SERRA-LONGO PRODUCT PLOTKIN MAKES GLORY RETURN

When Robby Plotkin sits himself down in the lobby of the Hilton Doubletree in northern Los Angeles, it’s like a character from a movie about a New York prizefighter has stepped down off the screen and into real life.

Stocky and tough-looking, Plotkin has the confidence and dry humor of a New York wiseguy. He’s like a character from The Sopranos. Plotkin isn’t in Los Angeles for Hollywood purposes though. He’s here because this Saturday he’s going to face Wayne Barrett at GLORY 10 in a reserve match for the Middleweight Championship Tournament.

Plotkin comes from a notoriously tough team, Serra-Longo in Long Island, New York. Headed by former UFC welterweight champion Matt Serra and boxing coach Ray Longo, the gym recently added another major championship to its honors list after Chris Weidman took the UFC middleweight title from Anderson Silva by way of knockout.

“Yeah I was one of Chris’ sparring partners for that fight. We knew he was going to do it, he’s on fire right now,” says Plotkin. “He hits really hard, him and Al Laquinta who is also in the UFC, they are both really tough guys. Chris is going to do it again as well, he’s going to win the rematch [with Anderson] the same way.”

With such accomplished team mates around him it’s no surprise that Plotkin is not lacking in confidence. The team has made its reputation via acts of giant-killing, so Plotkin has no issue with this fight taking place on short notice and one weight-class up from his preferred fighting weight.

“I just look at it as a tough fight and an opportunity to show that I’m getting better and better. They called me Sunday, so that’s like six days notice, but it doesn’t make any difference. I was getting ready for a fight anyway, I was in shape,” he says.

“I was going to cut to 170lbs because that’s the weight I normally fight at but then GLORY offered me this chance to fight at middleweight, 185lbs. I feel stronger, just because I am able to eat. I’m strong for my size anyway. I’m excited and I’m ready. I can peak quick. If I had a longer camp I don’t think it would have made any difference really. I was training for an MMA fight but I’m a striker anyway.”

Plotkin is 1-0 as a professional but holds a solid 15-3 amateur record. He is on a learning curve as a professional and there are aspects of the fight game which don’t fill him with enthusiasm. “I just did like a 12-hour medical right after the flight that kinda sucked. But it’s cool going through that experience, I guess it’s just part of becoming a great professional fighter,” he says.

“It’s the nature of the sport, stepping up to fight good opponents last minute. You don’t turn it down, you don’t fear the challenge - you fear not being able to excel.”

‘Excelling’ is a subject close to Plotkin’s heart; he uses the word often. From an early age he was attracted to opportunities for physical excellence. At one point it looked like he was going to channel that into a military career, but it was martial arts which won out and brought him to this current juncture.

“Even in high school I begged my parents to send me to military school because I loved the discipline of it, I loved excelling at things I was ordered to do physically,” he recalls.

“Why did I get into martial arts? I don’t know, maybe because I couldn’t dribble a basketball, ha! No I don’t know, I guess it was just always in me and I had to find that outlet. I started in Kenpo when I was seven years old so I have been in martial arts for twenty years.

“I haven’t trained in that style for a couple of years now because I had to focus on some different things when I started to focus on being a professional fighter. In Kenpo we used to train in a gi, bow into class and bow out of class. We’d do katas, self-defense and stuff. Nowadays I have a fighting style which you can’t really put a name on.”

Plotkin lights up when asked about his influences as a fighter. But he is noticeably unable to talk much about other fighters he likes or admires. It becomes clear that Plotkin hardly follows the fight game. He isn’t interested in being a fan; his entire focus is on being a fighter and the training which that requires.

“My influences coming up were Bruce Lee, Jean Claude Van Damme, Sylvester Stallone. And also Dragonball Z. I’m still waiting to become a superhero one day. Fighting-wise, I guess you could say I liked some UFC guys like Forrest Griffin and Jon Jones, good strikers. But to be honest I didn’t really watch a lot of fighting, because I was doing so much,” he explains.

“I was too busy trying to become a fighter, rather than becoming a viewer. I wanted to be the person on the screen. It’s common. I was just down in Carolina for a couple of weeks training with Steven ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson and he’s the same, he doesn’t watch the fights, doesn’t follow the sport, doesn’t really know about fighters too much.”

With a laugh he adds, “Someone was asking me how I felt about being a tournament reserve and maybe stepping in for the final and I was like ‘yeah, those are some big names, I’ve heard of them.’”

Plotkin is absolutely serious; he watches very little fighting beyond his team mates and that which his coaches recommend to him or require him to watch. He doesn’t believe in studying tape of opponents either.

“I like Randy Couture’s take on it, that’s it about imposing your will on your opponent. It’s about what you are going to do to them rather than what he is trying to do to you,” he says. “I feel like fighters always evolve so there’s not much point watching endless tape. And also, what they are able to do is dependent on where you put yourself.

“So for example if you have a guy who always does like a double-jab followed by a right hand, if I see the chance and hit him in the middle of that double jab he’s not gonna be able to throw the right hand anyway, it’s like a stop-hit. You need to be able to spot the openings as soon as they come up.”

‘Spotting openings’ is something Plotkin seems pretty good at, judging by his GLORY debut in new York early this year. Although in that fight against Casey Greene he didn’t so much spot an opening as batter one open for himself. Greene underwent such an incredible barrage of physical punishment that his corner threw in the towel at 1:16 of the first round.

“Oh man that was awesome. That was pretty big. That was a beautiful portrait I painted that night. When I stepped out into the ring and looked up and saw myself on these two huge screens I was like ‘this is big, here I am in the spotlight,’” Plotkin beams.

“It just ignited me and I just exploded. Kill-mode was set and I did it in just over one minute. Some people might have cracked under the pressure when they stepped out into the spotlight like that for the first time. That’s when you find out if you really want it or not. And yeah, I really want it.”