UFC heavyweight Timothy Johnson is headed into the final fight of his UFC contract as he will be taking on Alexander Volkov at UFC Fight Night 99 on November 19, 2016. Bloody Elbow’s Eddie Mercado caught up with Timothy Johnson to discuss his upcoming match in Northern Ireland, his maturation as a fighter, and even touched on his glorious mustache.

Interview: UFC Heavyweight Timothy Johnson UFC Fight Nightt **AUDIO ONLY** Belfast

Letting go in the last 30 Seconds:

“Well, because you’re going to get a break no matter what. Last 30 seconds, you know you’re going to get a break so you might as well open it up a little bit. That’s just something we’ve always done. My cornermen, I’ll have them countdown. He’ll yell out ‘2 and a half’. That means we’re half way. And then from there he’ll go ‘2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 second’. So, it’s just something we’ve always trained. It’s kind of been my mentality for wrestling too…”

“…you’ll get a lot of takedowns because guys will take breaks on the edge of the mat. So right there is your best opportunity to release, go really hard for something. That’s kind of the same thing in the last 30 seconds. Like, people know when they’re kind of getting close to the end of the round. They’ll maybe lax a little bit; they’ll maybe pull back a little bit.”

Big Country:

“I’ll go down to Vegas, to Xtreme Couture and workout with Roy [Nelson] here and there. So maybe he can teach me some of those overhands. I will tell you this; even his soft shots are hard.”

Time on Feet:

“I just didn’t want to be labeled as another wrestler. When the [Marcin] Tybura fight came around, we were looking at film, watching him, and kind of like ‘well, his hands really don’t make me that nervous. I can eat punches. That’s no biggie, I guess’. Maybe later down the line, I’ll want to work on that a little bit but, ha ha. I was like, ‘you know what, I think my hands are just well, just as good as his so I’ll just stand up’.”

“In that fight, like in the first probably 8 minutes of that fight, there were like 3 or 4 really good opportunities for a takedown but I let them go. I was like, ‘I don’t want to take him down. I want to stay on my feet and I want to sit here and show there’s more than me just trying to bowl someone against the cage and taking them down’.”

Striking vs. Grappling:

“Grappling is still my mold. If I get tagged or get hurt then I’m definitely going back to grappling because that’s just who I am. But my striking has come, I feel more comfortable in the pocket. I feel like people might be even starting to respect my hands a little bit more. Maybe not scared of them per say but they’re at least respecting them a little bit more. It’s coming along. This will be my 13th fight ever and actually I didn’t even really start, really training hard, until about 2 years ago. So, it’s still coming along.”

Loud Corner:

“I would have to guess that would be Zach Thumb. He’s the guy that kind of got me into fighting and he’s my main training partner. He travels with us and the other coaches will tell him what to yell because he does, you can hear him across the arena. I’ve always been a good listener. I don’t get too tunnel visiony. I can always pickup the outside stuff like, always back in wrestling, I could always hear my coach on the side of the mat. That’s just something that transferred over to fighting. I’ll be locked in on to the fight but still grasp everything that’s going on around me.”

UFC Fight Night: Belfast:

“Wherever we go, we always take a couple of days to do some good hard sight seeing. We got plans right now to maybe even head over to Scotland for a day and then come back. Maybe head down to London. I think we’re going to go about 9 or 10 days early so we’ll have plenty of free days. Maybe go down to London, check out some museums and stuff down there. So, it should be a pretty good trip overall.”

Alexander Volkov:

“Another M-1 guy, ha ha. So this will make number 3, so I don’t know. If I get another win I’m going to see if they’ll send me a couple belts or something, ha ha.”

“I think he’s tall, ha ha. He’s definitely very long. Hands are descent but he’s more of, he likes to use his knees and his kicks, that’s for sure. That’s kind of his bread and butter. Especially his knees. He likes doing a lot of power knees which could be a little bit of a factor on dipping and diving in. So, it’s something to be scared of.”

Wall-and-Maul M.O.?

“It’s definitely something to look at. I’m definitely not going to be hanging out at a distance. That just doesn’t make any sense for who I am and for who he is. I’m not necessarily going to just look for that as my plan. I want to be inside against him and throwing strikes, and find movement and angles that way. Once again, I’m going to try and intermix both my grappling and my striking. I’m not just going to go out there and grapple. That makes you way too one dimensional. We are already figuring that that’s all he thinks we’re going to be doing so might as well fight fire with fire, in that aspect.”

Next?

“That’s my 4th fight of my contract, so we would have to get another contract before discussing any of that, I guess.”

Contract Fight:

“Honestly, I haven’t talked to my agent; haven’t talked to anyone. Speculation, with a loss, I’d still feel safe that I would probably get resigned again. With a win, it would be a lot better contract deal. It’s a contract fight no matter how I look at it.”

Volatile Heavyweight Rankings:

“That’s for sure. I think after my Tybura fight I was actually up there about 16, ranked like 16. So, that was nice and then a layoff where I had to take a month off for military obligations and kind of lost my rotation. So, I had to wait for this one to come around; it’s kind of the reason I had such along layoff. So everyone else was winning kind of knocked me back down. So, that kind of shows just how fast you can move up though.”

Military Service:

“I was in the Minnesota Army Guard. About 2 weeks ago was my end of enlistment. I am no longer in. I did 10 years and just kind of decided, right now I’m going to focus on fighting and when this is all kind of wrapped up I’ll probably, more than likely, head back in.”

The Stache:

“I only grow it out when I have a fight coming up. Usually I’m pretty clean shaving or have a beard. So, people don’t really recognize me without it.”

Watch UFC heavyweight Timothy Johnson welcome Alexander Volkov to the Octagon at UFC Fight Night 99 in Belfast, Northern Ireland on November 19, 2016. Stay Tuned to Bloody Elbow for all of your UFC event coverage including interviews, play-by-play, highlights, and more!