Podcast Episode 68: Strength is Never a Weakness – Sean Brady on Training, Testing Yourself, and Philadelphia Grit

Subscribe To Podcast | More Episodes

Listen To Podcast Episode #68

Podcast Episode 68: Strength is Never a Weakness—Sean Brady on Training, Testing Yourself, and Philadelphia Grit. MMA fighter and Team Gym2k.com athlete Sean Brady discusses his upcoming UFC debut. Learn how this Philly native and jiujitsu blackbelt uses weightlifting and training four times a day to get in fighting shape and why you can never be too strong when you’re taking on the biggest names in the UFC.

Original Publish Date: Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Behind The Scenes Photo:

Dr. Bill Campbell visits Gym2k.com

Ep. isode 68 Transcript ▼

Nick Collias: Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Gym2k.com Podcast. I’m Nick Collias, the host right here. We’ve got a big, noisy, ice cream social happening outside, in case you hear any laughing or splashing.

This is Heather-

Heather: Splashing?

Nick: There’s ice cream out there. This is Heather Eastman to my right, as always, she’s on the left. And our guest today is a mixed martial artist who’s visiting town. His name is Sean Brady. He’s been fighting for the CFFC, the Caged Fury Fighting Championships, mostly over in Philadelphia.

Sean Brady: Yes.

Nick: Have been a welterweight champ there for a little bit. And then this spring, he answered the call to be at Gym2k.com.

Heather: Yes.

Nick: And for the UFC, of course, too. I mean…

Sean Brady: Yep, yep.

Nick: Sean is officially a UFC fighter, you got your invite.

Sean Brady: Yep.

Nick: Looking for your first bout later this year.

Sean Brady: September.

Nick: September. Is that in Philadelphia?

Sean Brady: No, we’re looking for Canada.

Nick: Okay.

Sean Brady: So, sometime this September, it could be earlier, but we’re looking at September 14th, that’s what we’re hoping for.

Nick: Cool. Good to have a date on the calendar.

Sean Brady: Yeah. That’s what we’re shooting for. No opponent or anything. Nothing official, but we’ll have something locked up in next couple of weeks.

Nick: Okay.

Sean Brady: Yeah.

Nick: Excellent. Yeah, and as I mentioned, he’s also a Gym2k.com athlete officially. We’re happy to have him here.

Heather: Yes, welcome.

Sean Brady: Happy to be a part of the team.

Nick: And now people have been talking about Sean as someone who should be getting an invite to the UFC for a long time. It’s one of those names you see in the comments under videos. Like, “Come on.” So, when you finally got your invitation, how much support just came out of all sides for you?

Sean Brady: A lot. But I’ve always had a really good support system. A lot of fighters get a lot of negative, especially Philly is like a really rough city. Eddie Alvarez was champion for the UFC and he came home and he didn’t get like no love. Other champions have gone home to their cities and they’ve had parades and like all kinds of stuff. Eddie came home and they put them on NBC 10, nothing crazy. So, for me to have the support system I have, I don’t get too much bad energy from anybody. But when I got signed, I got just positive. Just a bunch of positive love and yeah it was great.

Nick: Did you hear from anybody unexpected?

Sean Brady: The amount of text messages, it took me days. I didn’t even respond to some people. The messages, my whole inbox was full. It was at 99+. I couldn’t even open them all. But yeah, it was good.

Nick: That was when you mentioned Eddie Alvarez, he was the first guy you thanked in your post where you announced it?

Sean Brady: Yeah, it was a Monday night and I’d known Eddie for a long time, but over like the last couple of months we got closer. We were working out together doing some strength and conditioning and it was a Monday, he called me about working out on a Wednesday because he had a fight coming up in Japan. And we’re just talking about training and he’s like, “Oh, you didn’t get signed yet?”

It was two weeks after my last fight and I was like, “No, I didn’t get signed. I don’t know what’s going to happen.” So, at that time I was going to fight May 17th for CFFC, I was going to defend my belt. And then we kept talking, we went and hung up the phone.

And he started texting me, 20 minutes later I was driving down to go train. And he was sending me screenshots of him talking to Dana White. Because the Philly card was coming up March, I think it was March 31st and I was like four weeks away at that point. And he was like, “Yo, you got to put this kid on, blah blah blah. He’s the next big thing coming out of Philly. He’s going to be the next me.”

And umm, so Dana was like, “Send me his record, his weight, his height, all that.” So, he sent him like my Sherdog profile, which is like a MMA website that’s your records.

And next thing I know, he’s like, “You’re going to get signed.”

And I was like, at first, I was like, oh, I didn’t really like know what was happening. So, I called my manager, who I started sending him the texts Eddie was sending me. And the next day, I was getting done training and Eddie called me. He’s like, “Yo, they’re sending a contract to your manager.” And next thing you know, I had a contract. So, I signed a four-fight deal. And, yeah. So, I got signed and yeah.

Nick: That’s fantastic.

Sean Brady: Yeah.

Heather: No kidding.

Nick: So, you mentioned that you’ve been doing some strength and conditioning work with Eddie. He’s a guy who’s been in, he’s been on the scene for a long time.

Sean Brady: Yeah.

Nick: How different was that? What do you feel like you learned from that guy?

Sean Brady: I think Eddie could learn actually a lot from me in the strength and conditioning part. Even with supplements, I had my BCAAs I was shaking them up, I was taking pre-workout and he was like, “What does that stuff do?” And I was kind of just telling him.

Nick: Okay, he’s old school.

Sean Brady: Yeah. He’s old school. Like he doesn’t do anything. Even with strength and conditioning. I have a guy, Rich Polar, we, like me, Eddie, Paul Felder, like a lot of high-level MMA guys on the east coast train with, we do our strength and conditioning with. And Eddie was his first guy. So, I have a B.S. in Strength and Conditioning and I’d seen Eddie. Eddie stopped working with him a little bit. I still work with him, but Eddie reached out like, “Hey, I was working with this other guy, Sean Thomson in Philly.” He was like, “I’m going to come to Sean’s gym and work out. Do you think he’d be cool with it?”

I was like, “Yeah.” So, Eddie was coming and he was getting some workouts in.

Nick: So, you get the old man in the gym.

Sean Brady: Yeah, we are. We’re getting in pretty early. I think we’re doing 7 AMs or something like that, so, yeah, we we’re getting after it.

Nick: Last time you visited the office, I remember talking about how you were training four times a day at that point. Is that still kind of your routine?

Sean Brady: Yeah. If I have a fight, I usually train, I’ll do 2 skill practices, meaning sparring or MMA in the morning, and then I’ll do Jujitsu at night, but I’ll also do a strength & conditioning workout or run in there, pretty much every day. I lift pretty much every day and I run like three or four times a week.

Nick: Do you feel like you lift, or you put more value in lifting than other fighters that you know?

Sean Brady: Yeah. I started working out before I even started doing MMA. So, I’ve always just had a passion for lifting weights like strongman, bodybuilding, CrossFit. Like I just love all aspects of weightlifting, Olympic lifting, all of it. So, I just know how beneficial it is. You can never be too strong. Strength is never going to be a weakness. As long as you’re not getting hurt, which I’ve dealt with in the past, but if you can stay healthy and do it the right way, it’s nothing but a plus to me.

Nick: Sure. When you were talking about the weight training that you do, you mentioned a lot of different disciplines there.

Sean Brady: Yeah.

Nick: Do you have a lot of variety in the way that you do your training there?

Sean Brady: Yeah, I try to do a bunch of different things. I was just working out, I was just doing like I was doing sets of Pendlay rows that I did kind of a like a CrossFit, like MetCon. And then I finished off with push presses. So, I try to do a little bit of everything.

Nick: Pretty high pace, though?

Sean Brady: Yeah, pretty high pace. But I also have days where I just do like five, three or one like meaning like five reps, three reps, one rep.

Nick: Sure, that’s classic.

Sean Brady: For just strength. I know that’s classic. That’s how to build strength, classic. Then I can do like off of percentages, too. So, I’ll do like my five reps will be of 75, 80%, three reps with like 85, 90, and then one rep would be like 95%.

Nick: And do you periodize that across the year, your training year, too? How do you peak?

Sean Brady: It’s hard to peak with the MMA, and it’s hard to really see like huge gains in strength because we’re always gaining weight and then we’re losing weight. So, obviously when we’re cutting down, we lose some strength. But yeah, I’ve always kind of… I kind of do the same thing all throughout the year. Obviously, there’s times I get stronger and times I’ll lose a little bit of it when I’m cutting, but I have two great strength and conditioning coaches who I work with, too, but that’s how we do it. It’s either off percentages, nothing I do really goes over five reps if I’m going pretty heavy. But yeah, we’re all pretty much on the same page.

Nick: I like that. You keep, you keep your strength work strong.

Sean Brady: Yes.

Nick: You keep your sweaty work sweaty.

Sean Brady: Yeah, exactly.

Nick: Okay, I wanted to ask, because you’re talking about Eddie Alvarez and different Philly fighters. Is that you feel like there’s like a Philadelphia style of fighting yet? There have been enough good fighters that come out of Philadelphia.

Sean Brady: Just grit, Philly’s just a tough, tough city. You just have to be gritty when you come out of Philly. That’s how the fighters are, we’re all just tough. We can all push the pace and we can all take a beating and then give it back. So, that’s kind of, I try to be smarter than that.

But Eddie and those guys that are like, Eddie, you can just, Eddie gives it out and he takes it. But I try to be a little bit smarter with not getting hit.

Nick: Sure, if you can avoid it.

Sean Brady: We all have that in us. So, yeah. That’s what I think Philly’s known for.

Nick: I mean, being undefeated makes it sound like you’ve never taken a punch.

Sean Brady: Oh, no.

Heather: Right.

Sean Brady: I’ve had some tough, tough fights where I’ve been definitely tested. I’ve been hit with flying knees. I never been dropped in a fight. I don’t think I’ve ever been dropped, period. Knock on wood.

Heather: Right.

Sean Brady: But I’ve gone into fights with my nose broke. I’ve got stitches in fights. I’ve had some adversity and fights. I’ve gotten tired in fights where I’ve had the dig deep and find that second and third gear and come back.

Nick: That’s part of sparing and training, too-

Sean Brady: Yeah.

Heather: Absolutely.

Nick: … is learning how to get whooped, right?

Sean Brady: Yeah. I think me coming up as an amateur, I came up around like really high-level guys so I had no choice but to get better, and know how to take a beating. And eventually, as time went on, I just started to dish it out a little bit more than I was taking it.

Heather: So, I have to ask, because I’m kind of curious, like what’s the learning curve like on that for someone who’s just getting in? Let’s say they’re coming from wrestling where you’re not throwing punches and then, all of a sudden, you’re getting hit in the face.

Sean Brady: Yeah. The biggest thing for wrestlers when they come in they get choked a lot, because whenever you’re wrestling you’re not worried about submissions, you’re not worried about getting caught in chokes when you’re shooting in. So, they’ll shoot in for a take down and they might get the take down. But us Jujitsu guys, I’m a black belt in Jujitsu. I’ll be putting a guillotine choke on or I’ll be working a submission. So, coming from wrestling, they’re not used to that. Especially like you said, they start getting punched in the face. It’s completely different.

I was lucky enough, I started off doing everything around the same time. So, I’ve been getting punched in the face for a long time. So, I’m used to it, not used to it. But yeah, wrestlers they’ll come in and you see a lot of wrestlers fight, you can tell because they’re always just going for the take down. They just look super uncomfortable on their feet when they first start.

Heather: Right, they want to get down and grapple.

Sean Brady: They want to get the take down and just grapple from there. But yeah, eventually I think some of the best fighters right now, like champions, are wrestlers. So, once they get past that stage, they do just fine.

Heather: So, this may come as a shock to you. I’ve never been punched in the face.

Sean Brady: A lot of people haven’t.

Nick: This podcast is a, we’ve been setting this up, Heather, this is the day.

Sean Brady: This is an initiation.

Heather: So, like for somebody who’s never actually been in a fight like this, because the last time we spoke, you talked about how basically your practices are fights.

Sean Brady: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Heather: So how do you even prepare for that going in for the first time?

Sean Brady: It’s hard, but it’s a sport at the end of the day. You’re not made of glass. If you get punched in the face, it’s… the worst, absolute worst thing that’s going to happen is you’re going to get knocked out and you’re not going to remember that anyway.

Heather: Good point.

Sean Brady: So, it is what it is. But, besides, rarely stuff breaks in your face or your jaw or anything like that, but you’re not made of glass. So, getting the, you can take punches and give them back and most people will be all right. So, you just got to get past that. And still, trust me, I get punched all the time and I’m like, “It hurts.” You get hit in your square and your nose, your eyes still water, we’re all still human. But you just learn how to deal with it.

Heather: And I think that’s what’s so fascinating to me about fighting is that not everyone can really relate. Like I can relate to running 26.2 miles or lifting really heavy weights. But I cannot… It’s hard to wrap my head-

Nick: Just that flesh-on-flesh contact.

Heather: … around, yeah, getting hit in the face.

Sean Brady: And that’s the thing too, a lot of people come in as athletes. And you can be a great athlete, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to be a great fighter. You just have to have that inside of you. You get punched in the face, you got to still keep going forward. You have to still keep fighting, because a lot of guys that get hit and they crumble.

I see great athletes will come in, they can run, they can jump, they can lift heavy, they can wrestle, they can, but they get punched in the face and then-

Heather: Game over.

Sean Brady: … they turn into a ghost. So, you gotta definitely have to get past that.

Nick: That fighter fitness is super hip now. But I imagine that’s when it all can get pretty real, pretty quickly. You see a few of those.

Sean Brady: Once you get punched. They’re not punching each other in the face in that. But we have the, yeah, we spar, we have all kinds of practices that get us ready for that. Even, especially the scariest thing for me is getting tired. Fatigue makes a coward of any man. If you’re tired, the best fighter in the world, if you’re tired, you’re going to get beat up. So, I think that’s why I train so hard. You’re always trying to get tired, no matter how good of shape you’re in, but you have to be able to recover and keep pushing forward.

Nick: So, who are some of the fighters that you’ve trained with that you feel like really gave you the most valuable lessons going forward? Whether that’s, not only what you could learn from them, but that getting humbled kind of lesson, too.

Sean Brady: “Cowboy” Cerrone, Donald Cerrone. Me and my teammates, Jonavin Webb, Paul Felder and another guy, Jared Gordon, they’re all in the UFC. We all went out to his ranch for three weeks. And just training with him and just realizing like, at the time, I think I was 1 and 0 as a pro. And he was just so good and like how high level he was. But he was so humble and training and he was just so nice and just like the lesson, like just like… just little stuff.

He’ll bring me out there and just teach you like kind of how to be a man. If you’re a kid that grew up without a dad, he’ll teach you how to change oil or change a tire or just being around… Just realizing that all fighters, no matter how high level, we’re just all people, we’re just normal people. Some of us are better at certain things than others and yeah, that’s it.

But like Paul Felder, I train with him every day. Jonavin Webb, he’s another one of my teammates and coaches. So, I’m surrounded by high-level guys all the time and yeah, we just push each other and just keep getting better. That’s all we can do.

Nick: When was the first time that you really had sparring or some other really intense training with the guy who was in the UFC who was a big step above you?

Sean Brady: Probably Cowboy. When I was an amateur, I did some training with higher-level guys, but they weren’t in the UFC. They were just pros. But sparring with Cowboy and I did good, I’d take him down, but he would get right back up. And grappling is kind of my thing and yeah, he’s just really good. And, at the time, I was still, I think only 22 years old.

Nick: Yeah. What did you feel like the big difference was when you were looking at him and looking at you at that point?

Sean Brady: Just his composure. Just being able to get taken down or whatever it was, a little bit of adversity and just act like it didn’t bother him. And just keep getting up and just keep going.

Sometimes you would think sparring with guys who are in the UFC are high-level guys will be harder. But sometimes it’s easier, because you’ll go with some amateur kids that don’t have any fights or low-level pros. But they’re only low level because when they get in the cage they can’t put it all together. Like I know some guys they could be world champions if they fought the way they fought in the gym inside of the cage. But people let the nerves and all that stuff really get to them. And they get scared and they can’t just can’t perform.

Nick: Sure. That’s every sport, man.

Sean Brady: Yeah.

Nick: That’s golf.

Sean Brady: That’s a huge thing I’ve learned, too, from my talking from Eddie or Cowboy or any of these guys. You’re always going to be nervous, because I deal with that a lot. Before fights, my heart would be racing. Like weeks before, I’d be going to bed, I’d be so scared. You’re not scared to fight, you’re scared to get embarrassed. You put all this hard work in. And same thing, like you go in, if you lose, you won’t get half your paycheck. So, I mean if you’re fighting for your livelihood, you’re only making half your money. You lose, you get embarrassed, well that’s how you feel. No one’s going to be mad at you if you lose, but you feel embarrassed. You put all this training and you put all this time in and then you lose. You feel like your whole world’s coming down. But talking to Eddie and Cowboy that like, “Man, we always get nervous. It’s normal if you don’t get nervous and you’re doing something wrong.”

Nick: Right. When did you feel like you started to be able to put that together finally? How many, how many fights in where you’re like, “You know what, I got the mindset, I got the prep down”?

Sean Brady: Just recently, like my last fight was the best I’ve ever felt before a fight. I was nervous before, but I just knew to turn those nerves into fuel. I don’t let them overwhelm me. You’re always going to be nervous, but you just can’t let it overcome you. So, yeah, you just got to go out there and we fight every day and we train every day in the gym to do this. It’s just we’re in a venue at a certain time against a certain opponent, and there’s people around. It’s still the same thing we do every day. So, yeah, just doing stuff like that.

Nick: Sure. Who are some of the fighters you feel like you’ve taken the most from? Not necessarily in terms of how they fight, but how they train.

Sean Brady: My teammate, Jonavin Webb, when I first met him, I think he was like 3 and 0, I was still an amateur. And he’s actually one of my coaches now, too. He was just killing it, training, everything he was doing he just pushed it to the limit. And I was like, “Man, that’s how I want to be.” And eventually now I’m that guy.

People look at me like, “I can’t believe how much you train.” But I love it. There’s nothing else I’d rather do.

My girlfriend asked me the day, she was like, “If you weren’t fighting, what’s your dream job?”

I was like, “This is it.” I wake up and I do what I love every day. Like there’s, there’s nothing else you could pay me $ 1 million to do something else, and I would still say no. If I can make money and live comfortably fighting, there’s nothing else I’d rather do in the world.

Nick: Have you ever been backstage at a UFC fight?

Sean Brady: Not backstage. I’ve only been to a few UFC fights. It’s, I really don’t like going to the UFC fights. Just being around fans who don’t really know anything. And it just kind of bothers me. They’re screaming at the fighters, they’re saying they’re saying moves that people aren’t even doing. And they’re acting like they’ve been in the fight and they probably never been in a fist fight in their life. I’ve been to a few, but yeah, I haven’t been to too many. Okay.

Nick: So, the CFFC crowd, you feel like they’re a little bit more plugged in?

Sean Brady: They’re a little bit better, because they’re closer to the fighter. So, a lot of people there are fighters. It’s a smaller venue. Local shows are the best, because there’s not a bad seat in the house. When you go to any big event, whether it’s basketball or wherever it is, you’re in those bleachers, you’re watching the little screen because you can’t even see it.

Nick: Right.

Sean Brady: So, local MMA’s the best if you really want to get like a really good fight experience.

Heather: So, speaking of what you were talking about with your pet peeves, with the audience not really knowing. What are some myths out there about fighting that just kind of drive you nuts that you’d like to just set the record straight on?

Sean Brady: I don’t know if there’s any myths.

Heather: Or misconceptions.

Sean Brady: To me grappling is the hardest part of fighting. You’ll be pushing the guy against the cage and it takes so much strength and energy to hold a guy against the cage. And we call it dirty boxing, so you’re fighting from the inside. And then like if you get a takedown, people just want to see people get knocked out and if you want to see that, watch boxing or go watch kickboxing. MMA is, it’s mixed martial arts. It’s boxing, Jujitsu, wrestling, Muay Thai, kickboxing, it’s everything put together. And guys, we’ll go to the ground and people will boo. And high-level Jujitsu guys would be doing some amazing stuff on the ground and people are booing, “Stand them up, stand them up.” That just bothers me.

Nick: Because they just want them to strike.

Sean Brady: Because they have no idea what they’re looking at. So, that bothers me. But there’s so many things, people who scream and say it’s just, they’re just uneducated. So, I try not to let it get to me too much. But yeah, just like that. The fans who want to say, “Stand them up, stand them up.” They just want to see people knocked out, go watch boxing, or go watch bare knuckle boxing.

It’s still a sport at the end of the day. It’s a fight. But Jujitsu is an art, it’s a martial art. Wrestling, it’s an art. So, you got to respect those guys and what they do. I put 10 years in on the mat to get my black belt in Jujitsu and it didn’t come easy. So, for people just to be ignorant like that, it just kind of bothers me.

Nick: Yeah. And watching the way you fight, you can definitely see the Jujitsu proficiency in there.

Heather: Oh, yeah.

Nick: Do you feel like you’ve really been tested as a striker? Are you going to get that more in the UFC?

Sean Brady: Yeah, I think I have amazing standup. I just haven’t got the chance to really-

Nick: Because your fights are too freaking short.

Sean Brady: I haven’t got the chance to show it yet. But I feel super comfortable anywhere I go in a flight. But if I had to pick anywhere, it probably be grappling and Jujitsu, that I feel the most comfortable with. But I fought high-level strikers. I’m 5’9, I tell people I’m 5’10, I’m short for my division. I’m always fighting guys 6’3, 6’2, but I make what I have work for me. I get inside. I usually take them down and I either submit them or ground and pound. I know my style and I know what I have to work with, so I make it work.

Nick: I saw you talking to another Gym2k.com athlete yesterday, Mahmoud Sebie, he’s a Greco-Roman wrestler.

Sean Brady: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick: He’s an Olympian. When you meet a guy like that who’s, you know, just so deep into another martial art, what do you try to learn from him? What do you talk about with a guy like that?

Sean Brady: Just like little tricks. We were moving around a little bit for one of the photo shoots and just like watching little things he does. He did these little fakes into takedowns, and just learn something. People try to learn too much. I just want to pick up one or two things that I can just add to my game. So, yeah, just talking to him and just picking up what I can from him. He’s starting to do Jujitsu, too, so I mean we can definitely trade some stuff off. So, hopefully in the future we get to work together and he can help me in my wrestling, and I can help him with his Jujitsu.

Nick: Yeah. For sure.

Heather: Absolutely.

Nick: So now you’re, you’re, what, like 12, 16 weeks away from potentially fighting here.

Sean Brady: Yeah.

Nick: Are you on the training path now? Got your nutrition and training kind of planned out?

Sean Brady: So, this is probably the best outside of camp, in shape I’ve ever been. Like I could fight tomorrow if I had to, I could fight next week if they …

Nick: You’re going to be in the airport without your entourage, you might have to fight just to get through that place, man.

Sean Brady: I might have to. Usually outside training camp, I always train hard but my nutrition wouldn’t be the best. But ever since my last fight, I’ve just kept my weight low. I’m 25 pounds over my fight weight, which is pretty low. A lot of guys, I know guys will go 40 pounds over their weight.

Nick: Oh gosh, that’s a big cut.

Sean Brady: I’m like 25 pounds over my weight. I’m in great shape. There’s always areas you can get better. So, about 8 weeks out is when I’ll start like really hard training. But I was telling someone the other day, everyone has a training camp, but my whole life is a training camp. So, 8 weeks would just be me getting my weight down pretty much. But I’m fight-ready pretty much all the time.

Nick: Do you feel like for your first UFC fight you’re going to approach cutting weight or anything differently?

Sean Brady: Well, actually, I’ll have my strength and conditioning coach do… We have to do oral IV now, because when you’re not in the UFC you could IV. So, that’s a big thing. But you can’t IV because they have it banned. So, we get to weigh in at 9:00 AM, which, if you get there way in that early, you really don’t need to IV. In like New Jersey or PA, they make you weigh in at one or at six. If you’re weighing in at 6:00 PM you’re fighting 6:00 PM the next day, you’re only getting one meal that night and then pretty much breakfast the next day you’re going to be all bloated. So, you don’t even get a chance to really rehydrate some, by the UFC letting us weigh in at 9:00 AM, I’ll have plenty of time and I’ll do like the oral rehydration, I’ll be good. So, that’s probably the only thing I’ll change.

People have asked me like, “Are you going to move training camps now that you’re in the UFC?” I going to do the same exact thing that got me to the UFC, is going to keep me there. I don’t have to leave my home. All you need is you need great coaches and a couple of really good training partners that can push each other. That’s all you need. You don’t need these big super gyms to go to. I’ve been to them, there’s no secrets. It’s just work hard. Have good coaches, have a good game plan and you’re going to win fights.

Heather: Yeah, it got you here, so.

Sean Brady: So, yeah, I’m staying home, I’m going to do my training camp at home. I might work with some different people depending on who my opponent is, but that’s it. Nothing changes.

Nick: Do you, I mean, without asking anything specifically, do you feel like you kind of have your version of your opponent in your mind? Like who you would want it to be even?

Sean Brady: Anyone with a name. I’m going in the UFC to fight the best people in the world. I don’t want to dance around and pick a guy here, pick a guy there who I know I can. I want to go test myself against the best in the world. Because if I can’t beat them then I shouldn’t be there. I know I’m one of the best in the world and I just want to prove it to people. So, the bigger the name, the better.

Nick: Cool. So, did you reward yourself at all when you got your contract? Like, “Hey, I’m going to get some new ink.”

Sean Brady: I have my whole back tattooed.

Nick: Yes, that’s right, that’s right, Kailan our editor, she-

Heather: I was supposed to ask you about that.

Nick: … she wanted to ask about, what is that terrifying fricking tattoo you’re working on back there?

Sean Brady: It’s a Japanese hunting mask.

Heather: That’s… Okay, yes.

Sean Brady: So, I’m doing that. We’re doing like a whole background. I’m going to go down and have some tigers and dragons and all kinds of stuff.

Heather: Just completely covered. I mean, this arm’s bare.

Sean Brady: Yeah, this one’s bare. I got, I’ve been getting this done. I got the back of my arm. I’ve just been getting as much work done as I can while I don’t have a fight. Whatever I like, I get it. There’s some meaning behind some of them, but I just like getting tattooed. I want to be covered eventually. But yeah, I don’t have a fight right now so I’ll get a little bit more, and then I’ll stop. You can’t have tattoos when you’re getting ready to train.

Nick: Yeah, that make sometimes sense.

Heather: No, no.

Nick: Cool, well, Sean Brady thank you so much for coming and talking with us, man. Congratulations.

Sean Brady: Thank you so much.

Nick: We’re thrilled to have you here.

Heather Eastman: Yeah, very excited.

Nick: And we’ll be watching your journey.

Sean Brady: Appreciate it. Happy to be part of the team.

Nick: Absolutely. And how do people follow you aside from, just by in the UFC.

Sean Brady: “SeanbradyMMA” on Twitter and Instagram, that’s it.

Nick Collias: Cool. All right. Sean Brady, best of luck, my man.

Sean Brady: Thank you so much.

Kingmaker: 4 Weeks to Fighting Shape

Fitness legend Mike Rashid created the perfect plan to be ready for anything—and look the part. Everything he’s learned from competitive bodybuilding, powerlifting, boxing, and just hanging out in the most badass gyms in the world comes together in this incredible four-week gauntlet.

Downloadable PDF Transcript