We all have lived different lives in the past apart from our current day jobs. For Cody “The Wolverine” Williams, that is being a mixed martial artist behind being a licensed insurance agent and broker. Cody shares his wealth of knowledge about the fighting world – going over MMA and UFC to jiu-jitsu and boxing. Leveraging both his passion for fighting and being an insurance agent, Cody talks about the time he used his last fight back in 2016 to put a logo of the brokerage he worked for and create a name for himself. He goes deeper into his life being an agent and gives his thoughts about the relationship between sales and the business. Proving that our personal and professional lives can go hand-in-hand, Cody reveals his routine and diet, and how his hard work ethic pushes him to be better in the insurance world.
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Mixed Martial Arts To Licensed Insurance Agent with Cody Williams
Cody Williams “The Wolverine” is here. I’m glad we finally got this done. Thanks for being here. Tell everybody a little bit about yourself, for those who don’t know The Wolverine.
I’m officially not retired. I worked in insurance litigation during Hurricane Rita and Ike for The Mostyn Law Firm.
I didn’t realize you worked with Steve Sullivan.
I worked with Steve and Mike. That was my bridge to be able to fight professionally. Prior to that, I was in an industrial refinery working fourteen-hour days. I had fought amateur and I did really well. He was like, “You should take this pro.” I knew the logistics. I couldn’t work in those conditions and those hours to get the training I needed in order to compete. I reached out to Mike Ramsey. He was like, “We’ve got a ton of overflow right now. We can plug you in. You can get your training in and go from there.” It launched my professional fighting career. I was also gaining some knowledge on the insurance litigation side. Everything comes full circle and now I’m a licensed insurance agent and broker. I still work for my people. I’m not married to any company, which is something I like. It usually gives me perspective on both sides.
You wear a lot of different hats in your life.
These periods of time are three and four-year blocks. Now, it’s three kids and a wife and being an insurance broker. It’s definitely the career choice for me unless Jason Burton calls me and says, “I’ve got a spot.”
I introduced you as The Wolverine jokingly. You’re my buddy but you’re a fighter too. You’re not retired. How old are you?
I’m 34 years old.
When did you start fighting?
My first amateur fight was when I was 26. It was in 2009.
You started late. You were younger than 26 in 2009.
I was 24 or 25.
It’s still late.
The sport was a lot different. I don’t want to say raw, but they didn’t have the Fox deal. They weren’t on ESPN. It was still a pay-per-view thing.
Are we talking about mixed martial arts?
Yeah. It’s fighting in a confined structure. They lock the door. It’s you and another guy and somebody would stop it. I had a couple of local shows and the turnout was small. My background, I always had a chip on my shoulder in high school and figured out life the way I was. People were like, “Let’s see what he got.” I had some good showings.
Before you started in the fight, did you train in any martial arts?
I had one year of wrestling at Westburg. My senior year was the first year of the program. My friend wanted to do it and he didn’t want to be the only guy doing it. I was like, “Let’s go.” That year of training, that short period of time taught me how far you could push yourself mentally and physically.
I’ve always heard that wrestlers work hard.
There was a lot of discipline in that.
When you’re wrestling in high school, would you go do that?
I was doing a little bit of boxing sometimes in the summer but other than that, there was nothing. The biggest fear to overcome at the amateur level when you’re first starting is getting punched in the face. There’s that fear that you don’t want to get hit and I was already okay with that.
Having punched in the face is one of the things. I get what you’re saying.
My look on it was, “These guys are going to be in my same weight class. I’ve been hit in the face before. Let’s go.” Overcoming that fear was a big advantage at the amateur level. People started caring about it. They gave me a little notoriety in Southeast Texas and finding a professional and it led to a huge following.
How did you get started as an amateur in the MMA? Let’s say you are from small to mid-sized market, something like where we live. How do you even get started? Did you show up in a gym?
Yeah, you show up at a gym and train. Let them know your aspirations to compete. They will remind you when you’re ready. Normally, gym owners have some contacts on amateur shows, where they’re at and promoters that put on a show. They’ll reach out to the gym and say, “I’ve got these three weight classes that I need to be filled. Do you have anybody to train?” That’s pretty much how you start out.
What led you to start training in when you finally decided, “I want to fight?”
The gym that I was attending was primarily a kickboxing gym. It’s more like traditional American kickboxing. It evolved into a Muay Thai curriculum and some wrestling-based jiu-jitsu and stuff like that. That was how everything started. It took off from there. It’s getting that little bit of notoriety and following, which transitioned over to what I’m doing.
Don’t be a fake. If you want to be a jerk, be a jerk. Click To TweetHow many amateur fights did you have?
I had seven amateur fights. I had a 145-pound amateur championship. I was going to make the jump to professional and drop the weight class in a certified 135. I fought one time at 125. That was a pretty brutal weight cut. The cost and the ratio what I saw the future and what is coming to fruition is I didn’t see the 125-weight class as something that the UFC, the top level of mixed martial arts, I didn’t see it was something they would keep around. They did introduce that weight class. They had it for a while.
It’s not the norm. It’s there with some guys.
They axed it. I don’t think there are going to be 125 fights at all.
Isn’t that where Cejudo and Dillashaw were on that?
That was the last fight. That’s why Cejudo went after that and now he won that belt. He’s the third guy to hold championships in two weight classes. He’s far on a few cards, Cejudo, through Legacy, which is regional. It’s like your AAA.
Explain to people how that works. I’m obviously a big fight fan. I’m more of a traditional boxing fan. Over the years, you got me to at least know a little bit about UFC and mixed martial arts. As I know about it, I love it. I don’t follow it up real close. Everyone have heard of the UFC, but it’s sad the general audience may not know anything about professional fighting.
There were a couple of regional programs and Legacy is the Southeast of the United States.
It’s in Southeast Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
It’s in Florida and Oklahoma. They had a couple of shows in Vegas. They had a pretty wide reach. They had a lot of ties with Brazilian fighters. You’d have some Brazilian guys on the cards. They were playing Mark Cuban in HDNet. They were televised there, which turned into AXS TV. It’s nationally televised. There was another promotion that neared them. They were more in Northwest. It was RFA. Those two regional promotions merged and have taken over. They are the AAA. If you wanted the UFC, you go to Legacy pretty much. Even before they merged, they had a lot of name fighters. Holly Holm beat Ronda Rousey a few years back when she was undefeated. There are at least a dozen that went through Legacy first and then went to the UFC. They were already a funneling system. Mick Maynard was the CEO. He developed that relationship. When they merged, UFC brought him on as the matchmaker for the 135, 145 and 150 weight classes. That was a huge deal. Mick Maynard started Legacy from nothing. He had a print business. He started an amateur fight promotion. The first one was at some small venue in Houston. It was in a square cage. He built that from the ground up. It’s a pretty cool story for him, where he’s at and what he’s doing. That is entrepreneurship at its finest.
When you went pro, did you always fight in Legacy?
I didn’t fight in Legacy. There were times where they assign you to a three-fight contract. You weren’t competing outside of their promotion simply because if they had a good matchup for you, they don’t want you to be obligated somewhere else. Some of the other professional promotions I fought for were so far below the way that Legacy had things done. The paperwork was in order. Taking money was in order. I showed up on weight and everything was good. That’s what they liked about me. I fought an exciting fight but I treated it professionally.
You handled your business and there’s a lot that goes into that which people won’t see. We see the top guys. You see money and handlers but for 95% of the fighters out there, it’s not how they do it. You have to handle your paperwork. What do you do about that?
You have to have annual blood work to make sure you don’t have any major diseases. Most likely, you’re going to be exchanging blood. You have vision tests and physical stuff like that you have to do every so often. It’s licensing through the TDLR that you have to keep up with.
When we were talking about the commission, in Texas it’s the TDLR.
We got into this spiel about Cejudo, he came from a collegiate wrestling background. He was a gold medalist Olympic wrestler. He shows up to Legacy. He was supposed to fight at 135 and he comes in and 140 and just cocky as can be. A lot of people saw that and had a disdain for the guy. The thing about him is when he gets focused into something, it’s like how GSP was, Georges St-Pierre. He was so obsessed with what he did. It was almost to the point to where he would back himself. Cejudo had the wrestling but didn’t have the strength. Fast forward a few years, he’s striking world class. It’s getting that early impression and that early introduction to the weight he handled himself, the way he walks around.
There’s a certain amount that all fighters have to have somewhere. When you get in there, if you’re going to fight, you put it all out.
His persona is one way but behind closed doors, he was another guy.
He’s a nice guy out front and a jerk in the back.
Don’t be a fake. If you want to be a jerk, be a jerk.
That’s life. There are lawyers like that. There are all kinds of people.
That was my impression of him early on. I don’t care how many belts he has in UFC. He’s still a big guy.
The hardest thing for fighters is leaving the ring behind. Click To TweetHow many pro fights have you had?
I had seventeen.
You haven’t had one in a while?
2016 was my last fight and I still keep in relative contact with Mick.
Don’t take this the wrong way, you’re keeping in shape.
If I don’t have that, it’s my release. It’s a waste in the garage, a waste in bands and coaching to eleven-year-old baseball teams. They keep you in shape. They keep you running around. The last time that I talked to Mick was in 2016. It was an exciting fight. I won. Mick’s last words were like, “If you put one or two more together, I can maybe find a spot for you on the card.” That’s the main goal. I would like to fight one guy on the UFC card. When I was competing previously, it was a very constricted amount of people that are in there. Now, they have so many UFC cards. They have them on Sunday night, ESPN.
They have to. They sold it for $4 million. They need to start getting money.
They have a lot more talent. I see guys on there that I fought with on the same cards. I see what they’re doing, the level they’re performing. If I show up and back up, I can be in there and get a win or compete at the highest level. That’s one thing that is still out there for me. My wife doesn’t like that. When I’m on my last day on the death bed or whatever, I don’t want to have any regrets. That’s a big thing for me.
That’s the hardest thing for fighters, leaving it behind.
You’ve got to know when your time’s up.
I’ve got a buddy that’s two-time old champ box. He’s older than I am. He’s probably 53 or 54 now. It’s been a while. I think he’s finally off it, but it’s only last 2018 that he stopped talking about a fight, “You don’t need to be fighting.” He’s in good shape but he’s 52 years old. At 52, you don’t need to hit the head.
The access point is between 33 and 35 for a mixed martial artist because you still have the physical capabilities and you have that fighter.
It’s more on experience. If you beat up by now, you beat up others. They’ll beat life a little bit.
Boxing is more damaging to the body than mixed martial arts.
Why do you think that? I heard people say that. I’m not convinced.
We had the bigger gloves. You’re taking 200 and 100 punches to the head and then you include sparring. That’s taking a lot of damage. In my last few fights, I toned down the 100% sparring in training. Number one is injury prevention. Number two is we spar with eight, ten to twelve-ounce gloves. That’s a lot of damage. When I’m gearing up for a fight, maybe once a week we’ll go at it. Some of these other guys out there, they’re three or four times, as many times as they can to survive. I would rather be in phenomenal shape cardio-wise, low impact cardio and be ready. Stay sharp but if you’ve been in a fight before, not much is going to change. You have your game plan on what the other person’s specialty is, but you can’t take that much damage.
People are starting to see that. There are still some gyms that go hard all the time but to break down, as you get older, you can’t do it.
Let’s say you take one clean punch and you get a standing eight count. You take fifteen to twenty more punches, you get knocked down and you get a standing eight count.
It’s repetitive hits and hits.
You could be out on your feet. If you take one clean punch with a six-ounce glove, you’re out. Not only are you out, but there’s no standing eight count. It could be sliced either way, but there’s not as much availability to take damage in the MMA. There are other ways to lose.
That’s the part that’s been the hardest for me to appreciate. I get it but it’s the hardest for me to watch because I’ve never done any jiu-jitsu. I think it’s silly. I get it but I’ve never been able to buy in on that part.
It’s an appreciation for true art. The more that you know about it, you can appreciate it. You can see the maneuvers and the small movements of what they’re doing and what they’re trying to accomplish. You take someone’s full energy trying to resist against you. That’s when you understand how tiring it is and how difficult it is to get into some of these positions.
I know it’s hard. I have no doubt. Maybe I’ve just never done it.
You should.
I grew up watching boxing. My dad taught me to box. It’s the heavy bags, burning and jump rope. He wouldn’t know if I look at it.
That’s why I started loving combat sports in general. I was watching boxing. I had a heavy bag at a young age but couldn’t do anything competitively or train. I just punched it. I get in trouble or I get mad or whatever and I smack the heavy bag.
In the smaller weight classes of being a fighter, you have less to give and less to sweat out. Click To TweetIt seems like when I watched mixed martial arts, they always say, “This guy has got a background in karate or this guy is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu master. This guy has got this background.” What background do they say you have?
It’s kickboxing. I’ve also been introduced as a pure wrestler, even though I have one year of legitimate wrestling. I had the build of a wrestler. A lot of times, it has gotten into the other person’s head. They were sure I was going to take them down and I’ve used that to my advantage. It’s faking a takedown and coming up with another technique or something. It was something that always followed me. Everybody thought I was this high pedigree wrestler. There are very few techniques that are Greco-Roman wrestling-based that I know. Now, there’s so much more training available. These people that are starting at such a young age, you’re not fighting like it used to be with Matt Hughes or Chuck Liddell where they have one main discipline and are an amateur in the other aspects of it. They’re trying to get the fight in their advantage in that one discipline. Now, these guys are so well-rounded, it’s insane.
You see it in other sports, even ones that don’t allow different disciplines. Boxing, for example, like them or don’t like them, who are some of the top-level guys? They’re the true world-class guys. It’s guys who started training as kids. The family was skin in the game. Floyd Mayweather had his uncle and his dad. They didn’t have perfect records, but they were not BS boxers, especially his uncle. He was the real deal. The other example is Lomachenko. He’s fun. If you enjoy martial arts, boxing or sports, not to say he can’t be beaten but it’s a real show, the footwork. They talk about his dad taking him out of sports and putting him in dance for a couple of years. He played other sports, but it was all geared to take the discipline and the benefits from each thing he was practicing to incorporate back into boxing on a lifelong journey.
It avoids burnout. You see a lot of talented athletes in all kinds of sports. They might be fifteen, sixteen or eighteen and they get burned out. Once that drive is gone, especially in a combat sport, it’s over.
You’re going to want to do it in combat sports. You don’t love it. You don’t want to do it. There are some guys who have gotten wealthy from it, but that’s not why you do it or you get into it. You’ll never make it to the point where you can if that’s the reason you’re there. That’s from me watching from the cheap seats. I’ve seen the same burnout in all sports. I’ve seen it firsthand in softball. My daughter is done. At sixteen years old, she is done.
That’s the thing too. There are some talented softball players out there but after college, there’s no more. It’s the same thing with wrestling. That’s why you see so many wrestlers try to make the transition into MMA. If you don’t win Olympic gold, even then, you’re going to get marketability and some endorsements but that’s not going to last forever. If you got a lifetime dedicated to wrestling, you’re looking to do something else with it. It’s unfortunate. It’s almost like there’s that ceiling.
You said your last fight was in 2016. You also told me you have some lawyer skills or that you’ve been a licensed insurance agent for many years. Did you put fighting on pause when you started working on insurance?
No. I got my Property and Casualty License and then I took a fight. I used that fight to put the logo of the brokerage that I worked for. I even did a giveaway at that time. I was calling. This was when I was starting out. I was trying to get my name out there.
It takes a lot.
I was like, “You call and get a quote and you’ll be entered in to win two tickets.” I did a lot with that fight when I was starting insurance to generate getting some headway and some clients. The people that already knew me, once they found out, they were like, “If we’re going to have this policy or coverage or whatnot, why not get it from somebody that you know and somebody that has a little bit of a background, some litigation and knows what a good policy can do for somebody and knows a policy that’s not written in the proper way can screw somebody over.” Everybody is like, “It’s up to the client. They’re supposed to read their paperwork.” Help them out. I have to sleep at night. If there’s somebody trying to get a deal done, whether it’s a car salesman or a real estate agent, I’m like, “Drop this coverage or raise this deductible.” I’m like, “I know you are trying to get the deal done but no.”
Why did you have me sign all those waivers if my policy is so big?
You’re different.
I say that I always sell myself to a higher standard.
Did you read the arbitrary severance?
Yeah. They’re in it. They’re not in for property cash. They’re not in homeowners’ policies for the most part. With a lot of carriers, you see the appraisal clause affect the arbitration clause. They use it as a spear, which is unfortunate. It depends on what the situation is. I don’t always have to be a fan to be collecting and making stuff. They culturally operate. There are bad people on all sides. They see a situation where they felt someone was cheated one time. In the back of their mind, everybody is trying to cheat. I’m not saying everybody is that way, but I’ve seen that mindset going to an office.
That’s the unfortunate part. You see both sides of it on that. You get someone in a $600,000 house. They get one spot on their floor and they’re trying to get a policy max for it. They’re trying to get everything for it. You see someone that needs it and they have a fight tooth and nail for anything that the company will offer. That’s where these companies will come in. They’ll recognize that situation and throw a bone at them and see if they’ll take it. If they do, “We got out of that deal.” It’s a touch and feel thing. You have to know when somebody needs some help.
For you, I’d give you a little few more years’ guidance. That’s why they have agents sell their policy. They want a separation between the sales and the business. They look at it in two different ways. It pits you against the company sometimes when you try to represent one of your customers. Not necessarily represent them, but advocate for them or at least help them get to where they need to go. For example, most policy you sell say, “You have a client. You must certify some,” referring to the carrier. When people have clients, they don’t send a letter to the carrier. They call you. You send off some alert of writing, probably electronic for most cases but that’s how it works. Every time someone’s got a problem, you know about it.
Hurricane Harvey was a huge learning experience.
Was it your first big challenge?
Yeah. I had been in the industry for over a year and that comes through. I’m sick to my stomach because there are people I had offered flood policies a few months before that. They turned them down. They had four-foot of water in our house. They’re started calling me, “Did I take that policy or not?” friends of the family.
You wanted to save $300, that’s what you had to tell them.
That made me sick to my stomach. The big problem was that all these gestures came in to assess the damage. The other storm that hit Florida and their state subsidized the coverage. They put out the APB that says, “We’re offering 90-day contracts.” It’s $2,000 a day to these adjusters. They dropped everything they had. They could have been out of their house the day before. “I’m in the process.” A week goes by or two weeks then you call me, “I haven’t heard from my adjuster in two weeks.” I’ll call him. Sam is in Pensacola. They had to start the process all over again. You’ve got people with several feet of water in their house or the roof’s messed up. It was an absolute mess. There was only about a dozen that I had to hammer down the company and the desk adjuster. There were some heated conversations between myself and the other side, so much that I had to have the range pulled back on me by some higher-ups. It’s frustrating when you know the company.
You can’t help yourself. I’m not a professional fighter yet but I do have a fight coming up. Where does a guy get trained in mixed martial arts around these parts?
There are a couple of schools that are around that have some good teaching and some well-disciplined instructors. It’s more so in the jiu-jitsu area. As far as a well-rounded all-you-can-eat buffet for MMA training, you have to broaden your horizon. Get a little bit here and a little bit in Lake Charles, go to Houston. In the local schools, you can start and get your foundation work here. If you wanted to take it to the next level, you would need to travel a little bit, especially it’s hot. The high tide raises all boats. Even the amateur competition is much higher than what it was.
We were talking about that. You met a local fighter. He was talking about he won and he is probably going to move his family to Dallas because that’s where they really trained first camps.
That’s next on his list because he won that fight.
It’s pretty impressive. We’re talking about Ryan Spann for you fight fans out there. Check him out. He did a great job. He fought in a lot of ways a legend from what I understand in mixed martial arts. He was a Brazilian guy in Brazil.
He almost submitted the guy. He knocked the guy out.
It’s after he got hurt.
If he would have submitted him, I think it would have been, in a lot of ways, bigger than the knockout. You need that big name at the top fifteen and then on the top ten and you’ll really be in line.
He’s fighting on a real tough division. He’s got a scary build at 205. He’s so big. You have to jump on him like a tree squirrel or something and hang on.
His biggest problem when he was an amateur early in his professional career was he would tell me, “I don’t like to hurt people.” That’s why you see him at any of his ways. He’s always looking down in the opposite the side. I don’t know if that is in relation to the fact that he didn’t like to inflict damage on people. It’s still something that he does.
He’s a pretty demure guy. He’s not in your face or anything.
He’s been training in Dallas. He is not scared to let his hands go. He’s not scared to inflict the damage necessary. As an amateur in the early profession, you need a lot of submissions. It was almost like he felt he was doing them justice by letting each other be unconscious.
He’s a bit of a voice at 6’7” and fights at 205. He’s got to be a killer weight to fight at 205. He’s a muscular dude.
He probably is 220. His legs are huge. He probably walks 220. When you have that much to give, it’s not that bad. You take somebody like John Rallo. He was one of my favorite fighters when I was coming up. He would walk around at 220. At the fight, he’s probably walking in the cage at 195.
Do you usually fight at 135 for the most part?
I will cut to 135 and walk in the cage at 148 to 152.
What do you walk around? 160?
Yeah. In the smaller weight classes, you have less to give and less to sweat out.
Cutting 25 pounds is a lot when you’re only starting at 160.
During the fight camp, I would be closer to 150, 148. In the day of the weight cut, I was always trying to be a single digit.
You’re slowly doing it with diet in the right way.
Your body can’t make a full recovery in 24 hours if you do a crash cut.
What have you found was the best method to cut for you? Obviously, consistently with diet too.
High interval training, lots of greens and amino acids. Chia seeds were a good supplement that I found. CoQ10 was a good supplement. I found that concentrated version of CoQ10. It’s the black seagull, which is ungodly terrible. It was probably the most terrible taste but mix with some orange juice and shoot it back up. That was packed with amino acids and everything that supports the adrenal gland and the digestive system. When it came down to it, the last cut, sitting in a sauna for five hours was the worst thing. I stumbled on Epsom salt and green alcohol. It’s intense but you mentally get there and you make it happen. Even me, getting down to that low eight, nine to ten pounds, I’m done in 40 minutes. It’s way better than sitting there in a sauna.
We were talking about that awhile back. It’s me and some of my buddies got to this weight loss challenge. I was getting geared up. I thought I could already beat them all anyway because I was pretty fat. I also thought I would do better. I wanted the insurance for the competition to dominate so I was coming up with a strategy. On the day of our weigh-in, they weighed 100 so I tried that, but I didn’t do it as long as I could. I just did one go-round. It’s like twenty minutes in and ten minutes it’s wrap up. It was six or eight pounds. What we’re talking about is one go-round. What you do is load the bathtub with super hot water, as hot as you can handle going all the way up and have a ton of Epsom salts and green alcohol in there. In twenty minutes, get out and wrap yourself up in towels or sheets for ten minutes. Go back in for twenty. Back out and wrap up for ten. In two cycles of that, I don’t know what I weighed on. It’s just the one cycle, it was six or eight times and I was just fooling around.
You open your pores up and it pulls the water out.
Can you be healthy?
You’re probably not. Epsom salts in baths are.
It’s not with green alcohol. I got two sacks of it. It’s probably not good. I’ve been on it on a Friday night just to test it. I had my youngest son sit in the bathroom. I was like, “I’ve never done this. In case I pass out or something, keep my head above water and scream.” I don’t know what’s going to happen but I ended up not doing it because everybody quit. Everybody can see it before we had the weigh-in.
Did you get on a trip?
The whole plan was a fishing trip. We’re going to go to Costa Rica and the winner was free. There was a stage. The losers had to pay more, depending on how bad they did.
They didn’t even make it to the weigh-in.
Two of them didn’t weigh-in. One of them made the weigh-in. He was on it for about two months. It was a 90-day deal but at two months, he was like, “You’d beat me. You’d won. I can see.”
At two months, if I saw that, I would just kill it in that last month.
I didn’t stop but I’ve leveled off. That’s what I was telling you about. I’m not going to get down to 160 but I’m a little bit taller, maybe two inches or an inch.
In post-fight, I’d like to get to a firm 170. The heaviest I’ve ever been was 175. I was benching 350 and declined in 405 and I don’t want to get back there, but I would like to get back until 170 and a couple of miles a day on a bike like a lean 170. It’s a lifestyle.
That’s why I’m talking to people like you, friends around that I can call up. I’ve got to change my lifestyle and I had but I need a reminder. I can get focused in on being a lawyer, working all the time and chasing these three kids. It goes into having to take care of things.
With me, I’m stuck behind a desk in six, seven, eight hours. When you’re not eating, it’s not healthy and when you eat, it’s junk.
We have pretty sedentary jobs. We’re at office jobs. We’re at a desk most of the day. I might get in my car and drive a quarter mile and get out and walk up the steps but we’re not out working. I don’t think we’re genetically caught up with an office job.
Every 60 minutes or so, I try to get up and stretch. I’ll set up a fifteen-pound dumbbell and knock out some shoulder press or something. You can only do that for so long. Especially where I’m at, it’s a lot of phone calls and emails. I get on the headset. It’s all happening at one time. It’s such a high-paced, high-volume job, which I’m thankful for. It’s very few and far between do I have to do any marketing at all. It’s 100% referral-based. There are other agents that are maybe independent, like myself and some captive. They’re like, “How do you do it?” I’m like, “I just do it.” You have to do it until you get there.
That’s something that teaches people who have some fighting background. All you know is hard work. Those attributes transfer pretty well if you can get your mindset there. That’s the hard part. Former professional athletes, particularly former fighters, are some of the most capable, as long as they haven’t got their brains beaten.
You take that work ethic and if you apply it to what you’re trying to do professionally in life, outside of the ring or off the field, the sky is the limit.
That’s why so many big companies like to recruit collegiate athletes. They know they have some work ethic. If they have decent grades and they’re willing to work that hard and they’re not going to play any professional sport. Particularly with a lot of the women’s sports, they’re not going to go play it pro, softball for the most part. That’s the people you want to work with you. Do you do any training? Are you training other people or other fighters or work with other fighters around here?
I did have until 2016. The inundated schedule doesn’t allow for it but I’ll make time.
I’ve got a fight coming up.
Who’s the opponent?
Ramsey Dewey. He’s already in London. I thought that once I make it down to his weight class, he’s going down. The goal was August. I don’t know if I’ll be down there by August. It’s only twenty pounds. I can lose twenty pounds by August.
What are the rules?
It’s whatever rules he wants. I don’t care.
Are you sure knockout will be good?
That’s good. If I had my brothers, it would be straight boxing then it would be easy. It will not be easy because he’s a lot younger and in better shape. I don’t know how this started but we’ve been talking all this. We have these group texts going back and forth between all for him and me and another mutual friend we have. This is a kid who works up at the capitol. He’s all professional. He wears a coat and a tie every day. He’s all business. He’s all grown up. I’m proud of him but I’ve been talking a lot of trash that we’re going to have fun.
You can be proud of somebody and still whip their bottom.
It’s about to happen. Thank you for coming in. We finally got to talk a little bit. We’ll do it again if you’re up for it. It’s Cody “The Wolverine” Williams, thanks a lot.
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About Cody Williams
Father, Entrepreneur, Professional MMA Fighter, Licensed Insurance Agent for The Woodlands Financial Group at The Richey Agency, Property acquisition Sniper.