New Zealand-born kickboxer "Sugar" Ray Sefo holds claim to over one hundred overall fights in various different combat sports: 5-1 (professional boxing), 2-0 (MMA), and most notably 55-20 (kickboxing) with a stunning 38 of his 55 wins coming by way of knockout. After capturing five Muay Thai world titles at the start of his career, Sefo went on to beat the who's who of K-1 holding notable victories over Melvin Manhoef, Bob Sapp, Mark Hunt, Gilbert Yvel,  Peter Aerts, and Jerome Le Banner among many others.

Cage Religion: First off, I just wanted to thank you for speaking with CageReligion.com

Ray Sefo: Sure thing, man, no problem!

CR: When and how did you get involved with combat sports and at what point did you realize it was something you were going to pursue professionally?

RS: I come from a background of fighters. My great grandfather was a boxer and my father, cousins, brothers, uncles - everybody in my family came from the boxing world. I got my first boxing gloves at five years old and my dad would teach me and my brothers and my cousins how to box at a young age. By the time I was ... I wanna say twelve or thirteen, I had started Kung-Fu martial arts ... Wing Chun. I did that for about five and a half years and then from that I switched to Thai boxing and the rest is history (laughs). The first time I ever tangled with mixed martial arts and jiu-jitsu was with a good friend of mine, Royce Gracie back in 2000.

CR: Tell us how your K-1 career got started and came about.

RS: Up to that point, I had won four world titles already - Muay Thai world titles. The IKA World Cruiserweight Champion at the time was Andre Manaart from Holland and at the time he was contracted to K-1 so my people contacted his people and that's how that came about, me challenging him for his world title. The fight was scheduled for twelve rounds - I stopped him in four. It was after that fight that we got a call from K-1 saying they wanted to see us and we said "when?" and they said "yesterday!" (laughs). So they put us up and looked after us for a week. I was like "okay, what's happening here? Am I here to see the boss man?" because we had been there for a whole week and we hadn't seen anybody in terms of the people that were in charge or the people that sent for us. We didn't see anybody for like a week, so I'm there thinking "okay, what's going on?" but that was because they had an event that was gonna happen that weekend - I think we got in to Japan on a Monday and Saturday they had an event in Osaka. Of course we didn't know this (laughs)! It wasn't until the day before the event that we were told we were going to a K-1 event. Of course I was really excited because I had seen their production and all these great fighters in that arena so when we got there, I was completely blown away! I'm sitting at ringside and I'm thinking "wow!". Three years prior to this time I had seen K-1 for the first time on TV and the first time I saw it I'm like "man, I'd love to be one of those guys" you know what I mean?. So while I'm sitting ringside, so many emotions are running through my head: the excitement of being there, the excitement of actually being at a K-1 event, the excitement of actually meeting all of these great fighters from all over the world and then the excitement of knowing that the only reason these people had flown me here is because they want to look at me fight and maybe sign me. That was back in 96' and that was the beginning of that.

CR: Throughout your career you've generally been considered a smaller heavyweight. What is your game plan for facing off against a much larger opponent, as in the case of Bob Sapp?

RS: Stand toe to toe and bang, baby! (laughs)

CR: So just go toe to toe and wing it? (laughs)

RS: Well I've always been the kind of fighter that just likes to stand there and go. Even though I ... being the smallest heavyweight, it never phased me or I had never thought I was a small heavyweight. I just thought "you know what, I train hard and I'm gonna go in there and give him hell whether I get knocked out or not". That's what the game is about, letting it all hang out. That's always been my mentality on fighting.

CR: You have an upcoming fight this month at the K-1 World Grand Prix. Tell us a little bit about this fight and how your training camp has gone thus far.

RS: Right, yeah, it's held for the first time in Romania this year. The training camp has been going great! I've been working with Jake Bonacci for strength and conditioning and Gil Martinez who is my boxing coach and also trains Randy, Gray Maynard, Martin Kampmann and Jay Heiron. Of course the sparring with everybody. We've had a great camp!

CR: Being that K-1 is so well-known around the world, what are some of the reasons that you think it really hasn't taken off in the States?

RS: You know, the United States has so many great sports and so much money in those sports. You have baseball, NFL, basketball, you have hockey you know what I mean? Then you have boxing and now MMA. MMA ... UFC for example, for the longest time ... I mean they've done their yards. I remember seeing their first show in 93' or 94' back when I came here in the States and for the first seven or eight years, they were slowly taking off. Now they've completely taken off, you know what I mean? It's just like anything else. When you're competing with so many great sports and so many big time sports in terms of money, you need to put money into your product and you need to be able to hang in there and do the hard yard. A perfect example again is the UFC and look how big they are now! And of course the biggest thing is getting television behind you because it doesn't matter how big you are and you try to get, if you don't have television it's tough. And so ya' know, I think when K-1 was in the States there was a lot of mistakes made in terms of who was calling the shots and I guess like I said, you can't bring a Japanese product to the United States and then try to promote the Japanese style because it doesn't work, you know what I mean? You have to be able to bring it to the States and let the people in the United States that know the market and know how things work here run the show.

CR: Kind of how Pride was run when they came to the U.S.

RS: Yeah, that's right. I think that's where they kind of had some problems but it's crazy though because they're big all around the world (laughs). My first time when I first toured Europe for K-1 we're getting mobbed by these people from all these countries we've never been to before! That's because viewership covers so many countries all over Europe and they're running shows over there almost once a week.

CR: Tons of exposure over there.

RS: Right, right exactly.

CR: You've tried your hand at MMA, with a 2-0 record so far and a recent win over veteran Kevin Jordan for Strikeforce. Do you plan on returning to the cage anytime in the near future?

RS: I really enjoy the training and challenge of something new. Right now for me it's just ... the next one is actually for Strikeforce, in August I think.

CR: How did you go about adapting your training for a cage and MMA as a whole after spending most of your career fighting in rings?

RS: I didn't have a problem with it fortunately, and thank God that I was able to adapt! Instead of bouncing off the ropes you're bouncing off the cage so I adapted quite easily. I'm not the kind of guy who fights off the ropes. I like to stand in the middle of the ring and bang, so being in a cage doesn't bother me at all.

CR: How comfortable do you feel with your ground game these days? Obviously your striking is world class but the ground game is an entirely different animal from what you're used to.

RS: Um ... I would be lying if I said I feel good. I mean apart from that, I'm learning and working with new people and picking up new things all the time. For this camp for example, we just concentrated on kickboxing and occasionally throughout the week - maybe once or twice a week - we'll roll. After this fight is over I'll come back and have a week off then I'll have two or three months between this K-1 fight and my Strikeforce fight. I'll be maybe striking once or twice a week and the rest will be wrestling and jiu-jitsu.

CR: You've also done a bit of professional boxing with I believe six fights under your belt. What are your thoughts on boxers transitioning over to MMA, particularly James Tony coming to the UFC?

RS: Right, right. I hear they've matched him up with my buddy Randy [Couture]. I think it's great. I think it's awesome that kickboxing, boxers, wrestlers, jiu-jitsu, MMA guys all want to try something new because at the end of the day, it's a combat sport. Any of those and anyone who wants to make the transition, all the best to them because it's ain't easy. For me, getting into MMA ... kickboxing, it is what it is. When you get ready for MMA, the training is constantly evolving so MMA kind of puts another excitement to my game and it just revived me as a fighter and made me hungrier than ever. Then learning the wrestling side of things and the jiu-jitsu side of things and putting everything together is exciting because I'm learning and when I'm learning, I'm happy in training. I'm always excited to learn something new in training and to try to be good at it.

CR: With James Tony's first opponent in the UFC rumored to be one of your training partners, Randy "The Natural" Couture, how do you see that fight going?

RS: Randy's gonna take him down and that's that (laughs)! Randy said himself that it would be silly to stand and try to trade with him, a guy who's a four time world champion or three time world champion heavyweight boxer. Anybody who's not a very good boxer really shouldn't try to mess with him there. Randy has a real strong ground game so I think he's probably gonna work on closing the gap and taking him down.

CR: You were featured in the 2009 documentary "Knockout Secrets". You also hold the record for highest knockout ratio in K-1 history which leads me to ask, do you have a tried and true method for delivering the knockout or is it more of a chance thing?

RS: It's a mixture of things. The knockout is one of those things that you set up but you gotta be able to have knockout power to be able to deliver it anyway. And again, the knockout comes when the timing is correct but a majority of time, the knockout will come if you set it up right. Instead of going out and looking for one, if you just allow yourself to work, 99% of the time the knockout will just come. It's not one of those things that ... everybody is different. There are times where I'll go into a fight and I'm confident that this fight won't last and I hit a guy and he's still standing there - I think "okay" (laughs). Mark Hunt for example, his chin is granite (laughs).

CR: Being a world-class striker yourself, who do you personally see as some of the better strikers in MMA that stand out above the rest?

RS: I wanna say Paul Daley (laughs) but he's cut from the UFC already. I think his stand up is great! Tyson Griffin who works with us also, who is one of our teammates, Martin Kampmann, Gray Maynard. You know, Gray comes from a wrestling background but his hands are getting better and better. Then you have the likes of Shogun Rua (laughs), great MMA fighter. Anderson Silva, B.J. Penn, who else?

CR: Maybe Franky Edgar as of late?

RS: Yeah, absolutely! Georges St. Pierre, that guy's got great stand up. Sometimes he doesn't use it as much as a spectator would like to see but he's great as well. But yeah, there's a few guys out there and again, the game itself or should I say, the fighters themselves, are always evolving in so many ways and of course to stay on top of your game you have to be able to strike. You have to wrestle too and have jiu-jitsu.

CR: Alright, Ray, wrapping up is there anything you would like to plug or say to the fans before we get going?

RS: Yeah, I just want to tell the fans all over the world thank you so much for all your love and your support. It's them that keeps us athletes doing what we do!