|
STEPHEN
QUADROS The Four Sides of Mr Quadros
©
Marc Wickert 13
Oct. ’06, photos © IFL When
the name Stephen Quadros is dropped, it can conjure up so many things to
so many people. Some
know Stephen as ‘The Fight Professor’, who has commentated for such
martial arts events as IFL, PRIDE, K-1, Cage Rage, Rumble on the Rock,
Too Hot to Handle… as well as columnist and contributing editor for Black
Belt Magazine, the inaugural and founding editor of the Fightsport
magazine, or the co-author of Bas Rutten’s Big Books of Combat. Then
there’s Master Quadros, the martial arts instructor who currently
teaches group kickboxing classes at Bodies in Motion in Pasadena,
as well as teaching private kickboxing and mixed martial arts lessons,
and who has studied a wide variety of arts under such noted instructors
as Shihan Takayuki Kubota, Pete ‘Sugarfoot’ Cunningham, and Sifu
Konrad Waalkes. MMA
fans who see Stephen co-commentating with Bas Rutten may be surprised to
learn that Quadros is also one of Los Angeles’s most respected
drummers, and that he is the man providing that ‘thunder’ behind the
highly acclaimed Sacred Cowboys band, whose recent single, Gear
Grinding Daddy, was selected for inclusion on the soundtrack
of the film Dunsmore. Perhaps they didn’t recognize him when he
was gigging with Modern Life Crisis, Marcus Singletary Band, or Snow… And
lastly – for now – there’s Stephen Quadros the man who put the raw
action into such movies as The Perfect Sleep (fight coordinator),
Pit Fighter (fight choreographer and second-unit director), The
Last Run (co-star), Skeleton Man (fight coordinator), and Exit
Wounds (fight technical advisor). Stephen’s
grandfather was a professional boxer; his dad boxed in the navy and the
boys’ club as a youth; and his brother… well, he was a street
fighter. So it’s not
surprising Stephen got into some form of fighting art. “I’m a boxing
historian – I have an insane library of boxing tapes. I used to teach
boxing with Mike Weaver who was the WBA World Heavyweight Champion back
in the ’80s,” says Quadros. For
this interview, Stephen is just finishing up a sandwich in Burbank
(remember Dan Rowan and Dick Martin), which Quadros says is very close
to NBC Studios and Warner Bros., in Southern California. Stephen,
what made you originally take up a martial art? “As
a youth, I got in some scraps on the street. After I lost once or twice,
I said, ‘Wait a minute: This isn’t supposed to happen.’ And I was
pretty good at what little I knew, but I wanted to round up my game,
so… It was basic paranoia. And then all the tough guys who I was
hanging out with kinda went their way, and I went mine. I was more into
a legal existence and some of the guys I was hanging with weren’t. So
I was on my own. “Now
this was back in the seventies; I started training in a Tae Kwon Do
studio with a guy named Soonho Song, and he was a really good
instructor, because not only was he a master of TKD, Hapkido, and Judo,
but he also had a master’s degree in philosophy. “So
this guy was a really powerful individual, mentally… because the
physical game you can teach anybody – you can teach a monkey the
physical game. But then you can’t teach a monkey to make the right
decisions. Soonho Song had a really powerful impact on me, and I credit
him with my being able to make good decisions in the martial arts, and
also outside the martial arts, to this day. “When I moved to Los Angeles to pursue a drum career, I started to train with Takayuki Kubota at the International Karate Headquarters there. At the time, he was on Sunset Boulevard, right across the street from Hollywood High School. And there were some really tough competitors… This big Polish guy – he was a terror and weighed about 270 pounds, and was just a flash of lightning.”
There
were some celebrities training under Kubota, weren’t there? “James
Caan was training with Mr. Kubota, as was Charles Bronson, who was
working on movies and things. But for me, it got me a good appreciation
for the different styles of Karate.” What
was your Kung Fu background? “Well,
I later started training in Wing Chun Kung Fu, with this guy named
Konrad Waalkes. He was also very inspirational and influential to me
because he had a lot of street experience in Germany. And he was
convinced that Wing Chun was the best style. I trained with him because
I liked him – personally, and for his attitude towards martial arts
and the betterment of fighting skills. “But
deep down inside, I wanted to kickbox. And when I walked into the Jet
Center one day during the mid 1980s, and I met Benny Urquidez, it was
very cool, and because it was an off-peak time of the day there was
hardly anybody in there. A friend of mine, who was another actor, and I
walked in there. I knew exactly who Benny was because I’d been reading
about him in magazines for years and years. And he was so accommodating,
and I just thought this is a place I really want to investigate. It was
a little bit pricey on my wallet at the time, but it was well worth it;
so I signed up. “And
my first instructor there was a guy named Roger Yuen, who became a
well-known actor (Shanghai Express). He was the guy who got
together with me and saw if I knew anything or not. But I already knew
the basic system because I’d watched Benny’s tapes and I knew the
fundamentals of kicking and boxing, so it was a quick transition. Roger
is a really good technician. “Benny
was busy working on a lot of movies as a fight choreographer, so my
instructor ended up being Peter ‘Sugarfoot’ Cunningham. That was
really a blessing because Peter and I got on great, and he brought me
along and I trained with him for five years. “Then
along came the Gracies, and I first saw them on an old video called Gracie
Jiu Jitsu in Action, with Rorian Gracie commentating, and
with Rickson, Royce and all these guys in Brazilian challenge matches. I
thought to myself, ‘Oh my God, look at this’. It was about eighteen
months before the UFC came out.” After Royce Gracie dominated the early UFCs, practitioners of other arts either chose to ignore BJJ, or abandoned their own disciplines. “Back
then, after Royce won the first few UFC events, some people thought Jiu
Jitsu was the only answer, so they got away from the kickboxing. But
once kickboxers like Maurice Smith, Igor Vovchanchyn and Bas Rutten
learnt some Jiu Jitsu, then the tables were turned. And suddenly a
‘new’ dilemma emerged: If you were a grappler only who could not
take down or submit the striker, and you couldn’t break an egg with a
strike, your opponent would walk right through you – enter Mirko
‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic.” What
is it like sharing microphones with Bas Rutten? “For
me, working with Bas in a broadcast booth is/was the ultimate
combination. I’ve worked with some great broadcasters though, so this
isn’t meant to be demeaning, but everybody knows Bas and I have a
special chemistry. He comes from Holland, I am from the US, but we have
this innate bond where we both see things… “As
a matter of fact, we just got together again for an IFL broadcast in
Moline, Illinois. It was a big deal, and the first time we’d worked
together since the days with PRIDE. We were saying the exact same things
live, while improvising, and we were looking at each other, cracking up,
because some things do not change. “He obviously has such a wealth of knowledge because he came from a Thai boxing background in Holland, and before that he was into a traditional martial art background, with blackbelts in Tae Kwon Do and Kyokushin Karate. And people say that doesn’t work, but maybe they should spar with Bas Rutten.
“But
he has such a wealth of knowledge because he was one of the first guys
to do MMA in 1993. When the UFC started, Pancrase had already started a
few months before that. And they produced some of the legends of the
sport: Maurice Smith, Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock, Guy Mezger, Bas
Rutten… a bunch of guys came from the old Pancrase days and moved on
into what became ‘mixed martial arts.’ “Working
with him… Because we’re both crazy and wacky, we understand each
other’s jokes. With everybody else in the room, they might think,
‘Wait a minute. I don’t know if that’s in good taste,’ or ‘ I
don’t know if that’s politically correct.’ But we understand each
other. It’s just such a joy working with him, and every time we sit
down with a microphone, we know it’s going to be dead on.” During his calling of fights, I’ve heard him do dolphin noises, the sound from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and numerous other sound effects… Do you think he should come out with the Bas Rutten Door Chimes? “Yeah,
that’s good, or maybe cellphone ring tones.” (laughs) Were you impressed by Mark Epstein’s knockout of Dave Legeno at Cage Rage 17? “I
was really impressed. I like both guys – they’re both really
animated and both really tough guys. But Epstein, he’s such a badass
and has improved a lot. He just fought Ian Freeman (Cage Rage 18), and
he knocked Ian down in the early part of round one, before Ian took him
down and executed a really smart game plan, and beat Mark by decision. “There
are a lot of really good fighters coming up in the UK all the time.
It’s just getting better and better – like Rob Broughton…
Obviously Ian Freeman is a legend and probably the most accomplished MMA
fighter so far out of the UK. I love going over there: I don’t need an
interpreter – until people start drinking.” (laughs) Dave Legeno came back at Cage Rage 18 to defeat Kimo. Is that one of the interesting aspects of MMA – the unpredictability of matches? “I
love the way there are so many different elements to MMA: There are so
many ways a person can win and so many trapdoors that can open, and a
guy can lose when you thought his opponent would get annihilated if they
stood up with this guy or that guy. So yes, the unpredictability of MMA
offers the ultimate potential for excitement and variety for the
viewers. “One
of the things I do is write previews over at a really cool website (BudoVideos.com)
of fighting events that appear on American pay-per-view TV. And as the
analyst for the IFL, I have to render opinions and predictions also. But
because there are so many different things going on in mixed martial
arts, no one can predict every outcome with 100% accuracy. And that
includes me. (laughs) “Take
for example the Renzo Gracie vs. Pat Miletich fight, which was the
Superfight at the IFL Quarter-Finals in Moline, Illinois. No one
expected that fight to end in a guillotine choke, with Gracie like a
koala bear wrapped around Miletich like he was a tree. It never went to
the ground – not once. It was just one of those things; sometimes in
MMA there’s that X-factor where you can break it down, then something
really bizarre can happen and you go beyond the realm of logic.” You’re
also known as a rock drummer. Are you currently appearing anywhere? “My primary band at the moment is the Sacred Cowboys. If you put ZZ Top and AC/DC in a mixer with Hank Williams Jr, you’d get the Sacred Cowboys. We’ve got some really great players in that band too.
“And
we’ve had a lot of star musicians come down to sit in with us. At the
last gig, Scott Ian – the former guitar player from Anthrax – sat
in with us; the previous gig to that ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons played
with us; and Rex Brown from Pantera, previous to that. So we’re making
waves here in LA: We just finished our first album, and we’re shopping
for a record deal before we put it out ourselves.” You’re a fan of Ginger Baker’s; I read where they credit his competitive bike racing as a youngster for his powerful double-bass drum playing. Had you heard that story before? “Yes,
I have. It was actually on one of the websites. And playing double bass,
it’s a big-time workout for your legs, and it’s a lot like peddling
a bicycle. I play double bass also, and Ginger is probably the single
most reason for why I started playing drums. When I heard him do the
live, 16:15 version of Toad (Wheels of Fire), which featured his
drum solo, I said: ‘That’s it; I’ve got to get a drum set.’” Buddy
Rich was into martial arts also, wasn’t he? “Yes,
and I met Buddy Rich. I think it was around ’77, and he had just
played a set at the Starwood. At the end of the evening, the Starwood
manager asked me if I’d like to meet Buddy. I was like: ‘Duh,
yeah.’ Buddy had a reputation for having his different moods. I went
back there and I saw the jazz singer, Mel Torme, and the stand-up
comedian, Charlie Callas, who was the opening act, because there was no
other musical act – just Buddy Rich, and a comedian. “Buddy
was in mid conversation, so I just hung back, and the manager saw a
spare moment and said, ‘Buddy, I want you to meet Stephen Quadros –
he’s one of the best drummers in LA, blah, blah, blah…’ Buddy gave
me the thumbs-up handshake and said, ‘How’s it goin’, kid?’ “I
said, ‘Buddy, I’ve got nine of your records and I think you’re the
greatest.’ He said, ‘Thank you, kid. What are you up to?’ I said,
‘Buddy, if you’re in town next week, my band is playing…’ He
said, ‘Yeah, if I’m in town, I’ll definitely come down.’ Of
course he didn’t, but I got to meet the man, and he was very gracious
to me, and it was a wonderful experience. “After
that, I thought it wasn’t necessary for me to meet any other
celebrity, because I met the guy who was the greatest drummer in history
at that point. And it was almost like a biblical meeting.” Is
The
Perfect Sleep the latest movie you’ve
been involved in? “Yeah,
I was brought in by a fighter, Dominquie Vandenberg, I had worked with
on Pit Fighter. Pit Fighter an independent film that was
released last year, and got a lot of play on Spike TV, and was
distributed by 20th Century in the States. “The
Perfect Sleep is a very stylized piece: It’s more like an old
Humphrey Bogart- private detective-type yarn. It’s not a martial arts
movie, but the scene where Dominquie Vandenberg fights the lead actor,
Anton Pardoe, turned out really well. That will make some highlight
reels, I think.” Has
it been released yet? “No.
But because Perfect Sleep’s director, Jeremy Alter, is in tight
with David Lynch, I believe they’re close to getting a distribution
deal.” Have you ever been watching the ring girls at an event and forgotten which fight you’ve been calling? “That’s not a fair question… (laughs) But I’ll answer it. Ring girls are necessary distractions. Primarily, the audience for fights is guys, but a lot of women are starting to get into MMA, I’ve found. And women do appreciate female beauty as well – they don’t just get jealous when a girl is really hot, or has a body to die for… Me distracted? Not really.
“But one thing I like about the Mexican TV stations: When they do MMA from Brazil, the commentators go ballistic as the ring girls enter; they go completely insane. I want to do that: ‘Man, is she hot!’
“Anyway,
back to the fight… There hasn’t really been a time when I’ve been
distracted to the point where I didn’t know which fight it was. But I
know fighters who, when they are between rounds and a really hot ring
girl walks by… Their corner man is saying, ‘Be sure you do this,’
and the fighter is looking at the girl. “One
of my instructors – I’m not going to mention his name, but he
actually got caught doing that, although he still won his fight.” Stephen,
is there anything you’d like to add? “Well,
there are always things I want to add (laughs): That’s why I talk for
a living… But, first of all, I’m very honored to have done this
interview with you Marc; and I just want to thank all the fans around
the world who have supported the IFL, and who have supported me in my
various endeavors – in the fight game, movies,
music and on television… And I must assure you - with me, the
IFL and everything else – that the best is yet to come.” For
more on Stephen Quadros: www.stephenquadros.com For more on IFL: www.ifl.tv.
|
