© Marc Wickert
www.knucklepit.com
30 Jan. 2007

Benji Radach has just flown into Houston with Anacondas' coach, Bas Rutten. The weather channel has been showing heavy snowfalls in Dallas and Austin, but it's not snowing in Houston, although it is freezing.

The Anacondas are coming here to take on the Silverbacks and Benji confirms that Chris Horodecki arrived earlier. The rest of the team will be coming in later in the day. "We're all flying in from different areas: Bas and I departed from LA; others are flying in from Vegas and Canada," says Radach.

Normally Bas has anybody within a quarter-mile radius in stitches laughing with his good-natured humor, but Benji said Bas has been sick, so he's trying to stay as far away from Radach as possible.

Although Benji was born in Longview, Washington, he grew up in Castlerock, Washington, where he took up a fighting art at an early age.

"I actually started in wrestling – my dad was a youth coach for elementary school, and my older brother was a wrestler, so I started at a really young age, running on the mats before I began to grapple. And then I continued with wrestling all the way through school, and later I did freestyle wrestling and made the national team for Washington State. Afterwards I got into boxing, kickboxing and then started MMA."

Today, Benji has an impressive MMA record of 23-3, with his victories mainly coming via strikes. And although Radach hasn't fought for two and a half years, he says striking is still his main weapon.

"I'm getting better at submissions, but I'm still focusing on striking. I live in Deerfield Beach, Florida, where I train with the American Top Team. They treat me well and I have a lot of teammates to work out with. I do most of my training there, but last time I flew out to Vegas I trained with Bas and the team for about a week and a half, so it was pretty good."

Benji, are you with Jeff Monson?

"Yep."

Do you train with him?

"Oh, yeah. We're both originally from Washington and that's where I met him. We all trained together there for years."

You suffered a badly broken jaw against Chris Leben; has that healed up okay now?

"Yep; I've got a metal plate in there and screws – it's solid now."

Was the injury caused by a punch?

"It was a left hook at the end of the round. He just caught me with a shot, and I ended up on top, but blood started pouring out of my mouth, so they knew something was going on and the referee stopped the fight."

Did you continue training in the time you were away from competition?

"Off and on. I had pretty bad injuries: neck surgery and an ACL replacement after the broken jaw. Then I had a staph infection after the ACL replacement. For about three months I fought staph infection; it was really intense with a catheter in my arm all the way to my heart. I had a nurse come to my house, twice a day, for three months."

How did you come to be with Bas Rutten?

"We've been friends for quite a while and he's always kept me in his mind, I guess, and an opportunity came up… Actually, he asked me if I'd be on his team before the IFL had even started. But I had all these injuries so I couldn't take advantage of that.

"Then I healed up and started getting into fairly good shape, a spot opened on his team, and I hopped on it."

Who is your main training partner at American Top Team?

"Denis Kang is one of my main training partners."

Read the full article on Knucklepit.com.