FiveKnuckles.com: I see you currently live in Virginia Beach?

Mackens Semerzier: I live in Chesapeake, Virginia. That's about fifteen minutes from Virginia Beach which is the next city over. I train and teach at Linxx Academy in Virginia Beach. I also supplement my training at a couple other gyms in the area.

FiveKnuckles.com: When you think of popular fight cities, places like Las Vegas or San Jose come to mind. A city like Virginia Beach is flying under the radar on the MMA scene. What's the vibe like for fighters down there?

Mackens Semerzier: It's cool man. It's definitely growing. One of my training partners is Antwain Britt who is fighting for Strikeforce. He just got a big win a couple weeks ago. We have a lot of tough fighters at our gym. I've been out to Vegas; I've been out to California. I've been down to Florida and quite a few places in between so I see the way the fight game operates. In Vegas or Cali the sport is more businesslike. It's different in Virginia Beach because it's not that big of a deal if I go to one place to do my jiu jitsu, or I go to another place to work on my striking, and another place to refine my wrestling. When the product is finished, it's MY product. When I go out and fight, I don't have to say I belong to a certain training facility. I just refer to my support group as "Team Menace" and give the credit to the people that helped me get ready because the bottom line is that I'm the one who's fighting.

Virginia Beach isn't a small city at all, but it's just breaking onto the scene in the fight world. Most fighters are basically stuck with whatever gym they affiliate themselves with and there are serious repercussions for training somewhere else. I try not to buy into that too much. I try to pattern myself after Georges St. Pierre. GSP trains with the best fighters possible. If you want to be one of the best, that's what you have to do. In Virginia Beach, you can separate yourself a little bit. You can get away with doing some of those things. That's what I can see that makes it different from the other places.

FiveKnuckles.com: You hear of a ton of great athletes from the Virginia Beach area, especially in other sports like football. Are there avenues down there that help fighters improve their overall athletic ability?

Mackens Semerzier: We have a lot of very talented athletes down this way. There are also a lot of military guys down here too. Norfolk Naval Base isn't that far away so you run into a lot of guys that keep themselves in really good shape that are always down to scrap. They want to push themselves so they find their way into the gym and become excellent training partners. We get a good mix of people coming in and out. There are definitely some VERY good athletes around these parts.

FiveKnuckles.com: On January 11, which is one day after your next fight, the UFC is holding the first major MMA event in the state of Virginia at the Patriot Center in Fairfax. How...