Nate
Landwehr wouldn’t advise anyone to become a professional
fighter even though he admittedly loves his job “more than he
probably should.”
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In his first fight as a father, Landwehr scored a come-from-behind
Round 1 technical knockout win over Jamall
Emmers (20-8) at
UFC Atlantic City on Saturday. However, the
Ultimate Fighting Championship fan favorite would never even
wish for his worst enemy to pursue a career in mixed martial arts,
let alone his son. Landwehr would in fact start by discouraging his
son, which he believes is the first test to pass.
“That’s a tough one. I almost wouldn’t even wish this life on my
worst enemy,” he said „The
MMA Hour”. “I would try to discourage him [son], as that first
little discouragement. And if he could get past, then he [could go
ahead]. That’s why I always tell people, ‘Don’t do it.’ If me
telling you, ‘Don’t do it,’ is gonna break you then you ain’t got
what it takes. That’s always my go to. Somebody tell me they wanna
fight, I’m like, ‘Don’t do it, don’t do it.’ If that little ‘don’t
do it’ can break a man then you’ll never be able to make it.”
According to Landwehr, the unforgiving nature of the sport makes it
imperative to win. However, Landwehr noted that the losing side
from each fight puts in as much hard work as the winner.
“This is a hard knock life man. This fight s—t’s like falling in
love with the neighbourhood hoe. She ain’t never gonna love you… I
always knew it man, you can think about winning in general, you can
give your whole life to winning. There’s nothing that separated the
winners and losers except for the win,” said Landwehr. “We do the
same shit every time we get up: work, work, work, work, work,
grind. Put our whole lives to this. But think about it, the whole
roster, half of them lost their last fight. It’s not that they
didn’t work harder, not that they put nothing into it, just a fine
line. You go out there and put it on the line, win or lose.”
But as for himself, the featherweight veteran is admittedly a
little too much in love with the sport. Landwehr claims that no
other high throughout the year stands in comparison to the high of
winning a fight amidt the flashing lights.
“Oh I love it, dawg. This is my blood,” he said. “I love this more
than I probably should… When people ask me what’s one of my
takeaways from it, man, it’ll dull out the rest of them Saturdays
throughout the year. It’s hard to feel them blocks. You go out
there and have a good time with your buddies, like, ‘Oh, I’m having
a good time.‘ But it ain’t like that high off of winning when you
walk back to that backstage and everybody’s treating you like you
might even be something different.”