June 10, 2022 • 48 mins
On this week’s podcast, Rad interviews Connor "The Controller" Matthews, former Air Force combat controller and current MMA featherweight holding a 5-0 professional record. He shares the high-risk job of combat controllers, including performing HALO and HAHO jumps, and the need to be a strong runner and swimmer to survive this role.
Connor talks about the highly technical role of air traffic controllers and how to secure airfields. Being a lifelong athlete, Connor made a natural transition into MMA after life in the military. He shares his background in martial arts and his confidence in making it big in the UFC.
Reach out to Connor through the following links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connor-matthews-b3440b152/
Website: https://www.controllermma.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecontrollermma/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
H ruts. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
(00:21):
You're listening to soft up Radio Special operations military news
on straight talk with the guys and the community. Hey,
welcome to soft Rep Radio. I am your host, Rad
and I have a special guest today, former Special Operation
Combat Controller of the United States Air Force Connor the
(00:44):
controller Matthews. Matthews and I say Matthews twice because that's
a professional ring announcers way that they introduce you into
the ring and boxing. And and Connor, welcome to the show.
I do, man, it's nice seeing you. I haven't seen
you in the launch. Haven't seen since two thousand and sixty.
And I believe when we did that software boxing event
(01:04):
in London, he man pleasure seeing how's he going? Brother? Oh,
you know, it's great, Connor. I'm happy to have you here.
I was just talking with someone about you on another episode,
Mike Lamonica, who's from the Special Operation You're same Special
Operations community. Are you? Have you ever crossed passed with
Mike before? Yeah? You have, yeah, former combat in person,
(01:24):
but I had I know him, talked to him actually recently.
I just talked to him recently. Yesterday's ahead of the
Combat Control Association, I believe. And yeah, we've been talking.
We've been communicating a lot lately, and yeah, but I
knew who he was. It's just the name that Yeah,
you know, he's got like, you know, lots of ribbons.
He's a really nice guy to talk to, just like, yeah,
you know, I know I've talked to you in the past.
(01:45):
But let me ask you something. Do you have any
like specific ribbons that you're really proud of achieving on
your rack of ribbons that you wear? Probably my I
get a Combination Medal when I was deployed Backghanistan. Information
that I did. That was pretty cool. That I did
a lot of air traffic tool and I did a
lot of we got a meta back out of there.
We did a lot of stuff like yuess about it. Combat,
I kind of combat ribbons. They just saw combat and
(02:08):
NIS and so that was pretty cool, but not too much.
I mean, my friends have so many more ribbons than me.
I did want to deployment to Afghanistan and which I'm
grateful I got to do something. I got lucky, but
at the same time, not comparatively to be like a
lot of my friends. But like, you know, what I mean,
is did a lot of amazing things. There's probably some
silver stars that six employment. Yeah yeah, so many, so
(02:30):
many friends stars, purple hearts and oh yeah and all
this stuff and so yeah, not so much. But you know,
I got to get out there, right and I'm sure
that you've lost some friends along the way. You have
a very you know, high speed job. And it is
Memorial Day weekend for those listening, alright, so like talk
(02:51):
about that as like, yeah, I mean, I it's crazy
because I remember when I was going through selection and
training and we got done with the combat and full
school and the commandants, He's like, you know, look around you,
you're you guys would probably lose one of one or
two two of these friends that are here with you,
and and we end up didn't. We didn't lose guys
that were in training, you know. And it's either in
(03:11):
training or I lost a friends in combat, less friend
in training, and I lost of friends yet and accedent.
So it's like wild that I remember after that, my
mom was all like that sounds like you know, she'll
scared that, but it didn't happens, you know what I mean,
Like this job is it's a very dangerous. Very of
that job was not in this job, but my last
job was a very very dangerous libe where people's life,
(03:32):
you know, at risk, not only deployment, but on training
to deploy. And you know, I lost a lot of
your friends to a lot of people, like even before
me in my career, we lost a lot while I
was in there. Six members while I was in you
know what I mean. It's a small knit it's close
to the community. See, everybody knows somebody, everybody knows each other.
So yeah, I mean that's definitely something. Arrest in peace
(03:53):
to all those people, Like, yeah, arrest in peace to them.
There's only about like three hundred combat controllers right at
a time. I think we're a little bit more than
that now, like five I think when I was going
to remember, five hundred was the number we would here,
but I think it's probably up to like underneath. But yeah,
that's not a lot of people when you really get
down to you know what I mean, when it comes
to like guys who were actually on team prepared, to
(04:15):
guys who are instructors, guys that are administrative that you know,
like the day that breaks up real fast and you
really have a core group of guys that are deployable
and you know, like every everybody knows everybody. That's just
what it is, right And that's why I'm gonna segue
into what I'm wearing right now, which is your m
M A Mixed Martial arts shirt right here, the Controller Matthews.
I'm just so excited to say it because I know
(04:36):
you and I got to wear your shirt. I'm here
in Utah, you're in Massachusetts. We've traveled to London together,
and I'm super proud to be your corner and just
cheer you on and you soft rep to perpetuate that
out there. Bro, I want the person that you're gonna
fight to know that you're ready and uh, you're in
my corner. So stoked for you. Tell me. I appreciate that.
Thank you so much. Yeah, man, soft has been great,
(04:57):
like ever since that whole boxing thing, like just saying
like earlier, like you guys actually came up with my
nickname the Controller, And I don't know if people really
know that. When I was in London I did that
boxing fight, I got there and I saw like the
the I don't know, the flyer whatever it is. Yeah, yeah, exactly, yes,
(05:18):
it's Connor the controller and events Conner the controller Matthews,
and I was like, that is an awesome nickname. And yeah,
I went home and when I started fighting professional story
one moment controller and I really think it's well worked out, Gred,
So thank you, soft Rep. We're coming over that name
for me, and you know it's awesome you earned that name.
Now you're also five and oh in your professional fight.
(05:39):
Is that correct? That is correct? I'm five and now.
So I have five five five wins all first round
finish this right now. It's been Actually I feel like
I should have a lot more fights than I had
right now. The pandemic really doing wrench and everything. I've
been having problems with getting fights. I have a fight
scheduled and like a week before a certain night when
it gets hurt or whatever reason, they pulled out. I
(06:02):
happened to meet before my fights, and then I got
to get these guys to kill in that we're just
good as my usual opponent, so that you know, you
see want to see fighting good guys. So that's been
a problem with the mine is like I want to
get into the next level of fighting guys. Eventually I
got my contender serious shot um fighting at then Tender series.
Sound'm really really super excited about this, Like, I know
somebody's gonna show up to fight me in then Tenner series.
(06:23):
I know I was a fight and um, you know fighting,
I'm fighting friend of Dana White. And you know, if
I get my big knocked out, which that's my style,
I knocked people out, you know, I hope I'm going
to get that contract. Man, You're one fight that was
like a seven or seventeen second knockout. In the first round,
there was like a little swing kick to the leg. Yeah. Yeah,
(06:45):
a little kick to the leg and uh, you know
he pulled away from you, just like testing each other
and next thing, you know, open bay on dude and
he's down. Bro. Yeah. It was my first professional may
fight at a seventh second knockout. Yeah. He caught me
to like it kind of threw me off bounce first
second and then think you saw me off bound. So
he thought that he was just gonna be able to
step in in me in hand and I caught myself
step back in him with the right hand put him down.
(07:08):
Yeah that was that was a good one. Take. I'll
take that yet, you know what I mean not too
much damage or kind of take any but you know
anybody's like that or you don't take games sounded that fight. Yeah.
So being in the back controller lifestyle and being so
trained up like a you know, extreme athlete that you
are just for that job, right, let alone fast roping
(07:28):
out of you know, helicopters, probably halo. You're probably jumping
out of airplanes halo. You know, free fall like we
see you know, from thirty thousand feet. Are you wearing
oxygen masks when you do that and stuff? Yeah, I
believe everything above thirteen feet you have to wear oxygen
for so I we did, I had done for a
few of those. My team that I was on is
we were training up to be like a jump style
(07:50):
team at one point. So we did a lot of
jump schools and hay Ho team HAJO and all that stuff.
So yeah, I get to do all that stuff's HAJO
high altitude high open. Yeah, high out, high opening. So
that's probably if you were ever gonna actually use this
stuff in real life, and you know we're gonna do
a missions high like just you're gonna use a hay
hose and halo. You know, I'd be so hey Ho
(08:12):
it gives the ability the team to jump out. You're
not gonna spread out, so the plans flying you're you know,
the skydiv and you're just gonna spread out all the people.
You're gonna want to everybody to jump close, open up
and find each other and then you can land down
um at a location friend depaying how far you have
to go all together as a team. So that's what
we use. You're just traveling kind of like uh, you know,
(08:34):
so you have to know what airspeed. Uh you know
you're basically now piloting all that. Yeah, it's basically everything
you need to notify a planning. So if you don't
have the only instruments, I mean you if you have
a guy who's like the navigator, but everybody needs to
be kind of like a navigator and halo, y'all. It's
cold as hell out there because not exusing a manager
(08:55):
in the middle of the summer, in the debt, it's cold,
you know what I mean. I remember a couple of
like my first one, my first time or a couple
of first times I was doing it. I had like
small blow z on because I'm so used to halo. Halo.
You can jump up from that altitude and you're laying
down and you're fine because you know you're open the
coal for not that long, but you do a halo.
You're sitting up there in my hands and I got
down to the ground. My hands were so cold, like
(09:16):
it could even take off my parachute. Yeah, it's so cold.
That's so crazy. That's so cool. So they would drop
you and then you just pop open pretty quick and
then you guys just sail into whatever target that you're
supposed to drop zone on. Wow, very stealth. I mean,
there's definitely an art to it, because you know, not
everybody goes down to the same um, you know, the
(09:38):
same speed, so like you know, somebody who's heavier is
obviously gonna throw, is gonna is gonna be faster than
somebody's lighter. So there's a lot of like you know,
we keep frying your parachute on the way down to
keeping everybody together, taking into terms of peopid old spread out,
you don't want to close for you're bumping into people.
There's a lot to it. It's like it's kind of
a cool emission set, you know what I mean. You
(09:59):
just get being able to jump out and it's really
a lot of team mark, you know what I mean.
It's like jumping under the plane, working together to make
sure we land together. You know, if you jump, you're
in a real like mission. You jump out, you lose
a guy. Now the mission is totally different. You're not
gonna go out there the accomplished mission. You guysally right
out to do. Your next mission is how do we
get our guy back? So it's it's a really high
(10:19):
risk situation. So it's pretty cool all that kind of training.
So you do night jumps. Is that a normal thing
for you guys as night jumps? Oh? Yeah, I think
we only like besides just training to kind of that
you're not gonna jump into anywhere during the day, So
everything we did was night Are you wearing the any
vision Yeah, night vision goggles MPGs. That's what I'm asking
(10:41):
is like you wearing those while you're jumping. Yeah, we're training.
We use pds thirty ones I don't know what they
use nowadays, and misses and they have some as is
like coming down you ship all the time thirty ones
which you're white phosphers, you're smaller. They weren't. They're nice,
but I mean, yeah, we had to do a lot
of jumps before that that. I think the rules have
changed now, Like we weren't allowed to jump in the
(11:02):
NBGS initially, so you did all your training jumps from
no mvgs jumping its black hat in the middle of
the desert. Everybody has. Nobody's MPG is the only thing
people have on our little cat lights and blow sticks.
So when you open up your parachute, all you see
is that cat lights flying around the sky is terrifying
and you don't want to get any day on stuff.
But once you go down. Once we got on team,
we got trained up on the MTG because because when
(11:25):
you're jumping with nbgs, you don't want to um. It's
a high risk of getting your parachute and tangles when
you're falling your parachute. But so you can swing over
the front of your m EG to pull the pull
up your helmet and entangled and you get amoultfunctioned and
that's terrible. So it's a lot of like you have
to do to make sure that doesn't happen, staying stable,
blocking your mvgs and then pulling your parachute, and so
(11:46):
there's like we got to get trained up to that
before weard when you know, we went out and go
do it. So, yeah, it was cool. Once you get
its just so much better Now it's just like jumping
on dead you know what I mean. You can see
everybody around you. It's actually probably here the guy that
wrote the man for put your arm in front of
your m VGs just in case that guy right, you know,
(12:06):
he's like, you know Bill, he said he should put
his arm up because he got tangled. Yeah, that's amazing,
you know, just there's so much going on inside your mind.
You're such a high speed athlete, so you're you're trained up,
you're coiled up. You're really proficient at swimming, and and
some of your background you grew up like on the
coast or surfing, right, Yeah, I live like you know,
(12:28):
I'm less than a mile away from the water, so
I've oceaned and being the ocean around the ocean has
always been life. A big part of my lifestyle surfing,
and that's a huge part of combat Controller. Is the
water right and the water portion? And and how did
you train up? Tell the high school kid listening right
now who wants to a combat controller, wants to be
the next next you, next Connor Matthews, what should he
(12:49):
prepare for water wise? Everything? Never mind, you have to
be already. You have to be a runners to be
an athlete, you know, you have to be very good
at running, not just like okay, you got to be
a good run back. And now things have changed since
I've gotten any have to be a good run So
I got that first. It was an m a fighter,
so I was always a cardio athlete. I'm a hockey player.
(13:10):
So that was fine. Like I said, I was really
comfortable in the ocean getting thrashed around because I just
was surfing my entire life when I was a kid.
So you know, I've had big surf days and when
you go out there and you're like kind of scared
and he's getting comfortable and getting th rest around, getting
held under. I've had that happen to me. So that
was okay. But that long distance swimming, that was not
my thing. I'm kind of a meet like a bowling ball.
(13:32):
There's an east the colors in the day, so I
kind of on Friday. I'm not as tall. People think
I sometimes I'm five day short, and I just kind of,
you know, I'm not the greatest swimmer. So what I
did is I hired a high school like swim coach too,
you know. So I go in there twice a week
and she would help me with my you know, my
technique of swimming, and it helped out a ton of
(13:53):
two minutes all of my time, you know what I mean.
And I think this with everything is like whenever you're
gonna learn something and people like just gonna trying to
figure out and he probably just get to talk to
somebody knows what they're doing to pick up which you
can get, you know, and from that and to make
your life a little bit easier. So that's how I
did a hire dispanche coach, you know, and she helped
me out of time. He took it off my time.
And then I was saying, but once I got to
(14:14):
the pipeline, I had to pass my test. But once
you passed your test, you got fans after that, and
you give me fans, and I'm fine, I can swim,
you know. I was just kicking the hockey player strong
legs and just kicking. So but yeah, I had to
do that. And I not the greatest summer, but you know,
I just got enough, got that far, I got that
down and you know, and that's all that matters. I'm comfortable,
like I'll get beating the water all day. So you're
(14:36):
a Massachusetts kid, right, you grew up Massachusetts is your place,
right yep? South South Coast mass and Rhode Island. Between
those two places, mostly mass but like I was school
and everything your Massachusetts. But my grandparents in the island,
which is a big random new pore around. They look
a lot of ways and good to each town. So
that's where I really did a lot of my surfing
growing up. So we want to give that shout out.
(14:59):
We have col corner. We want Massachusetts in your corner. Bro.
That's why you're the son of Massachusetts all day on
him right there on that bicep, bro. So yeah, that's
what's up seeing. So that's what I'm saying. There's something
about you back East guys that have just this like
no nonsense, like you know, I've handled some hard climate
(15:22):
or something, and you guys are fighters, Bro. You can
take it to the streets and to the map. You
what do you think about that? I totally hear of that.
And then's just like there's so many like fighters from
New England and Massachusetts specifically that are like known for
like just be having parts of lines and like wars,
Like if you look at Cavalcator, you look at rab Font,
you look at Joe Lois on the UFC fighters that
(15:44):
I know, Kyle Bakia, all these guys are known for
like being pretty like they're technical fighters, but they're like,
you know, like when she gets bad, he's just by
Don Malcony's name. Wars and they don't give up and
they don't quit. I don't know. I think it's the cold.
I think it's just real football. The times we're used
to that shift. We just keep pushing through it. You
guy really wanted to be a fucking fighter in ess
(16:05):
because it's sucking, it's goal, it's gold. You know that's
funny you say that because I'm thinking of the movie
Rocky right, and he trains in the snow to be
hardcore with wait rought logs on his shoulders and he's
just like trudging through the snow and that's Rocky, bro.
So I look you, I want you to be that dude.
I want m M A Chris Matthews statues in Massachusetts.
(16:27):
You know what I'm saying. There's one up in the
north end. It's funny. There's a gal boxing and the
North end of Boston there's a boxing statue. You guy said, yeah, hey,
that's back in the day too. They got like as
a city Brockton around their city of Champions. We just
we just have those that kind of people around there.
So it's pretty cool. I like it. Philadelphia is one
of the cities, you know what I mean, they're very
similar to that stuff. Now, when you joined the Air
(16:51):
Force after high school, you're a pretty determined individual. You're
doing martial arts, you're pretty straight laced. You're not doing
anything that's gonna keep you from passing any pissed us
or anything like that, so you're focused. What was it
that made you go combat controller? Was it a friend
or did you just say, hey, this is a job
that I wanted or were you going to be a
crew chief and you got pulled in through basic? No?
(17:14):
So actually, well, I actually wanted to be a Navy
seal because that's the only job. Like I said, nobody
was a comeback control. Everybody knows the Navy Seal, including
as a kid. I was like, now's badass. So I started,
you know, thinking about that, and then when I went
to the Navy recruiter. He was like he did not
like want to put me in as a seal. He's like,
you gotta go do this, and uh well, he just
(17:36):
kept on saying, like, if we got this other job
for you, so once you get you can do this
job and you can cross you and to be a seal.
And I'm like, I don't think about So I went
across the hall and talked to the Air Force recruiter.
So s ket John Morris Rick guy he um still
talk to him. Today. So he was like, hey, man,
I got this. I don't have I don't have a
He's like, I have this job. Peach at they're pushing
pair of rescue. I was like, all right, I'll look
into it looks school, it looks like they do a
(17:58):
lot of the same things Navy steals do. I start
John thing, I started, you know, dot, I started diving,
I started all that. It was like a medical sounds
pretty cool. So I started training for that job. And
then when they had the past test, is a couple
of guys that were I took it with and they
were supposed to have slots to go before me for
combat control. So I passed that. I did really really
good at the test. The kid didn't find me. He
didn't do as well, so they got a slot opened
(18:20):
up and then uh so that was like all right,
so I kind of get to go sooner then and
then the guy goes to me. He was, hey, man,
you wanna do want to save people? Do you want
to kill me? This is like a combat controller that
was there that was getting an administrated in the test.
And I was like, I guess I want to kill people.
He's just like, all right when you used a CCT,
And I was like, all right, I had no idea,
not one, like, like no idea what to comeback control
(18:43):
I did. I got home and looked it up a
little bit and I saw I was like, all right,
they died, they jumped. I don't know what aircraft control was.
Had no idea at this point in like hyper kid
graduated high school. Were about fighting and it's like like
with the ADC towers, we're at airport. But so I
got in there and you know, I end up taking
the job, and you know, I'm so happy idea because
(19:03):
it was the coolest job. Who was community. You know,
you got to do a lot of things and a
lot of people that have in military didn't get the
opportunity to do And yeah, happy I did it on
the government. You know, dime. It's almost a little bit
of a fun trip for you because you probably like
to work out. You don't mind running. Let me ask
you about the swimming bill. I'm obsessed with that because
I'm not the strongest swimmer, although if I have fins,
(19:24):
so I do laughs at my local pool. But fins
helped me tons. So do you have to dive underwater
the full length of the pool back and forth on
one breath? Is that a thing you have to achieve? Yeah,
that's a fifty FIFTI under waters. That was that was
the reason pass the roof. You don't have that for us.
We didn't have to do it initially to get into
(19:46):
the job like I think some people do. We guys
had to do a couple of to get in. But
like you should be able to do fifties, you guys
once once they because once you get down the end, doc,
can you get down to first select Shane and all
that kind of stuff. I mean, you're you're doing stuff
that's a lot harder than one back and forth you
get you getting drowned the proof you can thrushes. It's like,
(20:08):
you know, that's the that's like the minimum standard for
a lot of the past test to get into the job,
like you should be able to do Like that's like
not even that's you're gonna do that in your worst day.
Like that's easy. It's the training and you maybe they
can't eliminate you for you know, popping into other things,
but like you're not not gonna manage. So yeah, we
(20:29):
had to give. One of our standards to go to
dad school is to do underwater. But yeah, this year,
like all right, it's kind of hard. I mean my
dad growing up, being the son of a Green Beret,
we'd go up to Hill Air Force Space and he
would do his laps all day long. But he'd take
us kids to the pool, me and my brother, and
there was these weights and he'd reach down on the
(20:49):
side of the pool. He's like, okay, Aaron, put your
blindfold on, but first watch where these weights go, and
he'd throw them off the edge down it's like the
five six foot area for me, but he throw them
off into the twel on my brother, who was older.
My brother was really good at going down to twelve
feet blindfolded and finding those damn weights. But here's me
like trying to get into five foot water and I'm
just it's just a tough it's tough water, so you
(21:11):
need to be water ready, almost probably drowned proof before
you join. And like you said, get a coach. You
got a lady that was a high school coach. Do
you remember her name? You want to give her a
shout out because you're gonna be the best m M
A fighter in the world. I wish I could remember
her name off the top of my head, and I
can't right remember. You'll be like to have talked to
your sense. I have talked to your sense a couple
(21:33):
of times. I can't remember a name. I'm coming head
the time. Like honestly, she helped me in my life,
you know what I mean. Like something's crazy somebody like
that as a high school like fighting, get good at
swimming because of her, I never would have made it
to be a combat and children then that probably when
never came back to fighting the way it did. So
it's just like crazy, these little people that connected and
up to bumped into that like projected your life in
(21:55):
a certain way. You never know what's happening when it's happening,
but you find you like look back that person like
that's it's that person, it's it's it's incredible, you know
what I mean. That's so Yeah, there's a couple of
people out there that really helped me out, like my my,
my sense when I was a kid, like just his mentality,
like I started out before even when it's special operations.
(22:15):
And we did belt test growing up as a kid.
His name since that John Ronda, and we did bell
test and our belt test was like like a day
hell day for slushing. So it's like I was like
already doing like I didn't really look at it like
that when I was a kid, But when we're covering
PBC PIST, we're doing hill sprints. He gave my black
belt this year and I had to take another test
from when I was like I was doing the test,
I'm like, I like this stuff was kind of harder
(22:37):
than some of the stuff I was doing in the military.
At went for you like like he crushes us, but
like like physical stuff and then he makes his fight
in the sand on the beach with each other. He
did it. So he took a sandhill, he lined up
a whole bunch of people from the gym, and I
started at the bottom and I had to fight my
way through every single person to get to the top.
And I had to do that. I'm like, that's hard,
(22:59):
you know what I mean, Like you like like like yeah,
it was like it was pretty cool, Like he trying
to train my brain before even got into the middles.
And you had to engage each person, right you had.
You couldn't like skirt him like like you know, do
a little no, you have to engage in I had.
He made I think he made it especially hard for me,
you know, for everything that I've made. And then so
(23:20):
I had to do that test all right, all day tests.
You wake up. I think you get there like seven
all day tests until like two or some two or three,
and you know we're doing a tongue he smokes. He
basically destroyed every Muslim the body like a possible weight again.
And then he brings you to a beach. You all
these beach workouts, fighting people on the beach. Probably that
I was exhausted. Then at night I had had a
(23:41):
far row fon to get him ready to rob fons
number four or five in the world. That one thirty
five division and I had so I had to go
go fighting him. So and the the UFC cameras when
they're watching filming for his thing, I was like, I
gotta do good. I mean they still still start every
video and being possibly getting punched in the face by
Rob Fond. So it was it was cool. I was like,
(24:02):
I was smoked and I was like, I still gotta
go do this, dude. So it was a really good
and that's the idea I got. I didn't. It was
avery cool day for my folks. Is a Shawan Spoon,
sedator in chief of software dot Com, just here to
say thank you for listening to the softwap radio podcast.
We sure appreciate you giving us your time, and here's
a special offer for you if you're a new member
(24:23):
off your annual membership to softwarep just click the link
at the bottom of the page that brought you to
us today, and from all of us here at soft rep,
thank you for listening. So do you think that with
going through all of that and going through your combat
training and being drowned proof has brought you to this
no tap out lifestyle where you're gonna get in the
ring and you're gonna give it everything until you know
(24:44):
there's only one way out for you. I think, yeah,
for sure, I think that the career field just hardy,
like you said, they drowned proof in the heart of
getting I talk about it just even jiu jitsu, like you,
if I'm wrestling and dropping with somebody who's way bigger
than me, you can sometimes you get stuck in these
positions is where you want to like an it can
freak out and you know what if you want to
get But like I've just been in those stressful situations
(25:06):
so much to know how to, like you know, remain calm,
like be comfortable being comfortable. It sounds si morning, but
like you know what I mean, like he comfortable being uncomfortable.
It's true though, it's like that. I think that's my
biggest like like superpower I have and fighting right now
and like everybody there now thinks that I've just been
to people in one minute and you know, what's he
gonna do when he goes past month? Man? And with
what where is he? I'm like, no, man, I've been
(25:27):
I'm training for like the long haul. Like when he
she gets hard, that's when I actually beforen't better. I
think I think like long rocks and all this, all
this stuff I did that was just painful. I always
did really well. And there's anything that's like a grinding
kind of exercises like that's where I rise up. So
I think they're being a being a combat con children
(25:47):
and all that is with d percent what got me
mentally as tough as I am, and that's why I
got where I'm at right now. Yeah, and I'm not
gonna say there's not gonna be another you know, opponent
that's training as hard as you equally, which is what
I want. Anyone that's listening right now, they're gonna do
the research on you and here that you're ready, bro,
Like you know, their better come with their their game
(26:08):
to you, because you're coming with yours as I'm saying.
And so like I took six years off, you know
what I mean from training as a martial artist, like
you know, making that my name, but before I've been
training martial arts since I was at four, you know
what I mean. So I have a lot of that time,
like you know, just as a kid be getting comfortable
in that took the six years off. We're usually people
are fighting in their six and then that period between
(26:30):
their twenty two I think I was twenty one and
twenty seven sevens when I when I was in the military,
and people are people are usually you know, that's the
hardest time to ad fights, to take a lot of damage.
Luckily for me, I took no damage. But I still
trained like an athlete from a special operation, still working
out with coaches, is still doing and you know what
I mean, I still kind of kept my body together
(26:51):
during that time and really trying to go out. I
didn't fight. So now I'm kind of coming into this
mature level where I'm turning thirty this week. Actually my
birth parties today if I turned it thirty this week,
and I'm more mature, and I have to thank you man,
and I have like all of that, you know, mentality
and everything is I'm just really coming into my prime
with a fresh body, you know, I mean, and I
(27:12):
don't have to wearing tear on me. I'm really run
into my frind and I feel like it's just like
I gotta big edge on everybody. So I think it's
gonna be a fast rise for me, honestly, you know.
And you're getting ready to do this fight night right
as I wear your shirt right here, you know, with
you throwing your punch. This is a great art rendition
of you. By the way, I think that you should
have props to the person that designed this. Yeah, to
(27:33):
your uncle unco. Yeah, exactly, definitely free like he made
he designed it. He's like a computer design and graphic
designing designed a sent it over and say hey, like
doesn't like yeah, like ensures that right away. It's amazing.
Thank you so much, lucked out man. And also you
have a shop, right, I want to pitch it because
the money helps you go to the fights and to
(27:55):
like get your tickets and to get travel. What is
the shop the controller m m A tell me, yeah,
so controlling the name dot com. So there's no deep
it's just controlling nime dot com. I got a website
going there to check out my I got bios about me,
but I also had my my my shirts on there.
I got four different shirts out right now. We always
try to get the best quality for like, I'm the
big big leaver in like and I think I got
(28:17):
this from the military special operations stuff like that. Fine
good quality stuff. So much gonna be working people, where
if I something cheap and try to screw somebody, or
even if it's costible money, always the best stuff. It's
always so worth it. You know, it's always worth it.
When we went over to Remember in London. When we
went to London, Brandon Webb had Software make a bunch
of shirts for us, and I was like, Oh, these
(28:37):
are so soft and so comfortable, those software shirts. I
had my own shirts made out of the same shirts.
I was like, I'll be damned and this is that
same soft, next level style. Sure I'm not gonna like
sit here in fanboy over it, but I'm wearing it.
I could I slept already exactly exactly stays there. Send
(28:58):
me this shirt's the same thing. So it's like, it's
like when I went to the same thing. When we
used to go to shooting schools all the time when
I was in the military. We well and usually at
the end of the school you get a shirt from
like the school we just meant to and they owe
all the guys always have think these nice shirts have
like wearing all the time because I'm like, it's just
comfortable for you to work out, So I'm gonna wear
that shirt. Yes, And then it's you know, it's good
for me, for me, you might get my name, get
(29:19):
everything out there, you know. So only special request for
rad is if you make special shirts for us bearded folks,
maybe a little lower on the print so we don't
knock it. But listen, I'm gonna tell you, I'm more
to wear this over to London. I'm gonna go. Yeah.
I don't get I didn't get a shirt and big
fill out there, but I agree we need to uh
(29:41):
lower the thing in the next thing that's gonna happen
in the next year. We had that discussion. Oh yeah,
because you know that we're sending them over for something
because bearded shirts. Yeah, yeah, just really low, just just
a little lower. Beers. We exist, I swear, I swear,
and you know again, I'm gonna take this. I'm going
over to London with my wife to show her the sites.
(30:03):
Like we gotta go see with Soft Rep when we
did those remembrance rumbles, which I think those guys are
gonna do another one, so you might want to keep
your ear to the ground to come in and still
maybe do a little one to want to have to answer, Yeah,
I mean, I'm down to do it. Let's see if
they UFC will be happy about me doing a Betther
fight outside of you see, but if I can, and
if anything, I would love to go there and just
(30:24):
be a guest or a commentator. Have you happy? That
would be great, dude, we can go back to back. Bro.
We could be like, did I just say that? You'll
be like, yes, Rad, you did. That would be real fun.
I'd love to do something like that. I'm doing actually
commentating for a local promotion that I grew up fighting
in Cage Titans, which is around here, and I'm commentating
(30:45):
and on this weekend, I'm cornering your guy in my
fighting and I'm hopping in the booth and compentating fight.
You know. I like to do that. You want to
give a shout out? Yeah, my fighter Beldina getting coming
fighters to coming up. He's a he's come a long lane.
Last week I've been I've been coaching and are striking.
So it's kind of cool. Now I'm doing that as well.
I opened up a new gym, the Brewing Grounds, so
(31:06):
now I'm kind of like, you know, getting gut. Like,
my girlfriend's a fighter, and this kid, Andrew Foutina is
a good fighter, and I'm like working with them and
it's been pretty cool. It's like this is always I
said this the other day. It's always been my dream
too to own a martial arts gym and be a
professional and a fighter. So I want to be my
(31:26):
gym open now and the next Yeah, I got my
gym open now. Now my next goal is to get
is getting the UFC. And if I accomplished all those things,
It's like I looked at an actually interview from when
I was eighteen, and that's what I said in the interview,
and I was like, ship, this is actually coming true now.
So you know, I think the things you'd love to
do and and you know I believe it. Hey, you
(31:47):
have a you have an Instagram too. It's the controller
mm a right on your Instagram yep. Controller. I mean
that's probably where I'm where I am the most active.
So if anybody ever want to hop on there, you
have following me a Although I post there a lot,
I don't use Facebook too much. I don't know why.
I think it's just as I'm a picture guy, so
(32:07):
I like Instagram. Think. You know, you're probably good at
so many things in combat. Controller, you know, pipeline. The
toughest thing was what for you. I would say the
toughest thing for me was academics and air traffic control
schools specifically. I think that's where I had my my
biggest challenge. But once I got through that, I mean
(32:29):
everything else, like anything that's practical, like tactics, shooting. Some
reason that school I didn't have any I never probably
I thought that stool was easy. Just yeah, probably aircraft control.
That this speaking and learning the language of being aircraft controller.
It was a little bit challenge for me in first,
Like I said, I had no idea what air traffictroll
was before going into When I hopped it, I had
like a little learning kurd, And then once I got
(32:50):
it down, I knew I had to get dat, you know,
especially when I deployed. So I got it down really
well and and really good, and I used it when
I was what I used it as a ton really cool.
You just did you just up train on like a
portable radar and just stare at a computer and be
like delta three five seven, you're clear three seven two seven.
We did if we did have to do radar when
(33:12):
I was, they don't have to do that anymore because
you have radar a tarntrol. They terminal or traf control
which is like a tower. So like there, um, you
know there's two different times. Stuff is the power, Yeah exactly.
So so when we did terminal space control, so like
when a lot of times when we get the air traffictrols,
but we had to do this stuff where you like
(33:32):
you're like landing to see one thirties or slanding planes
on the airstrip and do an air traffic tros all
around the airstrip and when we deploy, that's a lot
of time what we do. So, um, what we did
have like these uh Worth simulation training simulators stimulator Yeah, yeah,
it would see your simulators that we usually use in
our in our units that are pretty close. So would
hop in there and get work for practice. And you
(33:54):
had an old time combat controller in there that was
like you know TCU techniques and stuff that you would use.
So we got we can get trained out once you
get on on TV, you get really trained up and
get good at it before you go out there and
did do the job. Did you ever get like PJ
is going to like the e R to like work
on people, you know as they perfect their skill. Did
(34:14):
you get to go to the air traffic controller airport
and like do your thing with so. Yeah, so we
actually when I was deployed, I did have like a
scenario where they brought in somebody got shot in the
on the battlefield, and then the pjs came and then
I flew out like translated the helicopter where the guy
(34:35):
got shot into his team on thirty. So I I
did all the air shot control to get that going.
So I actually was in the helicopter from where the
guy get shot, brought in in, got out product one
thirty into land, got the guy out, and got the
guy out of there. So I did get to do
stuff like that. Yeah, that's like what you're trained. Was cool. Yeah,
I get to use use my job. And that's how
you said that would make sense for people. I like
(34:55):
pgs and controllers can work together to do scenario or like,
you know, somebody shot, we need to get this guy
out of the aircraft controller, the combat and charge jumps
on the MICTS, gets all the air going, and the
pj's working the guy out of there. Yet that that
that did happen with us, You're the key to the
team because I think you would jump on with like
a seal team or a task force team, or an
A team or an O D A and Green Beret
(35:17):
Operations attachment. Yeah, you're you're with all those guys. You're there. Hey,
how you doing, Connor? Can we have you? Yeah? I
mean absolutely, you get on any team you have to.
You have to be a big assets and the team
you get you can bring something to the fight that
other people don't break. And we definitely are the you
know when it comes to attaching team, being the radio guy,
(35:38):
I mean, we're gonna be the best foot. Already aircraft controllers,
so we know how to you know, separate aircraft. So
if you got a compact and trolling, getting the JATAX certified,
which being I wasn't jatach certified when I was played
because I know, but I was on, I've got the
opportunity to get with the team with the jay tap,
So you know what I mean. If you're bringing in there,
you know, if you're already good at aircraft control, you're
gonna be a good j tap, you know what I mean,
(36:00):
And you're gonna be a big asset to the team.
The communications too, so combat controllers, like a lot of
our job is known radios and setting up the team
rigancies and and making sure everybody's on the same page
and doing the communication so that you know that we
can talk to enter team, and then we can be
the guy who's talking to the aircraft that's bringing in
its bringing in drones. You know this guy like I
(36:21):
SR platforms for those guys who you know, Rain and Ice.
We're talking at first, we're talking to fast moor Jezz.
We're talking to a Pashy helicopters won thirty one, thirties,
eight ten, anything too. Like on any given battle and
you know what I mean, there's so many different aircraft
checking in and on from the fight, and so it's
really important to have combat controller there too, have a
(36:44):
great especially he's already your traffic It makes sense, like
he does chaos. You ever heard that term case A
friend of mine here he does that. Yeah, he's part
of the chaos culture where they go out and all
the air traffic control chaos of I don't know, chaos,
that's what that's they're called. That's their name. Their squadron's
name is chaos. You know. So I can only imagine
(37:05):
you need to listen to everybody flying over you. Yeah,
I can't get chaotic and man, but you know what,
a lot of these pilots are very good in the
military too, so they help out a lot of you know,
there you're talking to pilots, but yeah, it can get
very chaotic, and you know it's and there's a lot
of money and lives on the on the line. So
it's that you can't you can't mess up, you know
(37:26):
what I mean. You can't. You can't bring a plane
in where there's a plane in the runway and you
clear to the lane and they crashed into another plane
and then you just heeled little bunch of people. So
it's like there's things like that that happened, you know
what I mean. So it's like it's very important. You know,
it's high risk, or dropping a bomb through where you
have a helicopter range and f a team, or drops
a bomb and theres a helicopter them near in the area.
(37:46):
You know, there's a lot of things like separation that
can you can really go raunchous very more. And you
have some guys trained up, you know, are dropping a
bomb in your own young guy, Yeah, you don't have that.
Stuff has has happened. So if you're getting the call
to go in a season airfield, right or create an
airfield or whatever that air field needs to be. What
would you do, Like if there's a team of six
(38:08):
or seven of you going in together to assess an
airfield area, you know you gotta do like the grading,
tell me what what you all? Right, So there's there's
multiples like this. First of all, comeback control to bridge
jack of Bot bases. A lot of different mission sets
that we can do. So we can do like say
there's a assault lake fed out in the middle of
the desert and we want to do admission that's to
(38:30):
a compound or to something that's close to us. All
like that, right, So um, what we can do there?
We can go there ahead of time, we can land,
we can you know, say we say we want to
jump in, or anyway we can get there of the jumping.
So we wanted to jump in, jump in, do a
complete assessment of the airfield, find out like make sure
that soil the ground is all dense enough for an
(38:50):
aircraft to come in so we can can bear the loaded,
land and take off and sit on the sit on
the ground. So we have to get out there, you know,
assess how long is there enough we own is it
not bumpy? Is there is the soil good? Is there
any you know, any hazards in the in the area.
To make sure that's good so we can do we
do all that and then if it's good, okay, now
(39:10):
we have to set the airfield speeds up, airfrals, We
have to know about you know, demensions the aircraft, what
aircraft are laying on and you know what I mean.
Then you can do the aircraft fictuel they actually bring
the plane in land the plane, and then you can
go into the mission sometimes like you know, and then
also if they state we take contact right that we
have to have like you know, calling the air strikes,
and so there's so many different things that we can
(39:31):
do as a combat controller, never mind just being a
side like it's part of the easier part or not easier,
but like one of the parts just been being on
the team you're calling the air strikes is like the
most fun part of it. But there's a lot of
other stuff that we do. That stuff they're like, you know,
making sure that the airfields are good. You're probably getting
cool doom buggies, you're probably all GPS not on your
(39:54):
finger Yeah, we probably have like all sorts of crazy
stuff that's just behind the scenes. Yeah, just going so
a lot of times they we make like if they're
on teams attested to user, we make the can't think
the word right now, it's been too much and he
was we're tracking, like all the we're making all the
g r g s. There we go, making all the
g rg so, making all the like where the rood,
(40:16):
labeling everything, where the bombs are gonna be dropped, and
dude doing all that stuff ahead of time. And then vehicles,
like we get on the air fil we need to
know how to drive dirt bikes. You know, I drive
four whilers. We have a t D. We have to
do all these because when you cruising around airfield, you're
not long cruising. Let's just take too long. You know,
I was gonna be thirt bikes to do all that
kind of Yeah, it's like that that runway has to
be super Yeah, so six depending on what the time
(40:40):
Mack is, you know what I mean, how long is
it take make a six man team. You could get
down their clearing airfield, make sure it's get to bringing airplanes,
landing airplanes, to get shot control for prise security around taxi.
You could do that all of like a six man
in comback control team you know, how to be hard
could be one controller attest to a seal team or
od call on air triks. Wow, that's really awesome, dude.
I mean it's just like that's amazing. It's just another
(41:02):
world that you know, you're a unicorn, and you know,
when you get to talk to unicorn, you kind of
want to know what's the unicorn eating? And uh yeah,
you know, and how much ruck weight do you put
in your ruck sack when you train yourself, do you
go the full weight or you just skimp it? You
know that kind of thing. It's like, but you guys
(41:23):
go the full weight. We definitely so like constraining. Yeah,
well in training, we definitely has to carry a lot
of weight, um because we're always carrying more gear than
everybody asked me, Like you said, you know what I mean,
Like we're carrying tons of radio. Is like like we
have a goal one seventeen on us Math carries like
four radio as mag's weapons. Everything we need to be
(41:43):
able to set up in air fail too. Sometimes those
extra lights and extra crazy weird stuff that we do
not just our comment loading right, so that we we
always think about we need to carry more than everybody
else or training when we get there and jop about
those cool lights. Those are some cool portable lights, bro.
(42:04):
I'd love those for some air soft war games out
in the desert night. It's like there's some lights. Yeah,
those are probably small and compact and easy to port
and portable. M M you think that, like the lights
we always have are big. I don't know, like why
getting they stay smaller? You say that now they are
probably small and little compared to what other people have.
(42:25):
But like you like you're bringing on like these lights
are so thick. I don't know why I can't we
can't find any smaller lights, be smaller and come back
by the time. You know what, it was like throwing
disks out and they just autonomously land at where you
need them to. You know that'd be great. Just send
out the drones lights and land them along the runway.
Why can't I just go to go to an area
(42:47):
ticket drone. All the drones fly up, they mark the
aircraft and mark the airfield. Then I'm just kidding you
go and then go there to land. Correct. That's how
easier because that was a lot of That would be
a lot of help right there. That'd be like drones up.
I don't need a whole team of people to go
out there and put the stuff down everywhere, right and
if you got shot down, you know they're coming from
(43:08):
over there and it wasn't a person. Well, drones are
a good feature building equipment contracts with the military. We'll
just call it my little pony. They'll never made M sixteens.
No one will figure it out, no one will ever know,
(43:28):
no one'll ever know will make a little dinas course. Well, Connor,
I just want to say it's been a real pleasure
to have you on and I know there's so much
more that we can talk about. And you're going on
The Contender. Is there a date and time when we
can tune in for that? Do you know that yet? Yea.
I will be fighting August second in Las Vegas on
Tuesday night. So you know it's not a lot of
(43:50):
people like throwing people all home with carn and fighting
on a Saturday. You usually are Saturday to Tuesday night.
So Contender series for those people that don't know, it's
it's not the US. Yeah, but Dana White will be
there's called Dannaways contemissary. He's leaving get the president owner
of the UFC and if he's there to give out
a contracts. So usually only have four fights in that night. Now,
(44:11):
not a lot of fans just like you know, a
couple of fans around. It's not a lot though, And
it's like it's like a job interview. We like to
think about it. It's still gonna be streamed, exactly. It's
still gonna be streamed on ESPNES and and I'm fighting
to put on a show for a contract to be
in the UFC. So yeah, I'm excited. It's a betther
(44:32):
one of my teammates really golf teammates, but guy from
New England who trains, he's gonna be fighting inst the
United to me, so it's pretty cool at the representation
somewhere from the local area New England. Super yeah, exactly.
I love it, man, Supers. I love this poor I
actually get to do. My dreams are coming true. I
really feel like that. And I'm gonna go out there
and put on a show for a pudding. I gotta
(44:53):
I got a lot in the bag that people haven't
seen yet. So I changed with the best, and I'm
gonna go out there put on a show for that's right.
And if I'm guessing you're in like the one forty
five weight classes, that right, what's your weight class? Find
weight division? So it's stack division in the UFC. So
I got a lot of work to do once they
get there. Yeah, there's a lot of Brian Ortia. There's
(45:16):
a lot of one for a lot of one, it
was a lot of one division. Oh yeah, dude, I
have my faith is on you though. You're the controller, bro,
and I believe in you. I've I've stood next to
your shoulder to shoulder, no matter if you're five eight
and I'm six ft five, It don't matter shoulder shoulder,
eye to eye, Bro. So you know, you say what
(45:36):
you are. I say I'm too tall, you say you're
five eight, You're not tall enough. Bro, You're doing it
so you're you're perfect to us. And I just want
to say thanks for being a part of the softwarep family,
the soft Rep mafia. And you know, if you're ever
looking for someone to help sponsor you out there, I'm
sure that soft Rep would love to hear this and
maybe attached to you and someone to escape you know,
(45:57):
and if there's ever absolutely I don't go ahead. So
I just absolutely every whenever saft Rep, like from just
from that time when I was younger and I do
that box game and now in London, that kind of
kind of remigorated my whole passion for fighting a little
bit and it's just kind of brought me back. So
I wouldn't be were on that right now. That wasn't
for soft REP. I think in a lot of ways
(46:18):
that we were talking about that earlier being some people
that you needn't know how that kind of change it
trect to your life right then. And I think soft
represented those people that did that. You know, that organization
did that for me. So thank you guys for everything
that you guys done for me at this point. And uh,
I'm gonna keep on representing and you know, and I
agree up forever. Man appreciate and I love it. I
love it. Now, listen, Connor, one more thing, I'm gonna
(46:39):
have to just be selfish. I know you've got a
lot of friends and family, but there's just one rat
in your life and that's me. And if for some
reason or somewhere there's a fight, there's a fight, and
you can sit me at the at your table. I
will cheer you on, Bro, and I will be there
for you. And if you can get me into one
of these big boy fights, you just make sure you
put Rat on that list and show. I promised, dude,
(47:02):
and and we'll do more of these together. And we
could talk spec off so we could talk m m A.
We could talk, you know, durts and mental toughness, because
you're a great dude, and I just wanted to stay
on the right path and just keep it up. And
I'm gonna go ahead and just close out the show
right now, Connor, because we've had a great segment. And
for those of you, yeah, you're very welcome, and those
of you that have been listening, it's Connor the controller Matthews.
(47:24):
You go to controller mm A dot com to help
him get his merch soul so that he can get
money to go and do these events and travel. We're
gonna watch you on August second on the Contender and
we're gonna be rooting for you in Las Vegas. And
you know, do you have anything to close out with, Bro?
Nothing off the top of my head. So you guys
(47:44):
appreciate everything and have a Memorial Day to everybody out
there who sacrificed relies and if any members of those
people like, my prayers and thoughts go to you. And
you know it's a hard weekend for some of us.
You know, it's a fun weekend because you can breathed
out barbecue and having but like you can do back
a lot of memories. So to all those who died,
keep it forming deadcades is getting in my next fight
(48:05):
to my three friends and died, George Mernandez Kill anelligant
and cold condit through comic controller to die that I
went to train went so you know, by a part
of what I'm doing right now is representing what they
did and keeping their memories a list. So I love that.
I love that, and we will keep their memories alive too.
Well write about them in the article below the post
(48:26):
of this video, just to keep their name on the
internet as well posthumously. Okay, And so I just want
you to know I appreciate you. Yeah, you keep flexing
that Massachusetts. I'm gonna start getting motivated by you to
go work out myself. Okay. And I just want to
say thank you for listening to Software Radio this episode
with Connor, the controller Matthews. My name is Rad and
I'm gonna say peace you them listening to self readily
H ruts. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
(00:21):
You're listening to soft up Radio Special operations military news
on straight talk with the guys and the community. Hey,
welcome to soft Rep Radio. I am your host, Rad
and I have a special guest today, former Special Operation
Combat Controller of the United States Air Force Connor the
(00:44):
controller Matthews. Matthews and I say Matthews twice because that's
a professional ring announcers way that they introduce you into
the ring and boxing. And and Connor, welcome to the show.
I do, man, it's nice seeing you. I haven't seen
you in the launch. Haven't seen since two thousand and sixty.
And I believe when we did that software boxing event
(01:04):
in London, he man pleasure seeing how's he going? Brother? Oh,
you know, it's great, Connor. I'm happy to have you here.
I was just talking with someone about you on another episode,
Mike Lamonica, who's from the Special Operation You're same Special
Operations community. Are you? Have you ever crossed passed with
Mike before? Yeah? You have, yeah, former combat in person,
(01:24):
but I had I know him, talked to him actually recently.
I just talked to him recently. Yesterday's ahead of the
Combat Control Association, I believe. And yeah, we've been talking.
We've been communicating a lot lately, and yeah, but I
knew who he was. It's just the name that Yeah,
you know, he's got like, you know, lots of ribbons.
He's a really nice guy to talk to, just like, yeah,
you know, I know I've talked to you in the past.
(01:45):
But let me ask you something. Do you have any
like specific ribbons that you're really proud of achieving on
your rack of ribbons that you wear? Probably my I
get a Combination Medal when I was deployed Backghanistan. Information
that I did. That was pretty cool. That I did
a lot of air traffic tool and I did a
lot of we got a meta back out of there.
We did a lot of stuff like yuess about it. Combat,
I kind of combat ribbons. They just saw combat and
(02:08):
NIS and so that was pretty cool, but not too much.
I mean, my friends have so many more ribbons than me.
I did want to deployment to Afghanistan and which I'm
grateful I got to do something. I got lucky, but
at the same time, not comparatively to be like a
lot of my friends. But like, you know, what I mean,
is did a lot of amazing things. There's probably some
silver stars that six employment. Yeah yeah, so many, so
(02:30):
many friends stars, purple hearts and oh yeah and all
this stuff and so yeah, not so much. But you know,
I got to get out there, right and I'm sure
that you've lost some friends along the way. You have
a very you know, high speed job. And it is
Memorial Day weekend for those listening, alright, so like talk
(02:51):
about that as like, yeah, I mean, I it's crazy
because I remember when I was going through selection and
training and we got done with the combat and full
school and the commandants, He's like, you know, look around you,
you're you guys would probably lose one of one or
two two of these friends that are here with you,
and and we end up didn't. We didn't lose guys
that were in training, you know. And it's either in
(03:11):
training or I lost a friends in combat, less friend
in training, and I lost of friends yet and accedent.
So it's like wild that I remember after that, my
mom was all like that sounds like you know, she'll
scared that, but it didn't happens, you know what I mean,
Like this job is it's a very dangerous. Very of
that job was not in this job, but my last
job was a very very dangerous libe where people's life,
(03:32):
you know, at risk, not only deployment, but on training
to deploy. And you know, I lost a lot of
your friends to a lot of people, like even before
me in my career, we lost a lot while I
was in there. Six members while I was in you
know what I mean. It's a small knit it's close
to the community. See, everybody knows somebody, everybody knows each other.
So yeah, I mean that's definitely something. Arrest in peace
(03:53):
to all those people, Like, yeah, arrest in peace to them.
There's only about like three hundred combat controllers right at
a time. I think we're a little bit more than
that now, like five I think when I was going
to remember, five hundred was the number we would here,
but I think it's probably up to like underneath. But yeah,
that's not a lot of people when you really get
down to you know what I mean, when it comes
to like guys who were actually on team prepared, to
(04:15):
guys who are instructors, guys that are administrative that you know,
like the day that breaks up real fast and you
really have a core group of guys that are deployable
and you know, like every everybody knows everybody. That's just
what it is, right And that's why I'm gonna segue
into what I'm wearing right now, which is your m
M A Mixed Martial arts shirt right here, the Controller Matthews.
I'm just so excited to say it because I know
(04:36):
you and I got to wear your shirt. I'm here
in Utah, you're in Massachusetts. We've traveled to London together,
and I'm super proud to be your corner and just
cheer you on and you soft rep to perpetuate that
out there. Bro, I want the person that you're gonna
fight to know that you're ready and uh, you're in
my corner. So stoked for you. Tell me. I appreciate that.
Thank you so much. Yeah, man, soft has been great,
(04:57):
like ever since that whole boxing thing, like just saying
like earlier, like you guys actually came up with my
nickname the Controller, And I don't know if people really
know that. When I was in London I did that
boxing fight, I got there and I saw like the
the I don't know, the flyer whatever it is. Yeah, yeah, exactly, yes,
(05:18):
it's Connor the controller and events Conner the controller Matthews,
and I was like, that is an awesome nickname. And yeah,
I went home and when I started fighting professional story
one moment controller and I really think it's well worked out, Gred,
So thank you, soft Rep. We're coming over that name
for me, and you know it's awesome you earned that name.
Now you're also five and oh in your professional fight.
(05:39):
Is that correct? That is correct? I'm five and now.
So I have five five five wins all first round
finish this right now. It's been Actually I feel like
I should have a lot more fights than I had
right now. The pandemic really doing wrench and everything. I've
been having problems with getting fights. I have a fight
scheduled and like a week before a certain night when
it gets hurt or whatever reason, they pulled out. I
(06:02):
happened to meet before my fights, and then I got
to get these guys to kill in that we're just
good as my usual opponent, so that you know, you
see want to see fighting good guys. So that's been
a problem with the mine is like I want to
get into the next level of fighting guys. Eventually I
got my contender serious shot um fighting at then Tender series.
Sound'm really really super excited about this, Like, I know
somebody's gonna show up to fight me in then Tenner series.
(06:23):
I know I was a fight and um, you know fighting,
I'm fighting friend of Dana White. And you know, if
I get my big knocked out, which that's my style,
I knocked people out, you know, I hope I'm going
to get that contract. Man, You're one fight that was
like a seven or seventeen second knockout. In the first round,
there was like a little swing kick to the leg. Yeah. Yeah,
(06:45):
a little kick to the leg and uh, you know
he pulled away from you, just like testing each other
and next thing, you know, open bay on dude and
he's down. Bro. Yeah. It was my first professional may
fight at a seventh second knockout. Yeah. He caught me
to like it kind of threw me off bounce first
second and then think you saw me off bound. So
he thought that he was just gonna be able to
step in in me in hand and I caught myself
step back in him with the right hand put him down.
(07:08):
Yeah that was that was a good one. Take. I'll
take that yet, you know what I mean not too
much damage or kind of take any but you know
anybody's like that or you don't take games sounded that fight. Yeah.
So being in the back controller lifestyle and being so
trained up like a you know, extreme athlete that you
are just for that job, right, let alone fast roping
(07:28):
out of you know, helicopters, probably halo. You're probably jumping
out of airplanes halo. You know, free fall like we
see you know, from thirty thousand feet. Are you wearing
oxygen masks when you do that and stuff? Yeah, I
believe everything above thirteen feet you have to wear oxygen
for so I we did, I had done for a
few of those. My team that I was on is
we were training up to be like a jump style
(07:50):
team at one point. So we did a lot of
jump schools and hay Ho team HAJO and all that stuff.
So yeah, I get to do all that stuff's HAJO
high altitude high open. Yeah, high out, high opening. So
that's probably if you were ever gonna actually use this
stuff in real life, and you know we're gonna do
a missions high like just you're gonna use a hay
hose and halo. You know, I'd be so hey Ho
(08:12):
it gives the ability the team to jump out. You're
not gonna spread out, so the plans flying you're you know,
the skydiv and you're just gonna spread out all the people.
You're gonna want to everybody to jump close, open up
and find each other and then you can land down
um at a location friend depaying how far you have
to go all together as a team. So that's what
we use. You're just traveling kind of like uh, you know,
(08:34):
so you have to know what airspeed. Uh you know
you're basically now piloting all that. Yeah, it's basically everything
you need to notify a planning. So if you don't
have the only instruments, I mean you if you have
a guy who's like the navigator, but everybody needs to
be kind of like a navigator and halo, y'all. It's
cold as hell out there because not exusing a manager
(08:55):
in the middle of the summer, in the debt, it's cold,
you know what I mean. I remember a couple of
like my first one, my first time or a couple
of first times I was doing it. I had like
small blow z on because I'm so used to halo. Halo.
You can jump up from that altitude and you're laying
down and you're fine because you know you're open the
coal for not that long, but you do a halo.
You're sitting up there in my hands and I got
down to the ground. My hands were so cold, like
(09:16):
it could even take off my parachute. Yeah, it's so cold.
That's so crazy. That's so cool. So they would drop
you and then you just pop open pretty quick and
then you guys just sail into whatever target that you're
supposed to drop zone on. Wow, very stealth. I mean,
there's definitely an art to it, because you know, not
everybody goes down to the same um, you know, the
(09:38):
same speed, so like you know, somebody who's heavier is
obviously gonna throw, is gonna is gonna be faster than
somebody's lighter. So there's a lot of like you know,
we keep frying your parachute on the way down to
keeping everybody together, taking into terms of peopid old spread out,
you don't want to close for you're bumping into people.
There's a lot to it. It's like it's kind of
a cool emission set, you know what I mean. You
(09:59):
just get being able to jump out and it's really
a lot of team mark, you know what I mean.
It's like jumping under the plane, working together to make
sure we land together. You know, if you jump, you're
in a real like mission. You jump out, you lose
a guy. Now the mission is totally different. You're not
gonna go out there the accomplished mission. You guysally right
out to do. Your next mission is how do we
get our guy back? So it's it's a really high
(10:19):
risk situation. So it's pretty cool all that kind of training.
So you do night jumps. Is that a normal thing
for you guys as night jumps? Oh? Yeah, I think
we only like besides just training to kind of that
you're not gonna jump into anywhere during the day, So
everything we did was night Are you wearing the any
vision Yeah, night vision goggles MPGs. That's what I'm asking
(10:41):
is like you wearing those while you're jumping. Yeah, we're training.
We use pds thirty ones I don't know what they
use nowadays, and misses and they have some as is
like coming down you ship all the time thirty ones
which you're white phosphers, you're smaller. They weren't. They're nice,
but I mean, yeah, we had to do a lot
of jumps before that that. I think the rules have
changed now, Like we weren't allowed to jump in the
(11:02):
NBGS initially, so you did all your training jumps from
no mvgs jumping its black hat in the middle of
the desert. Everybody has. Nobody's MPG is the only thing
people have on our little cat lights and blow sticks.
So when you open up your parachute, all you see
is that cat lights flying around the sky is terrifying
and you don't want to get any day on stuff.
But once you go down. Once we got on team,
we got trained up on the MTG because because when
(11:25):
you're jumping with nbgs, you don't want to um. It's
a high risk of getting your parachute and tangles when
you're falling your parachute. But so you can swing over
the front of your m EG to pull the pull
up your helmet and entangled and you get amoultfunctioned and
that's terrible. So it's a lot of like you have
to do to make sure that doesn't happen, staying stable,
blocking your mvgs and then pulling your parachute, and so
(11:46):
there's like we got to get trained up to that
before weard when you know, we went out and go
do it. So, yeah, it was cool. Once you get
its just so much better Now it's just like jumping
on dead you know what I mean. You can see
everybody around you. It's actually probably here the guy that
wrote the man for put your arm in front of
your m VGs just in case that guy right, you know,
(12:06):
he's like, you know Bill, he said he should put
his arm up because he got tangled. Yeah, that's amazing,
you know, just there's so much going on inside your mind.
You're such a high speed athlete, so you're you're trained up,
you're coiled up. You're really proficient at swimming, and and
some of your background you grew up like on the
coast or surfing, right, Yeah, I live like you know,
(12:28):
I'm less than a mile away from the water, so
I've oceaned and being the ocean around the ocean has
always been life. A big part of my lifestyle surfing,
and that's a huge part of combat Controller. Is the
water right and the water portion? And and how did
you train up? Tell the high school kid listening right
now who wants to a combat controller, wants to be
the next next you, next Connor Matthews, what should he
(12:49):
prepare for water wise? Everything? Never mind, you have to
be already. You have to be a runners to be
an athlete, you know, you have to be very good
at running, not just like okay, you got to be
a good run back. And now things have changed since
I've gotten any have to be a good run So
I got that first. It was an m a fighter,
so I was always a cardio athlete. I'm a hockey player.
(13:10):
So that was fine. Like I said, I was really
comfortable in the ocean getting thrashed around because I just
was surfing my entire life when I was a kid.
So you know, I've had big surf days and when
you go out there and you're like kind of scared
and he's getting comfortable and getting th rest around, getting
held under. I've had that happen to me. So that
was okay. But that long distance swimming, that was not
my thing. I'm kind of a meet like a bowling ball.
(13:32):
There's an east the colors in the day, so I
kind of on Friday. I'm not as tall. People think
I sometimes I'm five day short, and I just kind of,
you know, I'm not the greatest swimmer. So what I
did is I hired a high school like swim coach too,
you know. So I go in there twice a week
and she would help me with my you know, my
technique of swimming, and it helped out a ton of
(13:53):
two minutes all of my time, you know what I mean.
And I think this with everything is like whenever you're
gonna learn something and people like just gonna trying to
figure out and he probably just get to talk to
somebody knows what they're doing to pick up which you
can get, you know, and from that and to make
your life a little bit easier. So that's how I
did a hire dispanche coach, you know, and she helped
me out of time. He took it off my time.
And then I was saying, but once I got to
(14:14):
the pipeline, I had to pass my test. But once
you passed your test, you got fans after that, and
you give me fans, and I'm fine, I can swim,
you know. I was just kicking the hockey player strong
legs and just kicking. So but yeah, I had to
do that. And I not the greatest summer, but you know,
I just got enough, got that far, I got that
down and you know, and that's all that matters. I'm comfortable,
like I'll get beating the water all day. So you're
(14:36):
a Massachusetts kid, right, you grew up Massachusetts is your place,
right yep? South South Coast mass and Rhode Island. Between
those two places, mostly mass but like I was school
and everything your Massachusetts. But my grandparents in the island,
which is a big random new pore around. They look
a lot of ways and good to each town. So
that's where I really did a lot of my surfing
growing up. So we want to give that shout out.
(14:59):
We have col corner. We want Massachusetts in your corner. Bro.
That's why you're the son of Massachusetts all day on
him right there on that bicep, bro. So yeah, that's
what's up seeing. So that's what I'm saying. There's something
about you back East guys that have just this like
no nonsense, like you know, I've handled some hard climate
(15:22):
or something, and you guys are fighters, Bro. You can
take it to the streets and to the map. You
what do you think about that? I totally hear of that.
And then's just like there's so many like fighters from
New England and Massachusetts specifically that are like known for
like just be having parts of lines and like wars,
Like if you look at Cavalcator, you look at rab Font,
you look at Joe Lois on the UFC fighters that
(15:44):
I know, Kyle Bakia, all these guys are known for
like being pretty like they're technical fighters, but they're like,
you know, like when she gets bad, he's just by
Don Malcony's name. Wars and they don't give up and
they don't quit. I don't know. I think it's the cold.
I think it's just real football. The times we're used
to that shift. We just keep pushing through it. You
guy really wanted to be a fucking fighter in ess
(16:05):
because it's sucking, it's goal, it's gold. You know that's
funny you say that because I'm thinking of the movie
Rocky right, and he trains in the snow to be
hardcore with wait rought logs on his shoulders and he's
just like trudging through the snow and that's Rocky, bro.
So I look you, I want you to be that dude.
I want m M A Chris Matthews statues in Massachusetts.
(16:27):
You know what I'm saying. There's one up in the
north end. It's funny. There's a gal boxing and the
North end of Boston there's a boxing statue. You guy said, yeah, hey,
that's back in the day too. They got like as
a city Brockton around their city of Champions. We just
we just have those that kind of people around there.
So it's pretty cool. I like it. Philadelphia is one
of the cities, you know what I mean, they're very
similar to that stuff. Now, when you joined the Air
(16:51):
Force after high school, you're a pretty determined individual. You're
doing martial arts, you're pretty straight laced. You're not doing
anything that's gonna keep you from passing any pissed us
or anything like that, so you're focused. What was it
that made you go combat controller? Was it a friend
or did you just say, hey, this is a job
that I wanted or were you going to be a
crew chief and you got pulled in through basic? No?
(17:14):
So actually, well, I actually wanted to be a Navy
seal because that's the only job. Like I said, nobody
was a comeback control. Everybody knows the Navy Seal, including
as a kid. I was like, now's badass. So I started,
you know, thinking about that, and then when I went
to the Navy recruiter. He was like he did not
like want to put me in as a seal. He's like,
you gotta go do this, and uh well, he just
(17:36):
kept on saying, like, if we got this other job
for you, so once you get you can do this
job and you can cross you and to be a seal.
And I'm like, I don't think about So I went
across the hall and talked to the Air Force recruiter.
So s ket John Morris Rick guy he um still
talk to him. Today. So he was like, hey, man,
I got this. I don't have I don't have a
He's like, I have this job. Peach at they're pushing
pair of rescue. I was like, all right, I'll look
into it looks school, it looks like they do a
(17:58):
lot of the same things Navy steals do. I start
John thing, I started, you know, dot, I started diving,
I started all that. It was like a medical sounds
pretty cool. So I started training for that job. And
then when they had the past test, is a couple
of guys that were I took it with and they
were supposed to have slots to go before me for
combat control. So I passed that. I did really really
good at the test. The kid didn't find me. He
didn't do as well, so they got a slot opened
(18:20):
up and then uh so that was like all right,
so I kind of get to go sooner then and
then the guy goes to me. He was, hey, man,
you wanna do want to save people? Do you want
to kill me? This is like a combat controller that
was there that was getting an administrated in the test.
And I was like, I guess I want to kill people.
He's just like, all right when you used a CCT,
And I was like, all right, I had no idea,
not one, like, like no idea what to comeback control
(18:43):
I did. I got home and looked it up a
little bit and I saw I was like, all right,
they died, they jumped. I don't know what aircraft control was.
Had no idea at this point in like hyper kid
graduated high school. Were about fighting and it's like like
with the ADC towers, we're at airport. But so I
got in there and you know, I end up taking
the job, and you know, I'm so happy idea because
(19:03):
it was the coolest job. Who was community. You know,
you got to do a lot of things and a
lot of people that have in military didn't get the
opportunity to do And yeah, happy I did it on
the government. You know, dime. It's almost a little bit
of a fun trip for you because you probably like
to work out. You don't mind running. Let me ask
you about the swimming bill. I'm obsessed with that because
I'm not the strongest swimmer, although if I have fins,
(19:24):
so I do laughs at my local pool. But fins
helped me tons. So do you have to dive underwater
the full length of the pool back and forth on
one breath? Is that a thing you have to achieve? Yeah,
that's a fifty FIFTI under waters. That was that was
the reason pass the roof. You don't have that for us.
We didn't have to do it initially to get into
(19:46):
the job like I think some people do. We guys
had to do a couple of to get in. But
like you should be able to do fifties, you guys
once once they because once you get down the end, doc,
can you get down to first select Shane and all
that kind of stuff. I mean, you're you're doing stuff
that's a lot harder than one back and forth you
get you getting drowned the proof you can thrushes. It's like,
(20:08):
you know, that's the that's like the minimum standard for
a lot of the past test to get into the job,
like you should be able to do Like that's like
not even that's you're gonna do that in your worst day.
Like that's easy. It's the training and you maybe they
can't eliminate you for you know, popping into other things,
but like you're not not gonna manage. So yeah, we
(20:29):
had to give. One of our standards to go to
dad school is to do underwater. But yeah, this year,
like all right, it's kind of hard. I mean my
dad growing up, being the son of a Green Beret,
we'd go up to Hill Air Force Space and he
would do his laps all day long. But he'd take
us kids to the pool, me and my brother, and
there was these weights and he'd reach down on the
(20:49):
side of the pool. He's like, okay, Aaron, put your
blindfold on, but first watch where these weights go, and
he'd throw them off the edge down it's like the
five six foot area for me, but he throw them
off into the twel on my brother, who was older.
My brother was really good at going down to twelve
feet blindfolded and finding those damn weights. But here's me
like trying to get into five foot water and I'm
just it's just a tough it's tough water, so you
(21:11):
need to be water ready, almost probably drowned proof before
you join. And like you said, get a coach. You
got a lady that was a high school coach. Do
you remember her name? You want to give her a
shout out because you're gonna be the best m M
A fighter in the world. I wish I could remember
her name off the top of my head, and I
can't right remember. You'll be like to have talked to
your sense. I have talked to your sense a couple
(21:33):
of times. I can't remember a name. I'm coming head
the time. Like honestly, she helped me in my life,
you know what I mean. Like something's crazy somebody like
that as a high school like fighting, get good at
swimming because of her, I never would have made it
to be a combat and children then that probably when
never came back to fighting the way it did. So
it's just like crazy, these little people that connected and
up to bumped into that like projected your life in
(21:55):
a certain way. You never know what's happening when it's happening,
but you find you like look back that person like
that's it's that person, it's it's it's incredible, you know
what I mean. That's so Yeah, there's a couple of
people out there that really helped me out, like my my,
my sense when I was a kid, like just his mentality,
like I started out before even when it's special operations.
(22:15):
And we did belt test growing up as a kid.
His name since that John Ronda, and we did bell
test and our belt test was like like a day
hell day for slushing. So it's like I was like
already doing like I didn't really look at it like
that when I was a kid, But when we're covering
PBC PIST, we're doing hill sprints. He gave my black
belt this year and I had to take another test
from when I was like I was doing the test,
I'm like, I like this stuff was kind of harder
(22:37):
than some of the stuff I was doing in the military.
At went for you like like he crushes us, but
like like physical stuff and then he makes his fight
in the sand on the beach with each other. He
did it. So he took a sandhill, he lined up
a whole bunch of people from the gym, and I
started at the bottom and I had to fight my
way through every single person to get to the top.
And I had to do that. I'm like, that's hard,
(22:59):
you know what I mean, Like you like like like yeah,
it was like it was pretty cool, Like he trying
to train my brain before even got into the middles.
And you had to engage each person, right you had.
You couldn't like skirt him like like you know, do
a little no, you have to engage in I had.
He made I think he made it especially hard for me,
you know, for everything that I've made. And then so
(23:20):
I had to do that test all right, all day tests.
You wake up. I think you get there like seven
all day tests until like two or some two or three,
and you know we're doing a tongue he smokes. He
basically destroyed every Muslim the body like a possible weight again.
And then he brings you to a beach. You all
these beach workouts, fighting people on the beach. Probably that
I was exhausted. Then at night I had had a
(23:41):
far row fon to get him ready to rob fons
number four or five in the world. That one thirty
five division and I had so I had to go
go fighting him. So and the the UFC cameras when
they're watching filming for his thing, I was like, I
gotta do good. I mean they still still start every
video and being possibly getting punched in the face by
Rob Fond. So it was it was cool. I was like,
(24:02):
I was smoked and I was like, I still gotta
go do this, dude. So it was a really good
and that's the idea I got. I didn't. It was
avery cool day for my folks. Is a Shawan Spoon,
sedator in chief of software dot Com, just here to
say thank you for listening to the softwap radio podcast.
We sure appreciate you giving us your time, and here's
a special offer for you if you're a new member
(24:23):
off your annual membership to softwarep just click the link
at the bottom of the page that brought you to
us today, and from all of us here at soft rep,
thank you for listening. So do you think that with
going through all of that and going through your combat
training and being drowned proof has brought you to this
no tap out lifestyle where you're gonna get in the
ring and you're gonna give it everything until you know
(24:44):
there's only one way out for you. I think, yeah,
for sure, I think that the career field just hardy,
like you said, they drowned proof in the heart of
getting I talk about it just even jiu jitsu, like you,
if I'm wrestling and dropping with somebody who's way bigger
than me, you can sometimes you get stuck in these
positions is where you want to like an it can
freak out and you know what if you want to
get But like I've just been in those stressful situations
(25:06):
so much to know how to, like you know, remain calm,
like be comfortable being comfortable. It sounds si morning, but
like you know what I mean, like he comfortable being uncomfortable.
It's true though, it's like that. I think that's my
biggest like like superpower I have and fighting right now
and like everybody there now thinks that I've just been
to people in one minute and you know, what's he
gonna do when he goes past month? Man? And with
what where is he? I'm like, no, man, I've been
(25:27):
I'm training for like the long haul. Like when he
she gets hard, that's when I actually beforen't better. I
think I think like long rocks and all this, all
this stuff I did that was just painful. I always
did really well. And there's anything that's like a grinding
kind of exercises like that's where I rise up. So
I think they're being a being a combat con children
(25:47):
and all that is with d percent what got me
mentally as tough as I am, and that's why I
got where I'm at right now. Yeah, and I'm not
gonna say there's not gonna be another you know, opponent
that's training as hard as you equally, which is what
I want. Anyone that's listening right now, they're gonna do
the research on you and here that you're ready, bro,
Like you know, their better come with their their game
(26:08):
to you, because you're coming with yours as I'm saying.
And so like I took six years off, you know
what I mean from training as a martial artist, like
you know, making that my name, but before I've been
training martial arts since I was at four, you know
what I mean. So I have a lot of that time,
like you know, just as a kid be getting comfortable
in that took the six years off. We're usually people
are fighting in their six and then that period between
(26:30):
their twenty two I think I was twenty one and
twenty seven sevens when I when I was in the military,
and people are people are usually you know, that's the
hardest time to ad fights, to take a lot of damage.
Luckily for me, I took no damage. But I still
trained like an athlete from a special operation, still working
out with coaches, is still doing and you know what
I mean, I still kind of kept my body together
(26:51):
during that time and really trying to go out. I
didn't fight. So now I'm kind of coming into this
mature level where I'm turning thirty this week. Actually my
birth parties today if I turned it thirty this week,
and I'm more mature, and I have to thank you man,
and I have like all of that, you know, mentality
and everything is I'm just really coming into my prime
with a fresh body, you know, I mean, and I
(27:12):
don't have to wearing tear on me. I'm really run
into my frind and I feel like it's just like
I gotta big edge on everybody. So I think it's
gonna be a fast rise for me, honestly, you know.
And you're getting ready to do this fight night right
as I wear your shirt right here, you know, with
you throwing your punch. This is a great art rendition
of you. By the way, I think that you should
have props to the person that designed this. Yeah, to
(27:33):
your uncle unco. Yeah, exactly, definitely free like he made
he designed it. He's like a computer design and graphic
designing designed a sent it over and say hey, like
doesn't like yeah, like ensures that right away. It's amazing.
Thank you so much, lucked out man. And also you
have a shop, right, I want to pitch it because
the money helps you go to the fights and to
(27:55):
like get your tickets and to get travel. What is
the shop the controller m m A tell me, yeah,
so controlling the name dot com. So there's no deep
it's just controlling nime dot com. I got a website
going there to check out my I got bios about me,
but I also had my my my shirts on there.
I got four different shirts out right now. We always
try to get the best quality for like, I'm the
big big leaver in like and I think I got
(28:17):
this from the military special operations stuff like that. Fine
good quality stuff. So much gonna be working people, where
if I something cheap and try to screw somebody, or
even if it's costible money, always the best stuff. It's
always so worth it. You know, it's always worth it.
When we went over to Remember in London. When we
went to London, Brandon Webb had Software make a bunch
of shirts for us, and I was like, Oh, these
(28:37):
are so soft and so comfortable, those software shirts. I
had my own shirts made out of the same shirts.
I was like, I'll be damned and this is that
same soft, next level style. Sure I'm not gonna like
sit here in fanboy over it, but I'm wearing it.
I could I slept already exactly exactly stays there. Send
(28:58):
me this shirt's the same thing. So it's like, it's
like when I went to the same thing. When we
used to go to shooting schools all the time when
I was in the military. We well and usually at
the end of the school you get a shirt from
like the school we just meant to and they owe
all the guys always have think these nice shirts have
like wearing all the time because I'm like, it's just
comfortable for you to work out, So I'm gonna wear
that shirt. Yes, And then it's you know, it's good
for me, for me, you might get my name, get
(29:19):
everything out there, you know. So only special request for
rad is if you make special shirts for us bearded folks,
maybe a little lower on the print so we don't
knock it. But listen, I'm gonna tell you, I'm more
to wear this over to London. I'm gonna go. Yeah.
I don't get I didn't get a shirt and big
fill out there, but I agree we need to uh
(29:41):
lower the thing in the next thing that's gonna happen
in the next year. We had that discussion. Oh yeah,
because you know that we're sending them over for something
because bearded shirts. Yeah, yeah, just really low, just just
a little lower. Beers. We exist, I swear, I swear,
and you know again, I'm gonna take this. I'm going
over to London with my wife to show her the sites.
(30:03):
Like we gotta go see with Soft Rep when we
did those remembrance rumbles, which I think those guys are
gonna do another one, so you might want to keep
your ear to the ground to come in and still
maybe do a little one to want to have to answer, Yeah,
I mean, I'm down to do it. Let's see if
they UFC will be happy about me doing a Betther
fight outside of you see, but if I can, and
if anything, I would love to go there and just
(30:24):
be a guest or a commentator. Have you happy? That
would be great, dude, we can go back to back. Bro.
We could be like, did I just say that? You'll
be like, yes, Rad, you did. That would be real fun.
I'd love to do something like that. I'm doing actually
commentating for a local promotion that I grew up fighting
in Cage Titans, which is around here, and I'm commentating
(30:45):
and on this weekend, I'm cornering your guy in my
fighting and I'm hopping in the booth and compentating fight.
You know. I like to do that. You want to
give a shout out? Yeah, my fighter Beldina getting coming
fighters to coming up. He's a he's come a long lane.
Last week I've been I've been coaching and are striking.
So it's kind of cool. Now I'm doing that as well.
I opened up a new gym, the Brewing Grounds, so
(31:06):
now I'm kind of like, you know, getting gut. Like,
my girlfriend's a fighter, and this kid, Andrew Foutina is
a good fighter, and I'm like working with them and
it's been pretty cool. It's like this is always I
said this the other day. It's always been my dream
too to own a martial arts gym and be a
professional and a fighter. So I want to be my
(31:26):
gym open now and the next Yeah, I got my
gym open now. Now my next goal is to get
is getting the UFC. And if I accomplished all those things,
It's like I looked at an actually interview from when
I was eighteen, and that's what I said in the interview,
and I was like, ship, this is actually coming true now.
So you know, I think the things you'd love to
do and and you know I believe it. Hey, you
(31:47):
have a you have an Instagram too. It's the controller
mm a right on your Instagram yep. Controller. I mean
that's probably where I'm where I am the most active.
So if anybody ever want to hop on there, you
have following me a Although I post there a lot,
I don't use Facebook too much. I don't know why.
I think it's just as I'm a picture guy, so
(32:07):
I like Instagram. Think. You know, you're probably good at
so many things in combat. Controller, you know, pipeline. The
toughest thing was what for you. I would say the
toughest thing for me was academics and air traffic control
schools specifically. I think that's where I had my my
biggest challenge. But once I got through that, I mean
(32:29):
everything else, like anything that's practical, like tactics, shooting. Some
reason that school I didn't have any I never probably
I thought that stool was easy. Just yeah, probably aircraft control.
That this speaking and learning the language of being aircraft controller.
It was a little bit challenge for me in first,
Like I said, I had no idea what air traffictroll
was before going into When I hopped it, I had
like a little learning kurd, And then once I got
(32:50):
it down, I knew I had to get dat, you know,
especially when I deployed. So I got it down really
well and and really good, and I used it when
I was what I used it as a ton really cool.
You just did you just up train on like a
portable radar and just stare at a computer and be
like delta three five seven, you're clear three seven two seven.
We did if we did have to do radar when
(33:12):
I was, they don't have to do that anymore because
you have radar a tarntrol. They terminal or traf control
which is like a tower. So like there, um, you
know there's two different times. Stuff is the power, Yeah exactly.
So so when we did terminal space control, so like
when a lot of times when we get the air traffictrols,
but we had to do this stuff where you like
(33:32):
you're like landing to see one thirties or slanding planes
on the airstrip and do an air traffic tros all
around the airstrip and when we deploy, that's a lot
of time what we do. So, um, what we did
have like these uh Worth simulation training simulators stimulator Yeah, yeah,
it would see your simulators that we usually use in
our in our units that are pretty close. So would
hop in there and get work for practice. And you
(33:54):
had an old time combat controller in there that was
like you know TCU techniques and stuff that you would use.
So we got we can get trained out once you
get on on TV, you get really trained up and
get good at it before you go out there and
did do the job. Did you ever get like PJ
is going to like the e R to like work
on people, you know as they perfect their skill. Did
(34:14):
you get to go to the air traffic controller airport
and like do your thing with so. Yeah, so we
actually when I was deployed, I did have like a
scenario where they brought in somebody got shot in the
on the battlefield, and then the pjs came and then
I flew out like translated the helicopter where the guy
(34:35):
got shot into his team on thirty. So I I
did all the air shot control to get that going.
So I actually was in the helicopter from where the
guy get shot, brought in in, got out product one
thirty into land, got the guy out, and got the
guy out of there. So I did get to do
stuff like that. Yeah, that's like what you're trained. Was cool. Yeah,
I get to use use my job. And that's how
you said that would make sense for people. I like
(34:55):
pgs and controllers can work together to do scenario or like,
you know, somebody shot, we need to get this guy
out of the aircraft controller, the combat and charge jumps
on the MICTS, gets all the air going, and the
pj's working the guy out of there. Yet that that
that did happen with us, You're the key to the
team because I think you would jump on with like
a seal team or a task force team, or an
A team or an O D A and Green Beret
(35:17):
Operations attachment. Yeah, you're you're with all those guys. You're there. Hey,
how you doing, Connor? Can we have you? Yeah? I
mean absolutely, you get on any team you have to.
You have to be a big assets and the team
you get you can bring something to the fight that
other people don't break. And we definitely are the you
know when it comes to attaching team, being the radio guy,
(35:38):
I mean, we're gonna be the best foot. Already aircraft controllers,
so we know how to you know, separate aircraft. So
if you got a compact and trolling, getting the JATAX certified,
which being I wasn't jatach certified when I was played
because I know, but I was on, I've got the
opportunity to get with the team with the jay tap,
So you know what I mean. If you're bringing in there,
you know, if you're already good at aircraft control, you're
gonna be a good j tap, you know what I mean,
(36:00):
And you're gonna be a big asset to the team.
The communications too, so combat controllers, like a lot of
our job is known radios and setting up the team
rigancies and and making sure everybody's on the same page
and doing the communication so that you know that we
can talk to enter team, and then we can be
the guy who's talking to the aircraft that's bringing in
its bringing in drones. You know this guy like I
(36:21):
SR platforms for those guys who you know, Rain and Ice.
We're talking at first, we're talking to fast moor Jezz.
We're talking to a Pashy helicopters won thirty one, thirties,
eight ten, anything too. Like on any given battle and
you know what I mean, there's so many different aircraft
checking in and on from the fight, and so it's
really important to have combat controller there too, have a
(36:44):
great especially he's already your traffic It makes sense, like
he does chaos. You ever heard that term case A
friend of mine here he does that. Yeah, he's part
of the chaos culture where they go out and all
the air traffic control chaos of I don't know, chaos,
that's what that's they're called. That's their name. Their squadron's
name is chaos. You know. So I can only imagine
(37:05):
you need to listen to everybody flying over you. Yeah,
I can't get chaotic and man, but you know what,
a lot of these pilots are very good in the
military too, so they help out a lot of you know,
there you're talking to pilots, but yeah, it can get
very chaotic, and you know it's and there's a lot
of money and lives on the on the line. So
it's that you can't you can't mess up, you know
(37:26):
what I mean. You can't. You can't bring a plane
in where there's a plane in the runway and you
clear to the lane and they crashed into another plane
and then you just heeled little bunch of people. So
it's like there's things like that that happened, you know
what I mean. So it's like it's very important. You know,
it's high risk, or dropping a bomb through where you
have a helicopter range and f a team, or drops
a bomb and theres a helicopter them near in the area.
(37:46):
You know, there's a lot of things like separation that
can you can really go raunchous very more. And you
have some guys trained up, you know, are dropping a
bomb in your own young guy, Yeah, you don't have that.
Stuff has has happened. So if you're getting the call
to go in a season airfield, right or create an
airfield or whatever that air field needs to be. What
would you do, Like if there's a team of six
(38:08):
or seven of you going in together to assess an
airfield area, you know you gotta do like the grading,
tell me what what you all? Right, So there's there's
multiples like this. First of all, comeback control to bridge
jack of Bot bases. A lot of different mission sets
that we can do. So we can do like say
there's a assault lake fed out in the middle of
the desert and we want to do admission that's to
(38:30):
a compound or to something that's close to us. All
like that, right, So um, what we can do there?
We can go there ahead of time, we can land,
we can you know, say we say we want to
jump in, or anyway we can get there of the jumping.
So we wanted to jump in, jump in, do a
complete assessment of the airfield, find out like make sure
that soil the ground is all dense enough for an
(38:50):
aircraft to come in so we can can bear the loaded,
land and take off and sit on the sit on
the ground. So we have to get out there, you know,
assess how long is there enough we own is it
not bumpy? Is there is the soil good? Is there
any you know, any hazards in the in the area.
To make sure that's good so we can do we
do all that and then if it's good, okay, now
(39:10):
we have to set the airfield speeds up, airfrals, We
have to know about you know, demensions the aircraft, what
aircraft are laying on and you know what I mean.
Then you can do the aircraft fictuel they actually bring
the plane in land the plane, and then you can
go into the mission sometimes like you know, and then
also if they state we take contact right that we
have to have like you know, calling the air strikes,
and so there's so many different things that we can
(39:31):
do as a combat controller, never mind just being a
side like it's part of the easier part or not easier,
but like one of the parts just been being on
the team you're calling the air strikes is like the
most fun part of it. But there's a lot of
other stuff that we do. That stuff they're like, you know,
making sure that the airfields are good. You're probably getting
cool doom buggies, you're probably all GPS not on your
(39:54):
finger Yeah, we probably have like all sorts of crazy
stuff that's just behind the scenes. Yeah, just going so
a lot of times they we make like if they're
on teams attested to user, we make the can't think
the word right now, it's been too much and he
was we're tracking, like all the we're making all the
g r g s. There we go, making all the
g rg so, making all the like where the rood,
(40:16):
labeling everything, where the bombs are gonna be dropped, and
dude doing all that stuff ahead of time. And then vehicles,
like we get on the air fil we need to
know how to drive dirt bikes. You know, I drive
four whilers. We have a t D. We have to
do all these because when you cruising around airfield, you're
not long cruising. Let's just take too long. You know,
I was gonna be thirt bikes to do all that
kind of Yeah, it's like that that runway has to
be super Yeah, so six depending on what the time
(40:40):
Mack is, you know what I mean, how long is
it take make a six man team. You could get
down their clearing airfield, make sure it's get to bringing airplanes,
landing airplanes, to get shot control for prise security around taxi.
You could do that all of like a six man
in comback control team you know, how to be hard
could be one controller attest to a seal team or
od call on air triks. Wow, that's really awesome, dude.
I mean it's just like that's amazing. It's just another
(41:02):
world that you know, you're a unicorn, and you know,
when you get to talk to unicorn, you kind of
want to know what's the unicorn eating? And uh yeah,
you know, and how much ruck weight do you put
in your ruck sack when you train yourself, do you
go the full weight or you just skimp it? You
know that kind of thing. It's like, but you guys
(41:23):
go the full weight. We definitely so like constraining. Yeah,
well in training, we definitely has to carry a lot
of weight, um because we're always carrying more gear than
everybody asked me, Like you said, you know what I mean,
Like we're carrying tons of radio. Is like like we
have a goal one seventeen on us Math carries like
four radio as mag's weapons. Everything we need to be
(41:43):
able to set up in air fail too. Sometimes those
extra lights and extra crazy weird stuff that we do
not just our comment loading right, so that we we
always think about we need to carry more than everybody
else or training when we get there and jop about
those cool lights. Those are some cool portable lights, bro.
(42:04):
I'd love those for some air soft war games out
in the desert night. It's like there's some lights. Yeah,
those are probably small and compact and easy to port
and portable. M M you think that, like the lights
we always have are big. I don't know, like why
getting they stay smaller? You say that now they are
probably small and little compared to what other people have.
(42:25):
But like you like you're bringing on like these lights
are so thick. I don't know why I can't we
can't find any smaller lights, be smaller and come back
by the time. You know what, it was like throwing
disks out and they just autonomously land at where you
need them to. You know that'd be great. Just send
out the drones lights and land them along the runway.
Why can't I just go to go to an area
(42:47):
ticket drone. All the drones fly up, they mark the
aircraft and mark the airfield. Then I'm just kidding you
go and then go there to land. Correct. That's how
easier because that was a lot of That would be
a lot of help right there. That'd be like drones up.
I don't need a whole team of people to go
out there and put the stuff down everywhere, right and
if you got shot down, you know they're coming from
(43:08):
over there and it wasn't a person. Well, drones are
a good feature building equipment contracts with the military. We'll
just call it my little pony. They'll never made M sixteens.
No one will figure it out, no one will ever know,
(43:28):
no one'll ever know will make a little dinas course. Well, Connor,
I just want to say it's been a real pleasure
to have you on and I know there's so much
more that we can talk about. And you're going on
The Contender. Is there a date and time when we
can tune in for that? Do you know that yet? Yea.
I will be fighting August second in Las Vegas on
Tuesday night. So you know it's not a lot of
(43:50):
people like throwing people all home with carn and fighting
on a Saturday. You usually are Saturday to Tuesday night.
So Contender series for those people that don't know, it's
it's not the US. Yeah, but Dana White will be
there's called Dannaways contemissary. He's leaving get the president owner
of the UFC and if he's there to give out
a contracts. So usually only have four fights in that night. Now,
(44:11):
not a lot of fans just like you know, a
couple of fans around. It's not a lot though, And
it's like it's like a job interview. We like to
think about it. It's still gonna be streamed, exactly. It's
still gonna be streamed on ESPNES and and I'm fighting
to put on a show for a contract to be
in the UFC. So yeah, I'm excited. It's a betther
(44:32):
one of my teammates really golf teammates, but guy from
New England who trains, he's gonna be fighting inst the
United to me, so it's pretty cool at the representation
somewhere from the local area New England. Super yeah, exactly.
I love it, man, Supers. I love this poor I
actually get to do. My dreams are coming true. I
really feel like that. And I'm gonna go out there
and put on a show for a pudding. I gotta
(44:53):
I got a lot in the bag that people haven't
seen yet. So I changed with the best, and I'm
gonna go out there put on a show for that's right.
And if I'm guessing you're in like the one forty
five weight classes, that right, what's your weight class? Find
weight division? So it's stack division in the UFC. So
I got a lot of work to do once they
get there. Yeah, there's a lot of Brian Ortia. There's
(45:16):
a lot of one for a lot of one, it
was a lot of one division. Oh yeah, dude, I
have my faith is on you though. You're the controller, bro,
and I believe in you. I've I've stood next to
your shoulder to shoulder, no matter if you're five eight
and I'm six ft five, It don't matter shoulder shoulder,
eye to eye, Bro. So you know, you say what
(45:36):
you are. I say I'm too tall, you say you're
five eight, You're not tall enough. Bro, You're doing it
so you're you're perfect to us. And I just want
to say thanks for being a part of the softwarep family,
the soft Rep mafia. And you know, if you're ever
looking for someone to help sponsor you out there, I'm
sure that soft Rep would love to hear this and
maybe attached to you and someone to escape you know,
(45:57):
and if there's ever absolutely I don't go ahead. So
I just absolutely every whenever saft Rep, like from just
from that time when I was younger and I do
that box game and now in London, that kind of
kind of remigorated my whole passion for fighting a little
bit and it's just kind of brought me back. So
I wouldn't be were on that right now. That wasn't
for soft REP. I think in a lot of ways
(46:18):
that we were talking about that earlier being some people
that you needn't know how that kind of change it
trect to your life right then. And I think soft
represented those people that did that. You know, that organization
did that for me. So thank you guys for everything
that you guys done for me at this point. And uh,
I'm gonna keep on representing and you know, and I
agree up forever. Man appreciate and I love it. I
love it. Now, listen, Connor, one more thing, I'm gonna
(46:39):
have to just be selfish. I know you've got a
lot of friends and family, but there's just one rat
in your life and that's me. And if for some
reason or somewhere there's a fight, there's a fight, and
you can sit me at the at your table. I
will cheer you on, Bro, and I will be there
for you. And if you can get me into one
of these big boy fights, you just make sure you
put Rat on that list and show. I promised, dude,
(47:02):
and and we'll do more of these together. And we
could talk spec off so we could talk m m A.
We could talk, you know, durts and mental toughness, because
you're a great dude, and I just wanted to stay
on the right path and just keep it up. And
I'm gonna go ahead and just close out the show
right now, Connor, because we've had a great segment. And
for those of you, yeah, you're very welcome, and those
of you that have been listening, it's Connor the controller Matthews.
(47:24):
You go to controller mm A dot com to help
him get his merch soul so that he can get
money to go and do these events and travel. We're
gonna watch you on August second on the Contender and
we're gonna be rooting for you in Las Vegas. And
you know, do you have anything to close out with, Bro?
Nothing off the top of my head. So you guys
(47:44):
appreciate everything and have a Memorial Day to everybody out
there who sacrificed relies and if any members of those
people like, my prayers and thoughts go to you. And
you know it's a hard weekend for some of us.
You know, it's a fun weekend because you can breathed
out barbecue and having but like you can do back
a lot of memories. So to all those who died,
keep it forming deadcades is getting in my next fight
(48:05):
to my three friends and died, George Mernandez Kill anelligant
and cold condit through comic controller to die that I
went to train went so you know, by a part
of what I'm doing right now is representing what they
did and keeping their memories a list. So I love that.
I love that, and we will keep their memories alive too.
Well write about them in the article below the post
(48:26):
of this video, just to keep their name on the
internet as well posthumously. Okay, And so I just want
you to know I appreciate you. Yeah, you keep flexing
that Massachusetts. I'm gonna start getting motivated by you to
go work out myself. Okay. And I just want to
say thank you for listening to Software Radio this episode
with Connor, the controller Matthews. My name is Rad and
I'm gonna say peace you them listening to self readily
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