Ola Akande: What’s happening? Fight week Show fans. What’s happening,
people? Thank you so much for joining us today. We have here today Mr. Aaron
Jeffrey. How are you doing, my brother?

Aaron Jeffery: I’m good, man. How are you?

Ola Akande: Yeah, man, I’m good, man. Thank you so much for joining
us. Thank you so much for coming on the Fight Week Show. We really appreciate
your presence on the show.

You’re a professional fighter,
signed to Bellator with a thirteen
and three record, nine by KO, one sub, and three decisions. I think I got all
of those right?

Aaron Jeffery: I think you got it all right.

Ola Akande: Let me ask you first, because
we’ve had Pablito on this show
before, what’s the thinking behind your mullet, your hairstyle with a mustache?
This is a big hairstyle you got going on here. What’s the thinking behind it?

Aaron Jeffery: Honestly, man, there’s not a
whole lot of thinking behind it. I was growing my hair out a while ago. I like
having long hair, but it just keeps getting your face when you’re training,
right. You’re brushing it out of your eyes. You’re getting punched in the face.
So it’s kind of annoying. So I decided I’ll just cut the top off and leave the
back or grow a mullet. That’ll be funny for a bit. And then I had my first
fight and it was like all everyone was talking about the commentary, loved it.
Twitter and Instagram, everyone loved it. So I just kept it and now it’s a
whole thing. So I guess I can’t cut it anymore.

Ola Akande: What’s your experience been
like fighting at a promotion like Bellator?

Aaron Jeffery: It’s been amazing, man.
They’re very good to me, the shows. They’re run very smoothly. Everything’s
very professional. You know where you got to be at what time. There’s no
miscommunications there’s just like not really any errors at all. Everything
runs very smoothly. It’s a well oiled machine, like you said. It’s one of the
top promotions in the world. There’s a lot of eyes on it. So, yeah, it’s been
nothing but good times so far.

Ola Akande: Your ranks, you just got your
rankings, I saw on your post. Congratulations on that. Ranked number six in
your division. How does that feel knowing that you’re potentially two fights
away from being in the number one contender spot, maybe even a fight, if the
circumstances were right in the division? How does that feel for you?

Aaron Jeffery: It’s pretty sweet, man. I’ve
been working my whole career for this, right. To get a title shot in a big
organization, to even get in a big organization. It all just happened for me
within the last few months. So to finally get my name out there and get some
recognition is really nice.

Ola Akande: Even though you’re in a big
organization like Bellator, do you have aspirations to maybe one day venture
into the UFC and see what the fighters in
that division have to offer? We’ve seen fighters like Michael Chandler come
over from Bellator and switch over to the UFC and fighting the top guys over
there. Do you have those kinds of aspirations?

Aaron Jeffery: Yeah, man. And possibly I
really like what Chandler did with his career. Made a name for himself in
Bellator, grew a following and grew a big fan base and then went over and then
obviously the money was right for him at that point. Right. Like something’s
coming into the UFC with no name, they’re not going to give you any money.
They’re going to give you a shit contract and not pay you very much. So yeah,
to go the Chandler route, make a big name for yourself, and then hopefully get
a big contract in the UFC and hop right into the top ten is definitely a good
career move. All this stuff is way down the road for me right now, though. I
just signed a new contract with Bellator. I got six fights left right now, so I
got some fighting to do on here.

Ola Akande: You’ve been a professional
MMA artist for over eight years. Do you still get anxious before fights? Do you
have, like, rituals and stuff that you do before you get before you get into
the into the cage and do what you do?

Aaron Jeffery: Yeah, I definitely still get
anxious. I think all guys do, man. I don’t know. Either you’re crazy or dumb if
you’re not getting nervous at all before your fights. Or maybe you just don’t
value the outcome enough. But no, I definitely do and I think most guys do. As
far as ritual goes, not much really, man. I like to keep a chill in the back,
like with my corners, my friends, whoever’s there, just kind of shoot the shit,
have fun, joke around, obviously, when you have to. There’s a time to be
serious when you’re ready to walk out and stuff. But no, I try and keep it
similar to like, a training day. Just kind of have fun with it and stay chill.

Ola Akande: You’re enjoying a three fight
win streak at the moment. What does it do in terms of helping you build
confidence going into a fight? Is it something you worry about losing that
streak, or is it something that you just don’t care whether it happens or not? One
way or the other, you just going to go out there copper mentalize it and
whatever happens?

Aaron Jeffery: Yeah, that’s what you got to
do, man. You can’t be thinking about the outcome, thinking about what comes
next, think about my ranking, think about my win streak, any of this shit. You
just got to go out there and fight, man. I think I’m pretty good at that. Like
I said, I keep a chill beforehand, and when I make the walk and the door closes
and everything, there’s not really much going through my mind. I’m not thinking
about any of that. I fought a bunch during COVID I fought in the Apex couple of
times, contender
series, like, with no audience and people asking what’s it like with no
audience versus an audience, and honestly, I don’t know. I don’t notice
anything. I’m just in there fighting, and there’s not really anything else on
my mind.

Ola Akande: You have links to coach,
Henry Hooft from Sanford, MMA, and their gym produces top level fighters. What
is it like just working with these top level guys that you see as your peers in
an environment like that? What’s that experience like?

Aaron Jeffery: It’s amazing, man. The team
down there at Kill Cliff is amazing. The
facility they have, the coaches they have the amount of guys in the room at a
high level, like UFC, Bellator, One FC
guys that are in the room is crazy. And it’s run a lot different from any team
I’ve ever been with before. They run it like a professional sports team. So the
gym, they don’t have recreational classes. They don’t have guys coming in just
to learn jujitsu. Like some guy that works at nine to five and he just wants to
have fun and do it as a hobby. It’s all professional athletes. They have two
practices a day. And so, yeah, it’s just a different environment. Guys are
hardworking, everyone’s skilled, but it was also super welcoming. Like, they
took me in. I feel like I’m a part of the team, and it’s like a second home for
me now, so I enjoyed it a lot down there.

Ola Akande: I want to wish you
condolences on your friend’s passing. Mr. Elias Theodorou,
who passed away recently from some health issues. How much of a supportive
influence was he?

Aaron Jeffery: Yeah, man. I honestly don’t
think I would be where I’m at in my career if it wasn’t for him. We met, I
think, right after he won The
Ultimate Fighter, and I had only had one or two pro fights at the time, so
I was kind of modeling my career after him. He kind of took me under his wing.
He took me out to TriStar. I trained
there with him. That was, like, my first experience, with a big high-level gym.
And he was way more experienced than me at the time. He beat the shit out of me
for many years. Only within the last couple of years that I started to give him
some good battles in the gym. But no, he was helpful the whole way through,
man. Needs, like, business advice, fight advice, and life advice. He was like
an older brother to me. He helped me a lot.

Ola Akande: May his soul rest in peace
and condolences to his family, his loved ones, and his friends like yourself.
It’s a shock to everybody that heard about the news. And I can see from the post
that you guys made, we reported on our channel as well. You seem to have a good
send-off. You guys giving very good send-off. We saw on the post there.

Before we get you out of here, I know your time is so valuable. Is there
anybody you’d like to thank? Your coaches, gym sponsors, and any merch that you
got that you’d like to plug, please? The floor is yours.

Aaron Jeffery: Yeah, you know what, just
tying these two last points together, this is something this idea just came to
me recently. This is something I’m working on right now. You know the charity Movember? The men’s health charity? And you
mentioned my shirts before. It’s got like my face with the mold and the
mustache on it. I’m going to put together some shirts. I don’t know exactly
what the design is going to be. It’s going to have the mold of the mustache.
But I’m going to do kind of a Movember thing with it and donate the proceeds to
one of Elias’s charities.

Ola Akande: We would love to put that
over here as well. We would love to support that.

Aaron Jeffery: Thanks, man. Yeah, I’m going
to get that ball rolling soon and make a post on that in the next couple of
days.

Ola Akande: Yeah, please tag or even send
me a private message for sure. The links and how to support it. And we’re going
to do a bit for that over here. Thank you so much for coming through. We really
appreciate your time. You’ve been awesome. And hopefully we can bring you back
on the show in the future.