MGR: Great behind the scenes stuff that really makes you become a Bellator fan.  Now onto the recent fight with Ben Askren, it was a very close fight back and forth. In the first minute and a half or you used the rubber guard and transitioned into the triangle choke. Can you explain the transition, positioning and how tight you thought it was?

RT: Yeah I was working the rubber guard at first and trying this thing Eddie Bravo calls “The Pyramid” that I had been having a lot of success with lately. I was trying to use that technique and he was posturing up a whole bunch so I couldn’t control him like I wanted to even though I had my legged locked with my hand. He was posturing up so much I thought I would try a hip bump sweep, I posed on one hand and tried to hip heist out and try to flip him over to his back and when I did that he posted his hand down and that gave me the space to turn my hips the other way and go that triangle. That triangle, that thing was deep. I don’t know he got out of that because usually if I can hook their leg and pull myself around at that angle, 99% of the time I finish that triangle. That is what I beat my last opponent Ryan Stout with and he is a really good grappler also. I was really impressed that Ben got out of that choke, I didn’t think he was going anywhere.

He got out of that one and we transitioned a bit more. We had some really good scrambles in that fight both being good high level wrestlers, well he is more high level than me but I am nit to shabby either. He went for that modified guillotine, I forget what he called it, but he didn’t have me. I had space on one side, kicked my top leg back so he couldn’t hook my top leg and make it tighter because he wants both my legs hooked or my top leg. I was just kind of chilling there waiting on his arms to tire out. The thing wasn’t going to get any tighter. I had it framed up really good the only thing that was going to happen was his grip was going to loosen. The next thing I know I feel the referee stick his hand on my chest and I open my eyes and look up and he is waving his hands. He stopped the fight and it was a really bad call because he wasn’t really choking me. His one arm was more on my jaw, not under my chin.

MGR: One of the things that was interesting was afterward the ref said he kept asking you if you were OK but it seemed like it may have been hard for you to hear. Did you hear him say anything to you?

RT: No, I didn’t hear anything. I think my ears were covered and there was a lot going on there when you have an Olympic caliber wrestler torquing on your neck, trying to choke you out. It is kind of hard to listen to anything. When I was pleading my case to the ref, he did not really want to hear my side of the story anyway, but he kept saying “I told you to give me a sign, I told you to give me a sign”. I didn’t hear him say anything to me and then after watching the video he only gave me about a half a second to respond. I would not have had time to react anyway because he gets right there and says something and less than a half a second later he is stopping the fight. What he should have done if he thought I was unconscious was to take my arm and check like Herb Dean and all these other referees do.

MGR: Well you got a free plane trip out it anyways.

RT: Yeah, a free plane trip, an extra $10,000 out of it hopefully and make some extra fans. I probably wouldn’t have been on your radio show if I had just gone out there and won a decision you know. I think everything turned out OK for me.

MGR: After the fight Ben said it was a tainted victory but I had read that in the post-fight conference he kind of went back on his previous statement. Is that right that he kind of went back on that?

RT: Yeah, yeah he did and it really threw me off to because I thought he was going to be cool about everything. When we were in there he told me he knew I didn’t tap and he knew I didn’t pass out or anything. I told him I looked up to him for a long time because we wrestled in college at the same time. We already had the fight so I figured he would be cool and we could get along. At the post-fight conference, an hour and a half later or so, we are in there and then he totally changed his story and tells me I was not going to get of his choke and I need to graciously accept defeat. It looked like I might have been unconscious. He changed his story and just doesn’t want the win taken away because I want to appeal it and I am guessing if he is saying I wasn’t out and I didn’t tap it was probably going to help my case. He knows he can’t beat me otherwise, I am a UFC veteran with a pretty good record so I think he is just kind of looking out for his best interest.

MGR: Now your next fight is against Jacob McClintock and you mentioned it is tough to get good training partners and it is the opposite for him at Arizona Combat Sports. What else do you know about him?

RT: I don’t really know anything about him. everything happened so fast I didn’t even find out I was fighting for sure until yesterday (Tuesday) at about 3 o’clock. Right after that, I was an hour and a half away from home I got the phone call at the gym right before I was getting ready to work out. I worked out finally got home and had to pack all my stuff and hop on an airplane. Today I have busy all day doing medicals and flying so I have not had any time do to any research on him but from what I hear he doesn’t have anything on the internet. He took all his fight videos down, smart move by him. I don’t know much about him but I am going to go in there and do what I came here to do which is fight my ass off.

MGR: Do you have any sponsors or social networking sites you want to mention before we go?

RT: Yeah, if people want to be my friend they can add me on twitter, @ryantankthomas or add me on Facebook or Myspace. My sponsors are Nexxt MMA, Fuel the Fighter.com my nutritionist, El Toro of Danville,IL is a Mexican restaurant that shows my fights.

MMA Gospel Radio (MGR): Welcome Ryan, I have to say, I am happy to hear you got another shot. (in the Bellator tournament)

Ryan Thomas: Yeah, I am too, it’s one I definitely deserved I think. I think people are happy to see me back in this Bellator tournament.

MGR: First off, what got you interested in MMA and how long have you actually been training?

RT: I have been wrestling my entire life, ever since I was about five years old. All the way through college. I wrestled for two years at a junior college and then transferred to Eastern Illinois University. That is where Matt Hughes and Matt Veach wrestled at and I was there for a year. Then my program got cut while I was wrestling there and I wanted to keep competing. My assistant coach at Eastern, Clay French,he was the King of the Cage Champion and I started training with him. I also trained with Chase Beebe, the WEC bantamweight champion. Derick Noble worked out with us back then and been fighting ever since, about four years now. It has been a roller coaster ride, that’s for sure.

MGR: You experienced something this week something I would imagine very fighters have had to experience. With all the ups and downs it should make you feel unique.

RT: Yeah it does, it has been pretty cool and has really helped to get my name out there. That is part of the whole game though. If you want to be one of the best in the world you have to jump on these opportunities, roll with the punches if things don’t go your way. When they do you have to adapt and be flexible and that is what I am trying to do, make the best out of it, keep my head up and hope to get back in there and win this tournament.

MGR: What would say right now are your strengths and weaknesses as a fighter and how have you been working on each of the weaknesses?

RT: I guess I could have started younger with the jiu jitsu and the muay thai but anymore people are starting much younger. I know my opponent Jacob McClintock has been doing jiu jitsu since he was like 12 years old. One weakness I have is I am training in East Central Illinois and there aren’t very many gyms around there and the people I am competing against are at real big gyms that have all the resources at their fingertips. They have a muay thai coach, a jiu jitsu coach and a wrestling coach and surrounded by world class fighters as training partners all in one facility. I am driving all over the midwest, Chicago and Indianapolis and in little Matsue, Illinois where my main gym is but it has been worth it. It got me in the UFC and now in Bellator and I am going to make the best of it.

MGR: Do you ever envision yourself maybe moving to another location, for instance New Mexico or Vegas where there are some of the larger gyms?

RT: Yeah, I am. That is something me and my coaches have been talking about. They all agree with me that I have kind if outgrown where I came from in East Central Illinois. I have outgrown the gyms there and may need to move to a bigger gym where I have more high quality training partners than what i have got right now.

The only bad part is I just graduated from college with my elementary education degree in December. I am taking a couple extra classes so I can be a P.E. teacher also. So I can’t leave right now because I am in the middle of these classes. I need to wait until May till these classes are over. When I signed up for them I didn’t expect to be in Bellator and was having a hard time getting fights so it was the right thing to do at the then. After this semester I am probably going to have to go elsewhere.

MGR: You started your career at middleweight and since dropped to welterweight after just a few fights. Some people find it hard to understand how much difference there is in size from a middleweight compared to a welterweight. Did you feel a big difference in the strengths of opponents when you fought at 185 as opposed to 170?

RT: I don’t think the strength was that big a deal for me because when I first started. The more I fought and as I got to welterweight I stated to fight tougher opponents and a lot of them were stronger than the middleweights I fought. I think welterweight is my home because as I train and learn more about nutrition I have gotten leaner and leaner and I like to cut a little weight anyway so it works out well for me.

MGR: Your two fights in the UFC were against Ben Saunders and Matt Brown. How stressfull was it fighting in the UFC and can you give us just a few thoughts on each of those fights?

RT: The first one I took on short notice, it was 12 days and I had to cut 26 pounds. I really didn’t get to fight to my full potential in that one. I am not happy with how I performed. In that one everything happened so quickly, I did not have time to really enjoy with trying to get in shape and getting medicals. I really didn’t get to have fun with that one like I hoped to. The next one I was supposed to fight Matt Riddle but he got hurt so I got Matt Brown instead. I fought him pretty tough and definitely thing I was winning that fight and I just got caught in an armbar. Yeah, it was pretty awesome fighting in the UFC, it has always been a dream of mine.

MGR: Very few people can say they were able to do that and if you win Bellator you could possibly be back on your way there.

RT: Yeah maybe, I am happy with Bellator. If I can win this tournament and get that belt I am not going to want to go anywhere. I am happy with Bellator and how Bjorn Rebney (Bellator CEO) has treated me.

MGR: We had Bjorn on the show and all our listeners were impressed, as were we and it is nice to hear that you would like to stick with them.

RT: Yeah, they have treated me great. I was really happy for them to bring me on board for the tournament and then after everything that happened last Thursday he made me the first alternate and here I am in Connecticut getting ready to throw down again. He is a great guy. He didn’t have to do all this. With me fighting Thursday in Chicago, I guess Connecticut is one of the stricter commissions and they really didn’t want me to fight but Bjorn pleaded with them and really put his neck on the line and kind of talked them into bringing me on board. He told them what happened to me and the promise he made me about being the first alternate and he really came through for me.

The next installment will be up tomorrow and we will get to hear about the fight with Askren and much more.