ThaFormula.com - Now like most MMA fighters in the U.S. you started as a wrestler and you were also majoring in criminal justice, what exactly was your main reason and motivation for becoming a MMA fighter?

Jens "Little Evil" Pulver - For me, I always dreamt of being a professional boxer. Growing up I used to just watch boxing and I remember seeing Chavez and how guys like that could hit the body and Meldrick Taylor and people like that. I was just blown away by the sport. At the time, I had always wrestled and I always felt for some reason with my wrestling, I would lose to guys and be like "damn if only we could punch or something, things would be a little different." So it's always been kind of inside me that I was always looking for a sport like this. In college I really didn't take it seriously until I was done and had gotten a job working at a high school. I was gonna be the head wrestling coach and I wanted to keep training. I knew my wrestling was over. I was never one of the best wrestlers out there and I knew I was small. So to make that team and be one of the elite, I mean your looking at the entire country and there are maybe 13 spots and only 4 for my weight class. But I wasn't done training and that's when I decided that I wanted to give MMA a shot. I want to go into Ultimate fighting and I want to see if I got what it takes. Because to me it's got the boxing which I have always loved and I could still use my wrestling. So it was more like boxing with training wheels. I could just go out there, work on my hands so I could take somebody down and pound them. That's really why I got into it. I trained all my life. It's really all I ever knew. I just didn't want that to end so I wanted to take a crack at MMA.

thaFormula.com - So how exactly did you find out about MMA, was it the UFC that got you into it?

Jens "Little Evil" Pulver - Absolutely. I knew what it was and I've seen wrestlers coming into it like Dan Severn and I've seen bigger wrestlers like Mark Coleman and other guys like Randy Couture. I remember a long time ago he was an assistant coach at Oregon State and I remember seeing him back then and then to see him in the UFC, I started realizing that there were a lot of wrestlers going into it. So it gave me the hope like "yeah this is something I want to do." But at the time people used to tell me "well the only way you will ever get to do it is to fight at 170" and I used to tell them "no I'll stay and 155 and I'll just be so damn exciting that they will bring the weight class in." So it was never an option to go up in weight. This is what I wanted to do and I wanted to fight at 155. So I started to just pound away, looking for people who knew about it and doing whatever I had to do to try it out.

thaFormula.com - Do you think that guys like Couture, Coleman, Kerr and other wrestlers coming in and showing that BJJ fighters could be beat influenced a lot of wrestlers in deciding on entering the UFC?

Jens "Little Evil" Pulver - Yeah it wasn't that it was Brazilian Ju Jitsu. In the beginning it was all martial arts. It was about what belt do you have, but wrestlers don't get belts. We don't consider ourselves martial artists. Wrestling was never considered a martial art. So to see these wrestlers come in there with the success that they had, it definitely let me know that you don't have to be a karate guy or Jiu Jitsu, or Nin Jitsu or whatever. You could just be a basic wrestler and you could just go in there and hold your own. So I knew wrestling was a real good point in dictating where the fight goes. I had been watching the UFC and seeing people live it out and I said "I wanna take a shot a this." I know that I got no fear of being punched, I've got no fear of training and I believed in what I had for a good base. I was ready to fight anybody and learn as I go.

thaFormula.com - My brother was a wrestler back then and I remember watching the first UFC with my brother and him telling me how he felt a good wrestler could come in there and tear it up, do you think that was what a lot of wrestlers were also thinking back then?

Jens "Little Evil" Pulver - Well that and the fact that it's such a small window. I mean basically you make the Olympic team or the National team or you might have a coaching job, but really what is there to keep wrestling going? There were no professional teams to make, there were no ranks to go up like where you get to make a team and wrestle professionally for the rest of your life. That was such a rarity and such a small window but there was plenty of guys out there that still wanted to keep wrestling that were good wrestlers, great wrestlers at one point but just wasn't at that top level or the Olympics wasn't something that they were about and I think that's what really pushed them into coming into this because they succeeded. So of course Randy Couture and Mark Coleman opened up the door. Seeing these guys do it like Pat Militech coming from a wrestling background and then watching how he learned everything else, it's the way it is, you've got to start evolving. I think a lot of wrestlers said "this is how I can keep training, this is how I could make money, this is the way to go to keep my activity level high."

thaFormula.com - I'm sure it must get pretty depressing to know you are still a good wrestler but the only options are maybe coaching or just giving it all up…

Jens "Little Evil" Pulver - Yeah and I was forced into you know what, I'm gonna go into boxing. The one thing I have noticed though is you do see great wrestlers come out sometimes and they don't do as well as the other guy. It doesn't necessarily mean they are gonna do great. You see gold medallists come out and they lose because the reality is, there is so much more to MMA than just wrestling. What if you don't like getting punched? Your gonna shoot from a distance and now you've just been knocked down to a high school level wrestler. I knew for me, I would walk in there and set it up right. That's the other thing I learned from Randy Couture especially, he didn't have fear of being punched. He knew to battle and he battled his way in to get those takedowns and he did it correctly and he did that dirty boxing. Grab the head, hook the head, snap the people down, stay inside, tie up with them, beat them up inside and then shoot in on the legs. So that's the one thing I realized, that your set up now is gonna be your punches and your kicks. If you wanna have effective takedowns then that's gonna help you or if you want to keep it standing that's gonna help you. I think once I seen that, I realized there was a lot to this sport and this is definitely my calling. This is something that I wanna do because I have no fear of being punched. I will work my way in and shoot correctly. I'm not afraid. You see some guys out there and they are flinching and ducking and diving, anything to avoid getting hit. Back in the beginning I remember I used to shoot all the time, but I would punch my way in, press the body, take them down and then your right back where you wanted to be..

thaFormula.com - For someone like yourself that started way back then, how did you go about training for MMA seeing as how there was no real actual MMA training gyms like the ones today?

Jens "Little Evil" Pulver - It was pretty funny because they still have the heavy bag hanging in the wrestling room and I started working there. I remember going over to Caldwell Garcia's Boxing and Rudy was working with me with my hands and of course I loved boxing so I learned the best I could. I also had the smarts to realize that wrestling is not gonna be the only answer, you've got to become well rounded, you've got to learn. Once I made that decision to get out there and fight, I listened to people who they seemed credible to me but I still stayed wrestling based. I remember people would try to come in and teach this or teach that and we'd be like "yeah whatever." I didn't really pay much attention to them, I stayed wrestling but then I met up with Lowell Anderson and I saw his skills. Basically you had to kick my butt because that was the only way I was gonna listen to you or even think about learning something and that was a rare event, but when I met him I just stuck to him like glue and started to learn from him to get that career started.

thaFormula.com - And that career really got started with the Bas Rutten invitational right?

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