And now I figured, hey, after I'm done fighting, I'm going to try to pursue pro wrestling. Well, now I don't have to deal with all that. It's a package deal so I've got the best of both worlds and I'm glad I took this. Man, I'm just - I'm happy to be here, you know, so I don't know man.
Fred Richani: And there any health concerns. Obviously they touched on spreading yourself too thing but obviously your heart's in the right place and mentally you're ready for this but pro wrestling is certainly a tough business as is MMA. What adjustments do you feel like you're going to have to make in order to get acquainted to your new career move?
King Mo: Just focusing on more recovery, do more ice baths and stuff just like (my wrestling) in college. In college we wrestled every week and every weekend - and I know it's a lot different but I'm going to focus more on recovery and do more ice baths, probably get more massages and stuff like that and find a way to stay fresh because it's going to be hard but I'm going to try my best to make it easy.
Fred Richani: and as far as the tournament format, as you once said on this conference call, you were all for going to the tournament but there're a lot of guys, a lot of veterans, that have said that they're not really a fan of it. What's your response to them considering you're (for it), you know, you've been through a lot of injuries and everything and you've overcome it and you're willing to go through the tournament in order win that $100,000 and get that gold.
King Mo: Well, there's the thing - there're two things. I like to fight, I like to stay busy. And, you know, that's the true way to figure out who gets the title shot. And then the other way, you know, the second thing is, you know, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to have this fight one time and I look good and then say that forget everybody else. King Mo gets a title shot?
You know, that's not - that's entertainment. It's not a true sport. MMA - everybody wants to talk about MMA being a sport, but the way some people do it in other organizations it's more like entertainment. The best way to figure out how deserves the title shot is to have a tournament.
And I think that's - I'm willing to prove that I deserve a title shot by winning the tournament. So I figure this is the best way to do it.
Fred Richani: Great. Well, thanks so much and best of luck.
Operator: We'll go next to Peter Lampasona with Thefightnerd.com.
Peter Lampasona: Hello. Two questions for Bjorn, two ways of sort of looking at the same thing. First off, you mentioned to me before how you keep to the tournament format because you like how it represents the purity in matchmaking. At the same time, when you have an athlete like Mo who would also be involved in professional wrestling, do you ever get worried that there might be some snickers amongst the fans, some association that this may be a work?
Bjorn Rebney: No, I don't think so Peter. I mean, you and I have talked about it in the past. I've got way too much faith in the MMA fan base. You know, I've been living around them and sitting drinking cheap beer and eating pizza with them since I saw (Hoise Gracy) fighting in (Agee).
And I know who they are and I don't think that there will be - I think that, you know, the spectacular fans on MMA and Spike for many years are more than able to be able to differentiate and to be able to understand that one is one and the other is the other and that there's going to be one guy named King Mo bouncing from one to the other but it doesn't mean that they've become intermingled as Kevin was saying and it means that they've become promoted and they become marketed.
They've got the amazing power of Spike Network behind them, but you can do two different things. I mean, you know, look, when Bo Jackson played baseball, he never tackled anybody. And nobody called that out as an oddity or something unusual. Nobody ever said, "You know, why aren't you tackling anyone," because they're two different arenas.
And that's what you're going to see with Mo. He's going to be participating in elite world class level in two different arenas. I don't think it - you know, I've got a lot of trust in our fan base. I've got a lot of trust in MMA fans because I've been one of them for a long time and I think they'll be completely comfortable with it.
Peter Lampasona: Okay, and the other question, sort of looking at the positive side of this, one big issue with the tournament format has been sort of keeping the momentum behind athletes who have just, you know, they've put on a good showing, they're in the news, they're in the media and then it's hard to get them right back out there with the whole tournament format, at least after the tournament's over and someone wins the title.
Is cross promotion like this? You mentioned that also doing pro wrestling might not be for everyone but this kind of venue of getting your fighters to do something else that's in the limelight. Do you think that would be a good way to sort of keep the momentum going, keep them in the spotlight after something amazing happens?
Kevin Sullivan: Well, Peter, it's sure one of them but as you saw in terms of kind of how Spike built out the mixed martial arts space, one of the things that made guys like you and I watch Spike Network was that you could tune in and you could watch live fights, you could watch a great reality series, you could watch best of greatest moment stories behind the fighters on a consistent basis.
So as we make that transition to Spike in the next six months, what you're going to see is you're going to see a (Bertran Van Moser) produced reality show. And you're going to see... (Continues on next page)
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