaken undefeated as well, so he has fight experience and is great with takedowns… just watch some fights of his on you tube. Also there fighting styles. They are both great stand up and technical fighters… they also have good ground games. Le however has a perfect 6-0 record all by KOs. Machida has a perfect 13-0 record with 3 KOs and 2 SUBs… he will fight Thiago Silva who is also undefeated and highly underestimated with a 13-0 record with 10 KOs and 2 subs on Jan 09 so lets see what happens
Thanks for that D S KING…yet another horse Justin
Thanks, mate!
machida and anderson silva both actually train with the same camp…that would really be a match…
BUT first, i think anderson needs to beat the great GSP, before he goes to light weight…and hopefully and eventually lead to a fight with machida.
as for cung lee and anderson silva…i don’t think cung is really ready for that…he still has a ways to go…
first, his stand up is not as good a silva…and his defense against fury of punches is not great either yet…and he get stunned easily when hit.
THOUGH…i do believe that if he does get in a brawl…where both sides just start attacking, he will have a quick learning curve and perhaps win the fight…
THAT SAID: he has won by T/KO in all his fights.
You’re nearly a year late to the party.
Cung is arguably the greatest martial artist since Bruce Lee, I know that comment sounds dumb and “over fanboy” of me, but I cant see a reason why its not true, his over all record within and before MMA wins the arguement for me. His ability and skill are unmatched by any fighter period. Just by the way he moves, his ballance and his overall athletic dominance. True he may not have the Ground experience that others do, but he was an all american wrestling champ, with his talent it wouldnt take him long to dominate on the gound as well. I honestly dont think theres a fighter out there that has what it takes to get him on his back! His foot work and ballance are off the chart! GSP or Silva would be two of the top fighters that we would all love see take Le on and also the two that stand the best chance at ending his undefeated record but in my opinion Cung can take em both.