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Stephen Thompson (16-6-1, eight finishes) will headline the UFC’s return to Orlando, Fla., for a Fight Night card Saturday (10 p.m. ESPN) from Amway Center against Kevin Holland (23-8, 19 finishes). The former two-time welterweight title challenger spoke Wednesday with The Post’s Scott Fontana for this week’s Post Fight Interview Q&A session.
Q: What is Thanksgiving like for a guy who’s gotta make weight in the UFC eight days later? Are you just around people, watching them eat?
A: A hundred percent. During Thanksgiving, I gotta have a spoonful of everything, but I didn’t have a whole lot. I didn’t go ham. But I told everybody after the fight, maybe you guys can make me another Thanksgiving dinner. Would be much appreciated. Watching you guys scarf your faces down with macaroni and cheese and all the goods. So I’m looking forward to that after the fight.
Q: There’s a lot of anticipation for your fight with Holland as a fantastic striker vs. striker battle on the feet. It’s MMA, and anything can happen, but do you get more excited for the potential of such a fight going down?
A: Oh, I 100 percent get excited. Waking up for this training camp, I had a smile on my face every morning because I know that this guy is gonna go out there and make it an exciting fight — not just somebody who’s going to shoot in and just kind of hold me down, which has been the blueprint for my last two fights. And I know him having somebody in his last fight, Khamzat Chimaev, do the same to him, I know he’s looking forward to it. It definitely kept me excited for this camp.
Q: How is Holland most dangerous as a striker?
A: Kevin Holland, he’s taller than most in the division. He’s got an 81-inch reach, and I think that gives him a lot of leverage in his striking because he’s mostly striking down on people. He uses his range very well, which is going to make him very crafty, and [I] have to adapt to that while I’m out there. The good thing about Kevin Holland — and which is probably the most dangerous thing about Kevin Holland — is that he evolves as a fighter. You’ve seen him fight once; the next time you see him again, he’s changed something up, or he’s gotten better at something. So that’s what makes him dangerous.
Q: How do you believe your standup, in particular, has evolved over the course of your long UFC run?
A: Man, from when I fought kickboxing till now has changed tremendously, not just with my movement but my skill set, my arsenal has grown so much. In the MMA world, throwing the elbows and the knees, lowering my stance, my movement, the combinations that I put together — because I’m having to deal with a lot of grapplers as well. So that’s all changed.
Q: It was revealed recently that you’d be walking out for your fight with Jack Black. Obviously, the connection is Tenacious D’s “Wonderboy” as your walkout music and nickname, but how did you and Jack first link up?
A: OK, for one: He was really wanting to make it out this weekend. He messaged me. … Because they’re still on tour, we were wondering if he was gonna make it or not. And he was like, “I think I’m gonna be able to make it, and I’m excited.” But he wasn’t able to make it, which is OK, I mean, he’s doing his thing and I’m gonna sit here and do my thing. Less stress on me. But I’ve walked out to his song for the longest time, and I think it was the Gilbert Burns fight, he had posted something up about him turning the TV on and somebody walking out to his song [with] Tenacious D and the fighter named “Wonderboy,” and of course, it was me. And I messaged him back, and it was really cool. And then, [at] International Fight Week this past summer, there’s a photographer there that also is with the UFC and he also does photography for Jack Black. And he’s like, “Yo Wonderboy, Jack Black wants to meet you. I’m gonna FaceTime you. I want you to talk. He wants to talk and chat with you.” I was like, “Are you kidding me? Let’s go.” So with the UFC, everything, everybody behind it, I got to talk with him after International Fight Week. Got to chat with him, and he invited me and my brother “Sweet T” [Tony Thompson] out to Wilmington, North Carolina, which is right up the road from us, and to go to his concert. So I got to hang out with Kyle Gass and Jack Black and go to his concert. I got to walk out on stage while he sang “Wonderboy,” and it was just epic.
Q: You’re realizing a lot of childhood dreams. You’re a karate guy, and now you’re on Netflix playing one of the evil karate instructors in “Cobra Kai.” How did that come together?
A: That was cool. That actually, I think, has to do with a lot of the fans or the fans knowing that I’m — when you think of karate, especially if you’re an MMA or karate guy, you think of Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson. They kind of, I guess, annoyed them a little; I don’t know how they did it. I also had a friend of mine that I’d met years in the past, and he’s actually one of the stunt choreographers to “Cobra Kai,” so he invited me out: me, Tyron Woodley, had some other guys. What was cool, I was supposed to be one of the main bad guys in it, one of the main bad senseis, but they decided to film the main fight scene during the week I was getting ready for Belal [Muhammad]. I was fighting Belal, so I wasn’t able to do that in a time crunch. They said, “Look, we’ll keep you in a cameo. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get you back out here for the sixth season.”
Q: Did you enjoy the chance to work alongside your old championship rival Tyron Woodley?
A: Super cool, man. We crushed that years ago, and we had a great time, man. Just hanging out, spending some time with him, picking his brain on the MMA world. Very cool.
Q: You’re an ‘80s baby. What did it mean for you to be a part of this “Karate Kid” universe now?
A: Epic, man. Epic. “Karate Kid” was one of my all-time favorite movies. Just to be able to see it and the people that were in “Cobra Kai” now who I was a big fan of then and to be able to meet them, being on the cast of “Cobra Kai” and hanging out with those guys, and them being MMA and UFC fans was just amazing. We have people that come in and start karate because of “Cobra Kai.”
Q: That’s almost like how it was when karate grew in popularity in the 80s.
A: That’s right! It made karate cool, and everybody wanted to do karate. And with “Cobra Kai,” we’re seeing the same thing. But instead of kids, we’re seeing adults coming in. “I’m doing it because of ‘Cobra Kai.’ I love ‘Cobra Kai.’ ”… What I like about “Cobra Kai” is, like, the ‘80s is coming back. With “Stranger Things,” you got the “Cobra Kai” with that 80s vibe and the mentality, then kind of rolls over, you gotta be tough, gotta be strong, you gotta be hardcore. I love that. I love that because, realistically in the past, karate was like that. If you didn’t have the natural ability to do it, they ran you off. They didn’t want you there. And then it got to a point where people were giving black belts out, left and right, and people were opening up McDojo schools, and it gave karate a bad name. So for the longest time, especially in MMA and full-contact sports, people thought karate wouldn’t work. And then here comes GSP [Georges St-Pierre] and Lyoto Machida, who were kind of my inspiration, and now myself. So you’re seeing more karate guys, be a part of that world.
Q: What’s the one fight from your kickboxing career that you’d like people to watch?
A: I fought for a title, an amateur world title at the time, and it was my very first one. It was a five-round fight, and I fought a guy named Kevin Engel. He was more of a boxer, and I was more of the kicker, so it was like boxer versus kicker, and there was a lot of hype around it. Man, it was such an epic fight. You got to see, at the time, everything that I was working on, everything that was in my arsenal, which wasn’t a whole lot especially compared to now. But you saw everything, and the toughness of my opponent, knocking him down with spin back kicks to the body, him getting back up, him throwing up in the corner and going back out there and duking it out. It was just epic.
Q: Do you recall your first experience watching MMA?
A: I remember back, man, in the ‘90s that we would go over to one of our fellow junior instructors that was teaching at our school and watching it. We had to get it on pay-per-view, and it was kind of one of those things it felt like we weren’t supposed to be watching this. You know what I mean? It was kind of an indoors, “Fight Club”-ish kind of deal. And then, my dad took me to my first UFC event. It was UFC 3 in Charlotte, North Carolina. I was [11] years old, and I told my dad that I was going to do this.
Q: Typical walkaround weight between fights?
A: Oh, 195 [pounds], at my heaviest, I think, because I don’t get over 200 pounds.
Q: Typical weight on fight night?
A: I’m not the type of fighter that blows up. I’ll probably be 185, maybe less.
Q: Favorite post-fight meal?
A: I do pizza and a Left Hand milk stout beer. If I can’t cut it with a knife or chew on it, I don’t want it. My beer has got to be dark, and it’s because — I was never a big beer drinker, either — it was before I was in the UFC, we had to do our weigh-ins at a local bar, which is crazy. First time I’ve been 170 since I was in high school, and people are walking around with pitchers of beer. And I’m like, Oh, it looks so good. Your body craves those carbs. So ever since then, man, I’ve craved it.
Q: Who in MMA do you most admire?
A: It would have to be Chris Weidman. The adversity that this guy has gone through, the amount of surgeries, and not only having to juggle that with training camp and fighting, but having a family on top of that, I don’t see how the guy does it. I’m a single man — well, I don’t have any kids; I got a honey — but it’s different when you’ve got kids. I don’t see how he does it, man. It takes a special guy to be able to go out there and take care of himself, put his body through punishment, years of punishment and, on top of that, take care of his family as well. How is he doing in his recovery by the way? He’s doing good. He’s doing really good. He had a pull cap not too long ago, but he’s healing up nicely. And hopefully we’ll be able to see him out there soon.
Q: What’s the coolest technique in combat sports?
A: The coolest technique has gotta be the rolling thunder. … It’s a little bit of a sacrifice move. It’s where you almost do, like, a front flip, and your leg comes over top. You see it a lot inK1. You’ve seen it in Kyokushin karate. But there are some sick knockouts.
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