Few fighters in North Texas resonate with the local MMA scene quite like Joe “Jitsu” Christopher. The Lewisville-based welterweight is widely considered one of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex’s premier talents and backed with an exemplary Brazilian jiu-jitsu acumen, Christopher has held some impressive wins on a plethora of mid-level regional shows as well as solid performances on a number of Bellator cards.
Two week ago, Christopher captured the XFL welterweight title with a submission victory over Levi Avera at Xtreme Fight Night in Tulsa, OK. North Texas Fisticuffs caught up with the newly crowned champion to get Christopher’s thoughts on his title winning performance along with a number of other topics.
North Texas Fisticuffs: Congratulations on your title winning performance.
Joe Christopher: Well, thank you.
NTF: Tell us a little about your opponent that evening, Levi Avera.
JC: Well he was tough. He was bigger than me, taller than me. I don’t know if he was stronger, but he definitely felt like he walks around with more muscle than I do. He got out of a ridiculous amount of submissions that I’m used to finishing people with. So, there’s really nothing you can hold against him.
NTF: So, how does it feel to be crowned champion?
JC: To be honest, the purpose of getting a belt in an organization to me is that they have to ask you back to defend it. Sometimes if you win a fight and you don’t get a belt it’s really up to the promotion to ask you back. With the belt, they kind of have to ask you to come back. So, it’s sort of like having a guaranteed second job as it were. Picture each fight as a job. But, the whole concept of champion and all that probably isn’t quite the same as the whole world champion thing, the UFC world champion or something. Not to take anything away from the promotion, you know, it is what it is.
NTF: But, it does have to be a sort of relief coming off two consecutive losses.
JC: That’s just the winning part (laughs). Absolutely, I had made a conscious decision to really practice ‘mixed martial arts’ rather than just Brazilian jiu-jitsu to win fights. For a long time I’ve basically just used my Brazilian jiu-jitsu to win fights. In my second loss, I had intentionally gone out and fought a different style than people were used to. So, I had a lot of people saying, ‘Well maybe you’re not a mixed martial artist, you’re just really good at Brazilian jiu-jitsu.’ This time I went out and it was obvious after I hit him a couple of times, he was more than happy for me to work Brazilian jiu-jitsu on him. So, that was self validation. I don’t worry about what anybody other than my coach says as to how I fight. But, at the same time, if you listen to too many people you start to wonder if they are right.
NTF: So, is that what you would credit to you loss against Joey Gorczynski to, just sticking with Brazilian jiu-jitsu?
JC: No, what happened in that fight was that I had a game plan, went out and I got in trouble with the game plan and immediately reverted back to what had won me fights in the past. In that case, if I had stuck with my game plan I think the outcome would have been different. Two big lessons I learned in that fight: One, was that I needed to evaluate my losses more clearly because I had lost to him previously in the exact same way and I simply didn’t give him enough credit. Secondly, I really needed to focus on having the confidence in my ability across the board in mixed martial arts, not just shoot single leg takedown and submitting which won ten fights for me.
NTF: So, aside from a more cerebral approach, what other aspects of mixed martial arts have you worked on?
JC: I have a lot better training partners. I learned when I went out to [Jackson’s MMA] that a big part of fight preparation was preparing by fighting other professionals. But, due to family reasons and all, taking care of my children, there were some fights that I wasn’t able to go out to Jackson’s and I really recognized how hard it is to train correctly just staying in a local gym and training with local people. So, now I tried to have my cake and eat it too; which is to live locally and take care of my family everyday and have them with me all day, and to have professional quality training partners throughout Dallas that I have scheduled to go out and spar with each week.
NTF: So, mixing it up with the different schools and fighters is making you better rounded in a sense?
JC: That wasn’t what I was driving at. What I meant is that actually having professional fighters to have as your sparring partners makes a huge difference.
NTF: I see, there is an obvious difference between professional fighters, and guys just working out at a gym.
JC: Yeah. I mean sometimes I would be forced to train for a fight by just having fifteen guys try to go with me for a minute each. And, what does that do? Nothing. So, I can beat up a bunch of guys who do it for a hobby and lift weights. I mean they’re good, don’t get me wrong, a lot of them are my friends and that was the hardest part, how do you tell your friend you need to train with people who know what it’s like? Your average fan genuinely feels he knows what it’s like because he went to a school and got a blue belt or a purple belt in jiu-jitsu and did one or two grappling tournaments. Most of them genuinely feel they know what it’s like in a cage fight.
NTF: After this win do you plan on taking some time off? What’s next for Joe Christopher?
JC: Well, I drove back that Saturday night. Woke up my girls, and hung out with some friends that day and got a good night sleep. Then I spent most of day hanging with friends who are local who couldn’t make it out to the fight who had been important to my success. Pretty much its business as usual. I mean I like [fighting], it’s my life. They way a lot of fighters like to take weeks off; I don’t get it. Let me put it to you this way, if you like your job, do you really want a vacation? What I think is that a lot of fighters, for one reason or another, [fighting] is not fun for them anymore. Or, maybe it never was. Maybe they were just doing it because someone told them and they bought into the idea. For me, I went through that where I was trying to manage a gym and it took all the fun out of it. But, when I got back to just fighting and spending time with my family that is what I like to do. So, me going out and helping my training partners get ready for fights, I was helping [Will Florentino] on Monday and [Cleburn Walker] on Monday. A couple of my boxing partners have fights coming up, and I don’t know; I have fun and that’s my idea of a good time.
I guess you could put it in a family sense. You know, parents freak me out when they say they need time away from their kids. What do you need time away from? What, you don’t love them? I get it when you need an hour or so. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Friday night is the nanny night. But, it’s Friday night, it’s not like I’m saying, ‘Oh, I need a week away from my children.’ I mean, what are they talking about? That’s how I am about fighting too.
So, what’s next for me as far as the next time you’ll see my name? I’m hoping that it’s either defending that belt, or for a shot at a belt in a bigger promotion. A couple offers have been put on the table. Everyone is kind of tripping because I fight at welterweight and I eat food the day of the weigh-ins. Everyone thinks that to fight at welterweight you have to walk around at 200 pounds. I’ve got some decision to make as far as staying at welterweight, but some of the bigger promotions are saying, ‘No, we want you at lightweight.’ Well, I’m six feet tall. I would look like I escaped from a prison or something. I kind of like that peace I get during fight week. I get to eat what I want, if you eat clean all year round.
No, so what’s next for me is I hope another fight in the next month and a half, two months. Hopefully it will be for enough money to pay the bills. This fight paid the bills for December. Obviously, I need a fight to pay the bills for January. That’s kind of what I do.
(Photo © Pierre S. Bertrand/U Plus Management)
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