MMA veteran & former WEC 145lb Champ, Cole "The Apache Kid" Escovedo, has been on fire since his comeback return to MMA in 2009 from a life-threatening staph infection. He has recorded 5 straight wins including picking up the Tachi Palace Fights Bantamweight Title in February with a first round submission over Jeff Bedard and then most recently at Dream 13 on Mar 22nd with a highlight reel KO kick of the highly regarded Yoshiro Maeda. NW Fightscene's Steve "Spaniard" Valentine spoke with Cole recently about the fight with Maeda and a whole lot more in this extended interview...

NW Fightscene: So first, the KO, the win. You were a huge underdog coming into the fight against Yoshiro Maeda...
Cole Escovedo: Yeah, I was a 30 point underdog or something.

NWFS: So, afterwards, now. How do you feel getting home, has it hit you?

Escovedo: Yeah the fight with Maeda, it hit me that night. Its hit me really well. I'm just super stoked. Everybody I know here back in the States and even internationally, fans I got, have been sending me congratulatory messages. As soon as I got back in the states my phone started working again and I had like a bazillion texts from everybody and phone calls and emails.

NWFS: During the fight, when he was kind of pressing, did you feel at all uneasy or at all out of your element?

Escovedo: Not really. We took this fight on really short notice so we didn't get as much sparring time in as we would have liked to prepare for Maeda. [That's] because we really had to focus on the conditioning because this was our first ten minute round fight. I mean I just came off the five round fight training for Bedard but we had to revamp it a little bit differently because we've never gone a full ten minutes straight for our whole first round so we wanted to make sure we didn't gas out and have the longevity for the ten minutes. But aside from that, the training was really focused on Maeda's speed and the fact that he's a southpaw. So that threw me off a little bit because I've only fought one other southpaw and I got knocked out (being Jens Pulver out in Atlantic City). So that was a little different. But no, I just got my bearings under me after the first couple of blows. I just think I wasn't really in that much danger once I started eating some of his punches. I just figured my chin was going to be able to take them.

NWFS: Yeah that huge uppercut initially, how did that feel? I mean you took that shot and it seemed you were able to kind of scramble and get back on your feet.

Escovedo: Yeah, that was the first really good solid punch that he clipped me with. It kind of let me feel how much power he was capable of. And then after that I was... I mean there was a couple of times in the fight where you could see him throw body punches trying to set up the uppercut and I'd eat them in anticipation of him throwing the uppercut because I think he threw it two more times and missed. I'd already seen him set that combination up already so I was trying to get him to go for low blows so that I could try to come over the top with my reach and catch him. But his speed was a real nuisance. I just really couldn't keep up with his speed. The guy's like a cat. Kind of like Dominick Cruz almost. He's real all over the place. He doesn't look like he's setting anything up when he is.

NWFS: So going into that fight on such short notice, how do you really get ready, especially like you say with the round changes?

Escovedo: We just tweaked the conditioning training a little bit. I think we really only had less than 20 days. I got the call on the 4th [of March] that they were looking for an opponent in Japan and I think on the 7th or the 8th I actually got the green light that the fight was mine. We had like 12, 14 days I think total to actually get ready for the fight before actually leaving for Japan. So we just revamped the conditioning a little bit. Tried to push the conditioning into fast track mode, as opposed to peak mode where you train x amount of days at a certain level and you start increasing it a little to peak just before the fight. We had to kind of throw it into high gear mode and then get used to that southpaw stance and get used to his speed. We brought in Anthony Perales. He's a Buhawe guy here in Fresno and we brought him in to help me train for Maeda's speed because I don't have anyone on my team that's quite that fast. And Anthony was able to mimic Maeda's speed really well for all our drills and things. And he's got a really good liver shot too because we know Maeda likes to throw that liver kick. I saw him drop [Charlie] Valencia with it. So we were expecting that liver kick so we were trying to re-range our defense strategy to avoid taking that liver shot if necessary. But we've brought in guys before so it was just having to bring in the right people. I brought in a wrestling coach for the Bedard fight and then we used.. Seo and Anthony Perales are actually cousins, we used both of those guys for my jiu-jitsu and for the speed and striking of Maeda.

NWFS: Well what you did worked. I mean I watched the Maeda-Torres fight in Sacramento here and that was one of my favorite fights to date in my lifetime. That guy is not easy to be finished.

Escovedo: No. And that's what the icing on the cake is for me on this one. He's such a known opponent that nobody's really finished. [Joe] Pearson subbed him when he shot in for that guillotine and got caught. I mean I'm not taking Pearson's win away from him but finishing Maeda like that has been something no ones really been able to do too much as far as an American goes I guess.

NWFS: With your history and your surgery and being out of the game for awhile, and then coming back and now you're on a five fight win streak. Have you surprised yourself at all or did you know all the time that you were going to be able to get down like this?

Escovedo: ...I honestly didn't think it would happen so fast. I though I might have some hard times struggling because of the way training went at first when I came back. Even now, I mean I'm a hundred percent but I still kind of get shakes in my legs and stuff when I'm training really hard. So there's always that little bit of doubt. But the production I've shown, the fights I've produced has kind of negated any of those fears. I just thought it would take a little bit longer to get back to a high level of competition so I'm just really pleased with the pace I've gone onto. Basically the pace I've set for myself has been good.

NWFS: Have any of the naysayers come in to offer an apology?

Escovedo: Nobody ever really apologized. You get guys on the internet, even locally that run their mouth. There's guys at some local camps when I first started coming back would be like 'Oh he wants to go fight in the WEC and be champion there again. There's no way he'll make it there and he'll never heal up enough and if he goes there he's just going to get beat up'. And when I go knocking fools out and subbing people instantly its like they don't really apologize. They just kind of shut up. And I just kind of look at them. You know, it is what it is. There's always going to be haters and negative people, and there's always people who want to see you fail no matter what sport or whatever you want to choose to do with your life. No matter what I do, even if I knock out every single person they put in front of me, there's still going to be haters. Just like there's haters for Fedor [Emelianenko]. Fedor keeps crushing people yet there's still people out there who are like 'Fedor hasn't fought anybody and once he fights somebody he's going to get his ass handed to him'. And its just the reality of the sport. You can't please everybody all the time. There's always going to be people who doubt you and want to see you fall, so it just comes with climbing the ladder. There's always people who want to knock you off.

NWFS: It's said that one doesn't learn as much with a win as one does from a loss. But you've finished four out of five of your last opponents very decisively. What do you go back to the drawing board and pull out? Do you pick apart your own game or is that a bad mental thing to do?

Escovedo: Me and my coach, we were doing it that night after my fight backstage about what I was doing wrong. Like I left my chin out there. I didn't really do exactly what we wanted to in the game plan. Our game plan was to avoid going back straight because we knew Maeda was going to come with a combo and throw that flying knee just like he did. I think I got a little complacent because once I felt his power I think the fear of getting knocked out went away which is a mistake because that fear should always be there especially when you're fighting a striker. We just picked apart the game plan and see what we did wrong with this fight and continue to work on other things from the past fights. I'm still trying to perfect my wrestling and polish that up. I want to polish up my jiu-jitsu. I'm only a purple belt in jiu-jitsu so I want to start polishing that up and start trying to get my brown belt so I can start competing at a higher level especially with these Japanese guys. These Japanese guys got sick jiu-jitsu so I need to start upping my jiu-jitsu training you know. Just continue mainly trying to evolve. You get stale with the wins and then that's when you fall. Those guys who have four or five fights in a row and they think 'Oh dude, I'm doing great with what I'm doing. My camp's perfect the way it is'. The reality of it is that you just won a fight and now you need to make your camp even better for the next fight because its not going to be the same level of opponent. You always have to assume you're fighting somebody tougher so you have to make your training harder so you can keep up with everybody else.

NWFS: What was that like fighting out of the States, in Japan?

Escovedo: It was interesting. It was a lot of excitement mixed with stress. I've never left the country before so fighting in another country let alone a strange venue is always nervousness. It was huge. I think Yokohama Arena sits like 17,000 people or something and the place was almost packed. So its interesting but at the same time its a real motivator because the way they treat the fighters out there compared to how they treat them here in the States is way different. They treat the fighters with the utmost respect and attention. You get the crowds here that they'll scream 'Stand them up. Punch him in the face. Quit humping each other'. But you really don't get that over there. They're real quiet and they're all about the fighters. They just want exciting fights. They don't care if you're doing jiu-jitsu if its exciting. They don't care if you're striking each other. It doesn't matter. As long as you're exciting, they love it. They appreciate what we go through and they're completely into it and what we're doing for them much more than I think American fans do. But it was interesting. It was real respectful. The language barrier was a huge thing. I taught myself having to almost sign language. I felt like I was playing a day to day game of Pictionary, trying to explain what I wanted. Like we went looking for running shoes and I looked at them and I go 'Do you guys have jogging shoes?' and they just looked at me. And I pointed to a pair of shoes and kind of ran in place and the lady looks at me and says 'Oh jogging, running shoes.' and 'Yeah, running shoes'. And she was like 'Oh no, we don't have those'. And I was like 'Oh, crap, OK.' (Laughs) It was interesting but it was fun at the same time. It presents new challenges.

NWFS: How does that work with the referee? Is he bi-lingual?

Escovedo: Yeah, that was one thing I was interested to see what happened when they brought you to the center of the ring how the ref explains the rules. He said like no head butting, no elbows, no groin strikes, no holding the ropes, and he explained it in English but he also explained it in Japanese for Yoshiro. So I was really interested to see that that happened. I just thought it was going to be in Japanese and I was just going to have to nod my head and say OK I hope I'm understanding the rules. So its pretty cool. You go and look at Sherdog's pictures you can see the look on the referee's face as I'm jumping in the air. I think the ref is just freaking out.

NWFS: I think everybody was.

Escovedo: Oh yeah, there were some pretty surprised faces in the crowd which was good. If I'm surprising fans and sideline opponents watching the fights, that's good for me because it starts to put that seed in everybody's mind of who wants to fight him next and who should we find and I don't want to fight that guy, you fight him. I want to start setting that seed in now. So that way it makes for better fights down the road. They'll pick good opponents.

NWFS: You have comeback in astounding fashion. What's the next step for you? Where do you see yourself finishing out 2010 and starting 2011?

Escovedo: Honestly I'd like to fight as many times as possible. Like I said in the past, this is my job. And its how I feed my family so I always want to keep making money. Because any good employee in their job wants to make money and be productive. But I have to defend my Tachi Palace Fights belt. I have the 135 lb belt out in Lemoore, California at the Palace. They were gracious enough to actually let me go to Japan and fight because I'm under contract with them to defend it at least once. They were cool enough, Jeremy Luchau and Richard Goodman, they saw an opportunity just as I did to have their champion fighting on the international scene and they were all for it. So I have to honor my obligations to them and they gave me an opportunity so I have to return the favor and do right by them. So I think that my next fight is going to be in July at the Palace. I'd like to fight sooner than that but again I got to go back to the drawing board with my coach and the Palace and see what we can work out and if anybody wants to offer fights to me. I'm not going to take just any fight, it has to be beneficial to both me and to the Palace as well. I don't see them just letting me fight for anybody. That would just be a useless use of their Champion. But I would like to go out to Japan, that's for sure. I hope I excited them enough and put enough interest in their owners to bring me back out. That's definitely something I'd like to do again.

NWFS: What do you do when you're not training, like for hobbies and for fun?

Escovedo: Hobbies and fun, I hang out with my family. I got my girlfriend that I live with. My "G-Raff", you can see it on my shorts. It's actually pretty cool. Everybody was asking what that meant. I kind of bring her with on my shorts. And we have a little boy that's hers and I've known him since he was four months old and then I have my own daughter. So I take the kids to school and hang out with her and we like to watch movies. She likes to cook so I'm always getting good food. And then play cards. I mean that's really it. I'm pretty simple. I like movies, I like poker, and I like hanging out at home. When I'm not training that's pretty much what you'll catch me doing is doing the whole family man thing.

NWFS: Cole, the fighter, the family man, the survivor. Its an honor and thank you again for your time. You have any sponsors, anybody you'd like to throw out there?

Escovedo: I actually had a bunch of sponsors for this fight. My shorts thing just fell through last minute. I've got Athletic Body Care at AthleticBodyCare.com. They've always been good to me. Gary and those guys are always sending me good product to help keep me clean and clean up after training to make sure I don't get sick again. They actually send me really good stuff. I've got my guys, CageRadio. Mots. That guy's been taking care of me. He's got me hooked up to a lot of things. And that guy's got a lot of loyalty to me. And then Mar out of MadBeatings, they made my shorts the last fight and they really really hustled trying to get these out the last notice, it just didn't work. And then our team over here in Fresno. We're not Pacific anymore. We're Victory MMA and Bullpen Muay Thai. So if anyone's curious about that, that's our team now. I want to thank those guys for getting me ready. George, Seo and Ted and all those guys for just making the effort to make me a better fighter so that we can produce the team as a whole.

NW Fightscene would like to thank Cole for his time in giving this interview. Fans can check him out online at myspace.com/colemanescovedo. Victory MMA is located in Fresno and online at myspace.com/victorymuaythaimma.