PRO MMA (http://promma.info) had the great privelage of speaking extensively to Frank “Twinkle Toes” Trigg (18-6)  last night about his upcoming fight at XCF: RUMBLE IN RACE TOWN which takes place this Saturday night, February 14 (Valentine’s Day), 2009, in Daytona, Florida.

The event is being held on the eve of the 51st running of the Daytona 500. MMA fans and NASCAR fans will have a chance to mingle as these two sports intertwine for the very first time. NASCAR drivers and owners will be sitting cage side as the fights go down and many of the MMA fighters, families, and fans will be staying to take in the race on Sunday.

Frank Trigg will be headlining ‘RUMBLE IN RACE TOWN’ as he fights to maintain his top ten middleweight status. He will be providing the opportunity of a lifetime for his opponent who would gain instant notoriety if  he were victorious.

Originally slated to fight at World Victory Road in January, Trigg was deep in training camp when that fight fell though. In order to complete new goals of activity he and his manger had set for 2009, Trigg had to find a fight during the first quarter of the year. One thing led to another, making the most sense of the shortest notice, and Trigg finds himself in Daytona this weekend ready to entertain fans and give his wife a lovely Valentine’s Day present: a win for the Trigg family. 

PRO MMA: You are fighting Danny Babcock on February 14th. Have you had a chance to watch any tape on him?
TRIGG: I’ve seen a little bit of tape on him, not that much, just because there’s really not that much out there. A buddy of mine down in Florida had a tape of one of his fights, it kind of worked out in my favor because I got to see one of his more recent fights as well.

PRO MMA: I guess he was the RFC Middleweight Champions is that right?
TRIGG: Yep, that is correct.

PRO MMA: With him not really having anything to lose in this fight and you kind of having everything to lose, why was this the right fight for you at this point in your career?
TRIGG: Well, we were having hard time finding fights to be honest with you. Not many people are really calling me to come fight, with the economy dropping off the way it is and how stuff is going, it’s kind of like we had to find a different spot. Really I think it’s a great concept of trying to get the largest spectator-watched sport in America with NASCAR, the 125,000-150,000 fans for 36 weeks in a row, starting February 15th, throughout the country. It makes sense when you have huge sponsors like a Tide, like a UPS, like a Nextel, Sprint,like an AT&T, when you have these huge sponsors out there following these guys around, why shouldn’t the newest sport on the planet, MMA, get a little taste of that. To me it was just a perfect deal. I brokered a deal as well where TRIGGONOMICS is the only clothing sponsor for the next three events. Dyna-Pep is the other major sponsor of it so for me it kind of works out. We thought we were going to fight January 4th for World Victory Road, they kept telling us we were going to fight for them and then it was time to get the deal done and all of a sudden they balked and nothing happened and I was in a training camp and really wanted to have a fight in February and this year I wanted to fight four times and if you want to fight four times, that’s once every quarter, that’s once every three months, and you can’t do it if all the sudden it’s March and you haven’t fought yet. You can’t do it if all the sudden it’s April and you haven’t fought yet. My manager Rico and I sat down and decided we had a goal to try and get four fights this year, just to push ourselves out and do it and to do that we had to get something in this first quarter. It just kind of worked out with Bland Sports and Jeff Bland where now I get to be part of Nascar, something I’ve never been around I get to take a peek at it and see how it works.

PRO MMA: So you think we may see a TRIGGONOMICS sponsored race car coming up?
TRIGG: You know, if I could get it done in a cost effective way where it would create me an income, create more sales for the company, I would definitely have a TRIGGONOMICS car out there, a hundred percent. I’ve always thought NASCAR was a great advertising venue. It’s thirty-eight weeks, in your face, the most loyal fans, an easy way to get in front of people. Even if you have a horrible race you’re still going to have a bunch of fans. The cool thing about NASCAR fans that’s a little bit different than MMA fans is you can not win a race all season, but if you keep showing up each week, keep showing that you’re trying to get better, and your fans will remain loyal to you the entire season win, lose, or draw they don’t care. In MMA it’s kind of like the moment Anderson Silva or Georges St. Pierre, or a B.J. Penn, or Chuck Liddell or some of these great fighters that lose and all of a sudden the fans are like oh they’re horrible, they’re done, they’re over the hill, or they should retire and all this other stuff. It’s just one of those deals man where if I could pull it off I would do it in a minute for sure.

PRO MMA: Do you plan on going to the Daytona 500 after the fights.
TRIGG: Absolutely yeah, I will be there.

PRO MMA: Who have you been sparring with getting ready for this fight?
TRIGG: Spending a lot of time with Randy [Couture] of course, he’s just coming back from his elbow surgery so spending a lot of time with him, sparring with Jay Hieron, Mike Pyle, Tyson Griffin, John Alessio comes in for a couple of rounds, he’s not training for anything right now but just trying to stay in shape. There’s so many guys that come through there all the time, you can have great sparring partners every day and never know their names. It’s crazy.

PRO MMA: Do you feel a hundred percent, a hundred percent ready to go?
TRIGG: Yeah, I feel ok. I feel ok.

PRO MMA: Part of the proceeds are going to the Corey Hill fund. Can you talk a little about that?
TRIGG: Yeah it costs ten bucks to watch the live video webcast and one dollar from that goes to the Corey Hill fund. I thought it was pretty cool that Bland Promotions would do this to help out a local Florida kid.

PRO MMA: Do you know who is going to be cornering you?
TRIGG: It will be Dr. John Roberts from Atlanta and Ron Frazier. Usually Randy but this weekend he has to go up to Oregon to see his son.

PRO MMA: Now to get on to some other stuff, you had mentioned not long ago that one of your favorite movies was fifteen minutes. I saw that and really liked it. What else have you seen recently you really liked?
TRIGG: Now that I have my daughter back we’ve been watching a lot of kid stuff. I did see Hitman recently and really liked that. Other than that we just haven’t seen much recently. There’s a ton of stuff I’ve wanted to see but just don’t have time with running TRIGGONOMICS, between taking care of the kids, gymnastics, and swimming starts next week, and doing all that stuff it’s just too much man, you just can’t get to the theater.

PRO MMA: That’s cool you got your girl back man that’s awesome.
TRIGG: I know, for me me it’s great. It’s such a huge deal, I can’t believe it. I really have to give big props to my wife Nici. She went from full time Mom of an infant and part time step Mom, to full time full time Mom and working a part time job on top of it and doing the female womanly duties at the house, the cooking, the cleaning, well the cooking we split, we both like to cook, but the cleaning, the laundry and all that stuff it’s just amazing that she can pull it all together. I don’t know how she does it.

PRO MMA: How is Stone doing? How old is he now?
TRIGG: Stone is five months. He just turned five months. He’s doing pretty good. His Christening is on the 22nd so we’re prepping for his Baptism and doing all that good stuff. He’s doing ok, he’s doing alright, hasn’t crawled yet, rolls over all the time but won’t roll over for Mom. Whenever Mom is around he won’t roll over. But I had him stand up today. He held on to the chair and stood up holding onto if for about a good two or three minutes just standing there holding, so he’s doing great.

PRO MMA: Do you want to do any more pro wrestling?
TRIGG: I definitely would like to do some more pro wrestling. I just haven’t had the chance to get it put together again. I think the guys from TNA are actually going to be at the event. If that’s the case then we may have a conversation after the fights Saturday and try to figure something out.

PRO MMA: TAGG Radio is making some big moves. How do you feel about what is going on there?
TRIGG: It’s kind of funny because as loose and as crazy as I seem, I really am in a pretty serious situation where I have a lot of structured time and structured stuff so for me making the move to Mandalay Bay was actually a bit of a burden because it cut into part of the time with my workouts in the morning, it cuts into time with my daughter, it cuts into what I’m doing because it’s not close to my house anymore. It’s not right down the street now, it’s actually twenty minutes away. Now I have to get home quicker, shower quicker, get all that stuff done, it’s just tough for me to do all that but you know it’s cool we’re in a real booth in a real studio, we gotta get a couple of things fixed up and but it’s kind of neat to get the show moving to the next level.

PRO MMA: I guess that’s it. Do you have any final words or shout outs?
TRIGG: Not really. I just want to thank all the fans that have been around forever. It’s been kind of difficult, it’s been up and down, the economy has been killing us but thanks to all the guys who are still trying to be great fans and still pay attention all the time to what we have. It’s kind of neat to see that going on.

XCF (XTREME CAGEFIGHTING FEDERATION): RUMBLE IN RACE TOWN takes place February 14, 2009. You can find out more about the card and the XCF as well as watch the event LIVE via webcast for only $9.95 at 7:30pm ET this Saturday by going to www.xtremecagefighting.net.

You can visit Frank “Twinkle Toes” Trigg and check out his fashion line, TRIGGONOMICS, at www.triggonomics.com or his check out his Myspace page at www.myspace.com/Triggonomics.

Thanks to Tracey Lee at Combat Lifestyle (www.combatlifestyle.com) for the photos used in this article.

By:  Jack Bratcher

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