 On a recent hot Wednesday afternoon, I took the fifteen-minute drive from my residence to one of the top mixed martial arts training center’s in the world, American Kickboxing Academy. I made my way to the ring where Trevor was preparing to begin his training for the day with a couple of rounds sparring with Jerry Zimmerman (an up and coming amateur boxer who has a wicked body shot) and Jon Fitch. While observing them, Eugene Jackson arrived. He is a familiar face in the gym that has come down from Palo Alto to help Trevor train for his fight as many of the other fighters from AKA are in Las Vegas for Ultimate Fight Night. We began to talk about MMA when a couple more well know fighters wandered in to begin their own training, among them, Paul Buentello, Bobby Southworth and Mike Van Arsdale. Trevor began sparring with Jerry and looked very impressive with his striking, and it became obvious he has been working hard to improve this area of his game. He finished with Jerry and took a small break before resuming with Jon Fitch for two rounds. Trevor seemed to be confident with his striking and looked great here too. Once they were done, there was time only for a quick breather before they began working on Trevor’s ground game with a couple rounds of grapplingTrevor went a few rounds with Jon Fitch and Eugene Jackson on the mat, while in the ring Bobby Southworth and Paul Buentello began to spar in preparation for Paul’s fight against Andrei Arlovski at UFC 55. Trevor has been working harder than usual on his ground game for this fight, as his original opponent, David Terrell, is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. His new opponent, Travis Lutter, is also a black belt so his extra work early on will not be wasted. After some hard grappling, it was time to call it day. Well, not quite. After Trevor gets some much-needed rest, he will return to the gym later in the day to continue with his preparation.
 It has been a long and hard road for Trevor from his humble beginnings as a wrestler to the present day as a UFC fighter. As with most MMA fighters, Trevor doesn’t make much money fighting, but he simply does it because of his love for competition and for love of the sport.
Kakutougi: What are your feelings towards your new opponent?
Trevor: I’m a little disappointed that David had to pull out of the fight but Travis is still a tough opponent for me and a different type of fighter than David is. Both of them are great ground fighters, but David is more explosive on the ground, while Travis is more methodical there, and less complicated on the feet than David is.
Kakutougi: Both Terrell and Lutter are Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belts, have you been working on your ground game more than usual?
Trevor: I have been working more on my ground game than usual, but I have been concentrating more on my submission defense than my overall ground game.
Kakutougi: Earlier this year, you were scheduled to fight Ivan Salaverry at UFC 52, but you suffered a loss in your native South Africa and were replaced on the card by Joe Riggs. What are your feelings about that?
Trevor: I have no hard feelings about being replaced as it’s basically an unwritten rule that if you lose before an upcoming UFC fight, you more than likely will be replaced. When I fought in South Africa, it was only on three weeks notice and I took the fight as heavyweight because I wanted to go down there and see my family. I didn’t train as hard as I usually do and I didn’t really take my opponent that seriously like I should of. When I arrived in South Africa, I was more in a vacation mode then an actual fight mode as I was happy to see my family again.
 As for the fight itself, I came in at 200lbs and he was at 228lbs. I was basically beating the crap out of him for two and a half rounds before I started to gas out and decided to ride the rest of the fight out until the end. But, I took him lightly and I was caught in a inverted triangle choke, which basically gave me the loss. The one thing that I learned from that fight is never to take any opponent lightly and I will never make that same mistake again. Everything worked out fine for me though, because I’m back in the UFC.
Kakutougi: How did you start training at American Kickboxing Academy, and do you still stay in touch with the Lion’s Den?
Trevor: Josh Thomson trained with me in Idaho, where I live and have my own gym, and he invited me to come down and train with the guys at AKA in preparation for the IFC: Global Domination tournament. I have my Lion’s Den gym up in Idaho but I associate myself with American Kickboxing Academy because these guys are the ones that help me train when I have a fight, so they basically deserve all the credit.
Kakutougi: Where do you see yourself in this sport in a year’s time?
Trevor: Well, I take every fight one at a time, and hopefully I can still find the same success that I have already had. The middleweight division in the UFC is a stacked division with lots of great fighters and I hope to get a chance to fight some of them in the future.
 Kakutougi: How did you get interested in becoming a MMA fighter in the first place?
Trevor: I wrestled in college, and once I was done with that I started to do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to stay in shape. But I didn’t get really interested in becoming a fighter until I started to go to Guy Mezger’s Lion’s Den in Dallas, which was around 1996 or 1997. Though there weren’t very many fights in the sport back in that day, so I just trained a lot.
Kakutougi: As you mentioned, you fought in IFC: Global Domination a couple of years ago. How did you prepare yourself to possibly have 3 fights in one night, and what are your thoughts on your fight with Babalu?
Trevor: I would spar 2 to 3 times a day with the guys at AKA, and I worked a lot on my cardio, also trying to get the best recovery time that I could get. Babalu is a really good fighter and really strong; he beat me pretty good in that fight.
Kakutougi: How do you mentally prepare yourself for a fight?
 Trevor: I pray a lot that I have a good fight and that neither fighter gets hurt as I have no grudge towards any fighter, and hope that we both come out safe and healthy. As long as I fight with everything that I’ve got and leave everything in the ring, I have no regrets because I did my best in the fight, win or lose.
Kakutougi: Thanks for the interview and your time. We’d like to wish you the best of luck with your fight against Travis Lutter at UFC 54.
Trevor: Thank you, and your welcome.
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