The telephone interview with Brett Roller gave me a picture of a young man who seriously researches and studies the strengths and weaknesses of his opponents as he prepares for a new match.  Brett will be fighting Tyler Toner at Battlequest 7 on Friday night and he doesn’t take this fight casually.  He has studied Toner’s videotaped defeat to Scott Jorgenson and is training specifically against the strengths and weaknesses that he has pulled from that videotape.

Tyler Toner will be competing as a main event contestant at Battlequest 7 at 145 lbs.  Toner has suffered only one defeat and that was at the hands of Scott Jorgensen in May of 2007 at Ring of Fire 29.  Toner’s most recent fight was Battlequest 6 in July 2007 and he is eager to get back in the ring after a hiatus created by a series of scrubbed match-ups rather than by his own decision.  His opponent on Friday February 22nd will be Brett Roller who comes to the ring with a record of 7 – 1.   Although Tyler (6 – 1) has never seen Roller fight before, it doesn’t faze him as his momentum is pumping hard in anticipation of this match-up. 

In preparation for BattleQuest 7, ColoradoFightEvents felt that it was appropriate to do thumbnail interviews with some of the fighters as most of them have not had much cage or ring exposure in the public eye.  The first on my list was Brian Wood, the 145 lb. featherweight who had his ring debut at Ring of Fire on December 1^st 2007 where he won handily over his opponent by rear naked choke a mere 2 minutes into the first round.

January 9, 2008: What a wonderful departure from my day-job when I received a phone call at my office from Dan Magnie, President of ColoradoFightEvents.com extending an invitation from Keith Schmelzer of Rocky Mountain Bad Boyz to interview George St. Pierre the next day at T’sKO Fight Club in Wheat Ridge. WOW! Was it hard to concentrate for the rest of the day? Did I carefully choose what I was going to wear for the interview? George St. Pierre? What brought him to Denver? I couldn’t wait to find out!

After a call to ensure local sports photographer Kathy Framarini was available, we agreed to meet at the gym at 10:30 on that Thursday. Trevor Wittman, the owner, head trainer and striking coach at T’sKO had invited us for 11:00 but who could wait? The day before, not only was George St. Pierre working out at T’sKO but also the ferocious Keith Jardine, Nate “the great” Marquardt, Duane “Bang” Ludwig, Diego Sanchez and Greg Jackson. For an MMA enthusiast, this was the Power Ball!