Palomino's Comeback: A Year Since BKFC Title Defense

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00:00By the way, it's Palomino versus Howard H.D. Davis,

00:02lightweight, and this one stacks from top to bottom.

00:05You got plenty of other great fights as well.

00:07You got Perdomo against Harrellius at heavyweight.

00:08You got Ibarrola and Velasquez there fighting

00:11at bantamweight, maybe even a title eliminator there.

00:13But as we said, two of the best,

00:15two guys who are constantly in the title picture.

00:16One that held on to titles for a long time to beat KFC,

00:19and that is Luis Palomino, who we bring on right now.

00:22Baboon is joining us again.

00:23Luis, it's been a long time since we saw you,

00:26since that fight against Trout last year.

00:29I know you had some injuries coming out of that,

00:31but was that what's kept you out almost a year now,

00:33or was there other things?

00:34Was it just not being able to fight fighters

00:36that want to step up against a guy

00:37who's one of the best ever doing to beat KFC?

00:40What's been the holds up

00:41and getting you back in the squared circle?

00:43Well, first of all, man, thank you for having me.

00:45And yeah, it's been quite way too long,

00:48and no injuries, no injuries at all.

00:50I've just been waiting.

00:51I've been waiting and asking, having my hand raised,

00:53waiting for my rematch, waiting for everything.

00:55But talking about the Ashton Trout fight,

00:59I fought at 165 only for the simple reason

01:01that there was nothing else left for me at 155.

01:04I went up to 165 to make more money,

01:06to get bigger challenges, and I got the Trout fight.

01:09I didn't get my weight, it didn't go my way that night.

01:13And I waited a whole entire year for that rematch

01:16at a weight class I don't belong in.

01:17I just truly do not belong in 165.

01:19I can barely hang on to the weight.

01:21It cost me to keep on to that weight,

01:24power lifting, to eating the way I was eating.

01:26So I'm back to my natural habitat here,

01:28you know, at 155, walk around 170 pounds light, easy.

01:32I have my head coach, Maha, right here with me.

01:34And Coach Mateo, even though he doesn't like to be

01:37called a coach, he's a businessman,

01:39but he's the one that put me on to Coach Maha.

01:42And, you know, we're ready to go.

01:43We made a lot of changes in this camp.

01:47Made a lot of changes in this camp.

01:48You know, I don't make the same mistake twice.

01:50You know what I mean?

01:51So I had to make rearrangements.

01:53I had to get a big team behind me, a real team.

01:57And that's what I did.

01:58I went after it.

01:58I got in contact with Mateo.

01:59Mateo took me in as one of his own.

02:01And he said, you know what, man, you know,

02:03I can do things for you,

02:04but nothing like what my coach can do for you.

02:07So this is Coach Maha, this is Mateo's coach.

02:10And this is the reason why I have him all night though,

02:11because this is my team now.

02:12I want everybody to know what's going on.

02:14What with the boxer family,

02:16we're only champions come out of.

02:18Tell us about that.

02:19Tell us about the change and, you know,

02:20your mindset here and the training.

02:22I mean, obviously, you know,

02:23what you had was working for a long time

02:25before that child fight, undefeated,

02:26double champion, the BKFC,

02:28no one can beat you until, you know,

02:30no one really can say, you know,

02:31they beat you, beat you.

02:33Obviously it was a decision.

02:34That's it, you know, it's a close fight.

02:35That can go either way.

02:36But what made you want to make the big change

02:38and, you know, build a team that you have built

02:40now around you?

02:41Well, you know, there's,

02:43I attracted a lot of people to my old gym

02:45and never going to point no fingers at nobody

02:46or anything like that.

02:47You know, there was a point in time

02:49that I didn't feel like I was improving anymore

02:52for quite a little time.

02:53And people were coming in

02:54where my attention was going elsewhere.

02:57You know, it was part of the reason

02:58why I was so cold in the trial fight

03:00where, you know, my trainer was downstairs.

03:02I only had one trainer, you know,

03:03and I was upstairs alone, cold.

03:05If you look at the fight,

03:06I didn't break a sweat to the fourth round.

03:08And you don't have to make any excuses,

03:09it's just facts are facts.

03:10So, you know, I needed to evolve.

03:13I needed to come out of my comfort zone.

03:15You know, when you were in a place for long enough,

03:16people respect you a little too much.

03:18Even your teammates were respected too much.

03:19Even your coach was respected a little too much.

03:21And, you know, they'll keep you

03:22in that comfort zone sometimes.

03:24So I had to like, you know,

03:25one of the biggest things that I have

03:27that makes me who I am is I adapt, you know,

03:29and I adapt to circumstances.

03:31So I needed to put myself in a different environment

03:33where I'm being challenged.

03:35And that's when I got together with Mateo.

03:36Mateo put me on to Coach Maja

03:38and it's been none but growth from there.

03:40All I've done is improve.

03:42Another thing is the personality of fighting, right?

03:44I'm an animal.

03:45I've always been known from the cagey fights

03:47and everything in the past for war,

03:50looking for like head hunting, looking for knockouts.

03:52But I was holding a perfect record in BKFC.

03:56You know, as you mentioned,

03:57nobody in BKFC has defended a title six times.

04:00I defended it six times successfully.

04:02I'm the only eight-time world champion in BKFC history.

04:05You know what I mean?

04:06So, you know, I was protecting that,

04:09oh, kind of like protecting that virginity.

04:11Well, it got popped.

04:13You know what I mean?

04:13So that other side of me, that animal had to be reborn.

04:16And that's where Coach Maja and Mateo came in

04:18where, you know, they brought that aggression back out of me

04:21but under a crazy control, like controlled chaos.

04:25You know, that's where we are right now.

04:28Yeah, so basically, you know,

04:29through the time that Luis Palomino's been here at Boxer,

04:32you know, just to give you guys a little insight,

04:35here at Boxer, we have, you know,

04:36multiple world champions that come out of here,

04:39like David Benavides recently just did

04:41his last two camps here,

04:43Guillermo Rigandal.

04:46There's a list of boxers and world champions

04:49that come out of this gym.

04:50And just adding Maja to the team, you know,

04:52he was one of my coaches back when I was getting ready

04:55for the amateur world championships

04:57as I come from a boxing background.

04:59And he's, you know, the pedigree of fighters

05:01that comes from Russia out of the USSR

05:03is on a different level.

05:05So being able to bring a quality coach into this

05:07to work with Baboon,

05:09it's just taking him to a whole nother level

05:11just because of the experience that this man

05:13has got to give to Baboon strategically,

05:16not just on the training side,

05:18but more as on the mental side

05:20to be able to get him adapted in the ring

05:22to universal different styles.

05:24And that's what it's about.

05:26That's what it takes to become a world champion.

05:28It just comes down to being able to, you know,

05:30go against any style that's in front of you.

05:32And that's what he's given Baboon.

05:33He's given him a sense of understanding,

05:35whether it's a Southpaw, whether it's a tall guy,

05:37whether it's a small guy, a big guy, you name it,

05:40he's gonna be able to adapt very quickly

05:41within the early rounds,

05:43and he'll be able to dominate with, you know, a knockout.

05:46And that's what he's aiming for for this fight.

05:48He wants to come back on a level of the element of surprise

05:53and to basically be that guy in BKFC

05:55that can just dominate

05:57and just shake the combat sports world up.

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