Emanuel Newton is on a completely different plane than most. “The Hardcore Kid” has been on a tremendous career resurgence over the last four years which has seen him win 12 of his last 13 bouts including a pair of upset victories over prized Bellator signing King Mo Lawal. The only loss was a controversial decision to Attila Vegh which he would later avenge en route to winning the Bellator light heavyweight title this past March. So how has Newton put it all together? The California-born fighter believes it’s all about his unique perspective on the universe and the way we’re all connected to it. His new approach to spontaneity has helped him score impressive spinning backfist knockouts, but it also put him in serious jeopardy in his most recent title defense against Joey Beltran, where it was reported he only consumed 100 calories following his weight cut to 205 pounds. So what is the universe telling him this time? Newton is slated to battle the UK’s Linton Vassell at Bellator 130 tonight (Oct. 24, 2014), who enters the bout on a nine-fight winning streak including a 3-0 stint in Bellator. The current Bellator champion spoke to MMAOddsBreaker about his unique take on the universe, his new approach to the mental and spiritual side of preparing to fight and what he foresees for tonight’s fight outcome in this exclusive interview. Check it out: Brian Hemminger: The first thing I want to talk about is the short break between fights here. Most champions want to fight often, but you’re taking it to extremes here with just six weeks between bouts. What made you want to defend your title again so quickly? Emanuel Newton: Well we told Bellator we wanted two more fights before the year was up and they came back really quickly with this one. I said I was going to take it, I’ll defend it and I’ll have a little bit longer time to rest and recoup before next year. Brian Hemminger: I’d like to talk about a few things that happened in your last fight that could affect this one. People have been critical of the whole 100 calories after weigh-ins thing that went down. Are you doing anything different this time around, or do you feel like you don’t need to alter the last plan? Emanuel Newton: I just need to alter the last plan a bit. I’m a different individual. I run off the protons, electrons and neutrons that go through my body. We’re made of stardust and my mind is made up of decisions made through our deja vus, through our dreams, through our visions. Everybody has these things. Everybody has those random thoughts that go through their heads and they don’t pay attention to them because we’re programmed to not pay attention to them. We’re programmed through years of years of being controlled by dictators and the government and people falling on their faces all the times to addiction and music and the world shouldn’t be this way. I function differently. The program I’m on is the program of the universe. I don’t make my decisions. I wait for the day and sometimes it’ll even be the hour. I wait for the vision or dreams that come into my heart and it’s not me that’s giving it to me, it’s the universe. I feel like things are different. I left the root at home. It’s like a cleansing pill. You pee and sweat and get everything out and I was on those like crazy leading up to the fight and on the day of the fight, I pooped like four times. Whatever nutrients I had in me plus those 100 calories I’d had after weigh-ins was gone, you know? I already left that at home and we’ll see what happens. Brian Hemminger: You brought something else up that I found interesting when you said that because the mental side of fighting is so important, you didn’t need to train as hard as you used to, maybe even half as hard. Are you feeling that? How is that affecting you? Emanuel Newton: I did something a little different this time. This time I definitely got a little more work on my running. That’s why my cardio is usually so good and how I’m able throw over 100 kicks a fight. Last time I didn’t run very much and for this fight I ran a lot more. I’m just going to go in there and I feel a lot more prepared for this fight compared to my last fight. At the same time, everything happens the way it’s supposed to. I don’t go off the regular functionality of everyone else. Religion is just man’s way of understanding God. Buddhism, Christianity, it’s all man’s way of trying to understand Him. I come from a Christian background, but the working out of the flesh is the same way as working out the spirit. I work on both. I do my double days and I still work very hard, but I don’t beat my body up with strength and conditioning in the morning, training in the afternoon and train at night then I get my run in. Are you kidding me? You’re as strong as your body and I’ve had 30-40 fights. If you’re a beginner, you have to do a little more hard training and sparring to get your mind right and get yourself in the right mindset of a professional fighter. I know what it’s like to get hit in the face. I know what it’s like to have the fans and I know what it’s like to get through all that. I’m more about evolving spiritually than evolving the flesh at this point. Brian Hemminger: You feel like a lot of things are meant to be. A lot of people had you down two rounds to Joey Beltran before you scored that third round knockout. Do you feel like the fight was supposed to happen that way? Did you expect to get a come-from-behind knockout in the third? Emanuel Newton: Oh, 100 percent. I explain to people that when it comes down to it, there’s five virtues that you’re supposed to live off of. There’s the improper virtues and the proper virtues. The sad thing is most people, if not 99 percent of people live off the improper virtues. The improper virtues are pride, vanity, lust, fear and worry. Everyone has pride. Everyone wants to have a nice car. Everyone is vain as shit. Everyone wants sex. Most marriages are built off lust. You’re not marrying for love, you’re lusting after her and a few years later you have a divorce and your kids suffer. Everyone fears everything. Why do I buckle my seatbelt? That’s a fear right there. I’m gonna get car insurance, why do I need car insurance? Is something bad going to happen to me? If you buckle your seat belt because you think you’ll get in a car accident, then you’ll get in a car accident. If you get car insurance and you feel like something bad’s gonna happen, then something bad’s gonna happen, you know? We’re programmed, we’re no different than a computer program. The five proper virtues are kindness, love, understanding, patience and mercy. With Joey Beltran, he needed a good win. His stock went up after that fight and most people thought I was gonna walk through him but it wasnt’ a walk in the park until the knockout happened. Joey’s got a family to feed and he’s a good-hearted man. He comes from addiction and alcoholism. Him getting cut from the UFC affects not just him but the family around him. Back to your question, I had dreams of a knockout, my partners had visions of a knockout. I felt like it was what I was meant to do. Pay attention to the visions gives us more knowledge about what we’re put here on this Earth for. We’re supposed to love the Earth, we’re supposed to love the animals, we’re supposed to love our friends, we’re supposed to love our families. That energy helps the world spin and the leaves grow and helps us understand the big picture going on here. Brian Hemminger: You had a lot of respect for Joey Beltran. What do you think of Linton Vassell? Emanuel Newton: I know that mentally I’m stronger and subsequently, I’m stronger. All the way around, my connection to the universe if much better because I understand it. Anyone that steps into the cage with me that doesn’t understand how we’re all connected and how to open up our chakras to make our auras stronger, and unless people understand that, they’re gonna lose to me. It’s not even all about that. It’s my time. It’s my belt. That’s just the way it is. I can make these things happen for myself with the thoughts in my mind because that’s the way we’re supposed to be. Everyone gets jinxed, right? The thoughts came from a person, they came from their mind and got turned into words, but words are nothing but energy, right? Words that came out of someone’s mouth were meant for that person and people don’t understand the big picture. You’ll hear it all the time when people say the same word at the same time, they go “Jinx!” How’d you know I was gonna say that? Well my cerebral cortex is connected to your cerebral cortex because I’m looking you in the eye and our thoughts are the same. That’s the bigger picture but we’re programmed not to pay attention to those things. Because if everyone paid attention to that stuff, then the world would be a different place and the one percenters who are controlling, controlling the output of energy, controlling what we eat and what we watch and what we listen to, would have a lot less power and would have a lot more problems on their hands. Brian Hemminger: Whew, that’s pretty deep, man. One of my last questions here is a bit of a change of subject if you don’t mind. You call yourself the Hardcore Kid because of your history with hardcore music and attending rock shows. How come you don’t come out to hardcore songs? Emanuel Newton: (laughs) I like to keep things different. I’m a fan of childhood so my last song was D Generation X which goes back to old school WWE days with Shawn Michaels and Triple H. When I was a kid, that’s what I was all about, professional wrestling and Monday Night Raw. When you play that music again, it almost takes a person back to their childhood and helps them connect to you more. Like, “Man, I want to see more of this person,” you know? It creates nostalgia which makes us more like kids again, the times when things were easy, we had no worries, and the only thing we had to do was go to school, play with toys and watch TV. So that’s why I do a lot of different music. For this next fight I might have the Power Rangers song. I’m sure people my age remember the old school power rangers. I don’t need to come out to hardcore music just because I’m the Hardcore Kid. I’m different. I love my hardcore music and I still go to shows and I’ll always be the Hardcore Kid. I’m just all about making people happy and I’d rather not see people hearing songs about being angry and pissed off. I’d rather go out there, be awesome, whoop their ass and they can enjoy that too. Brian Hemminger: You’ve brought up your dreams, daydreams and visions, so when you see this fight against Vassell, how are you picturing victory? Emanuel Newton: I see a submission, actually. I see a submission victory and I see myself catching him with something on the ground. Energy changes over time so it might be a knockout but I see a submission right now in my head so I’ll say a submission. Emanuel would like to thank Bodyshop Fitness in California, Arnold Chong at Wildcard Boxing and his Tae Kwon Do coach Robert who introduced him to his unorthodox style. He’d also like to thank his fans and promised to keep believing and keep watching because he’s not going to stop winning. You can follow him on Twitter @Emanuel_Newton.
