* Photo courtesy of sherdog.

This week we are very happy to have Tim Radcliffe speaking with us. Tim is a fighter we have been keenly following for a while now, especially since notching up a four win streak with his last fight being a very convincing victory over wolflair’s Abdul Mohamad.

He now holds a record of 8–2 –0. He is a brown belt under the respected BJJ coach Ricardo Da Silva of Nova Forca and  many currently and rightfully hold Tim in the top ten ranks of British MMA lightweight fighters, most notably MMAunltd magazine.

So without further ado over to Tim who we have to give a kudos to for making some time out of his busy schedule to talk with us:

UKMMANews: Hey Tim, so how are you doing?

Tim Radcliffe: I’m great, training hard, enjoying the British summer!

UKMMANews: So you’re on an impressive four win streak and next you have Francis Heagney on the 19th of September at Ultimate Challenge UK ‘Mayhem’. How was this fight worked out for you as it was originally planned for BAMMA?”

Tim Radcliffe: Dave O’Donnell was the guy sorting out the fighters for BAMMA so when it went under I believe he effectively tried to move all the fights scheduled on the next two BAMMA events onto Ultimate Challenge. For me it is unfortunate that I am not fighting for another belt but instead I’m defending the one I already have! On the other hand it seemed like it was a fight that should happen in the natural course of things. Besides I believe Francis is super tough and will give me loads to think about!

UKMMANews: So tell us how this all started for you? What was your path to becoming a professional MMA fighter?

Tim Radcliffe: I started training in Chinese Boxing when I was young which I studied for many years and competed at an amateur level. Then I met Ricardo Da Silva by luck and he started teaching me BJJ. In the beginning it was quite entertaining as he couldn’t speak English and I have no Portuguese! He started a class and I was one of his first students but slowly Nova Forca grew. For about five years I did nothing but grapple. Since then I realized that you have to do a little cross-training so I’ve been learning (slowly) to punch and kick people with Theo the Nova Forca Thai coach.

UKMMANews: For your last fight against Abdul Mohamed you looked like had a definite game plan. Can you tell us about what you formulated as an approach to that fight and did you find yourself sticking to that plan or was a decision made to read the fight as it unfolded and adapt as necessary?

Tim Radcliffe: I imagined that the fight would go to the floor as a matter of course and probably because Abdul would take me down! I then envisaged that I would try to sub him from my back or try to stand. But before this I had worked on my takedown defense by pushing away and moving rather than sprawling. The logic behind this was based on if I sprawled he would still drive through, get me to the fence and I wouldn’t be able to get away. By staying on my feet I wanted to hurt him before it went to ground and to my surprise this is how the fight turned out. I still think it was a little odd that he didn’t go for the take down more than he did.

UKMMANews: Our favorite fight of yours was the Ultimate Challenge lightweight championship title bout against Jason Young. Which fight do you feel has so far been the one that left you most satisfied with your performance?

Tim Radcliffe: I felt that Jason didn’t really show on that night and he didn’t get into his game so it made me look good! I’m expecting him to have a bit of a run of wins soon enough. My most satisfying performance was against Joakim Engberg in Sweden back in May. It was on short notice, in his back yard with a vocal partisan crowd and I was nervous! He gave me a really rough time in the first round getting mount and nearly my back, it must have looked a little one-sided but I got my game on in the second and won by choke. It was a good lesson that a fight is never over until the last bell and giving up is not an option!

UKMMANews: So you have your brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and this is by no means an easily gained achievement. Do you still dedicate much time to gi work or is your main focus MMA?

Tim Radcliffe: I get asked this a lot but I still spend most of my training in a gi. Basically I love training Bjj so I would miss it too much! If I had the time outside of work I would do more no-gi stuff to be more applicable to MMA but I’m not that lucky. I think it good fortune to be competitive at MMA while still training the way I like.

UKMMANews: So what’s your most favorite BJJ move / technique?

Tim Radcliffe: One of my favourites is the Omoplata. Is has endless set-ups with either the gi or no-gi. And it works great as for MMA! I think I try it in every fight.

UKMMANews: Who do you like to watch fight at the moment in both the UK scene and globally (UFC, Dream, Strikeforce etc).

Tim Radcliffe: I keep a close eye on all the light-weight guys out in the UK for obvious reasons but at the moment it’s the Sass-Sinclair saga that is of most interest.  Otherwise I lean towards following guys with grappling bjj backgrounds like Maia, BJ Penn.

UKMMANews: What do you do to entertain yourself or relax when you’re not training and fighting?

Tim Radcliffe: Now I’m getting older, if I’m not training I’m on the sofa moaning to my better half about how much my body hurts from training. Otherwise it’s the pub, but I’m a light-weight so I’m back on the sofa moaning about my hangover.

UKMMANews: Finally, who in your opinion is the P4P greatest fighter of the moment?

Tim Radcliffe: I reckon it’s Anderson Silva after he spanked Griffin!

UKMMANews: Thanks for you time Tim and best of luck for the future

Tim Radcliffe: No problem, good to speak to you  guys.

You can keep track of Tim on his own personal blog here.