KSW Ace Philip De Fries Shares Story About Paul Craig's Helicopter-Armbar

Philip De Fries is enjoying his time as the current Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki heavyweight titleholder. De Fries (20-6, 1NC; 6-0 KSW) is set to defend his crown for the seventh time as he locks horns with Ricardo Prasel in the KSW 74 headliner on Saturday. The 36-year-old Englishman is coming off a dominant performance against Darko Stosic at KSW 67 in February, a five-round battle that ended with his opponent tapping to punches. De Fries is aware that his next foe is a jiu-jitsu specialist, but he had some quality sparring partners on the mat as the defending champion prepared for his next battle with current Ultimate Fighting Championship 205-pounder Paul Craig. In fact, the pair have known each other for a long time. While talking with Sherdog, De Fries reminisced about a helicopter-armbar at his expense.

“Paul is a fantastic off-the-back specialist. I’ve been working with him for years and years and years. I'll tell you what he did one of the first times he trained with me. My coach went up… this is years and years ago. I was like, ‘Get out.’ I was like, ‘Smash him, smash him,’ and he got me in a helicopter armbar. He helicopter-armbared. I looked to Andrew Fisher, and he was like, ‘Oh!’ It was one of the most embarrassing moments. I love Paul, he’s a good guy and is great, but getting helicopter-armbared… Oh God, it took a lot of getting over. I told him the day went, ‘When you helicopter-armbared me, it really upset me,’ but nobody gets me now. I think he's the best in the world and in the MMA setting of these jiu-jitsu players, probably the guy could go on rides and stuff. It was great.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(00:22) His flight troubles to Poland
(02:12) Bringing his Nintendo Switch with him this time
(02:45) The graphic novel he’s reading
(03:26) Commenting on the Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premiere
(03:55) Preparing for Prasel
(05:31) Teasing his opponent for using to play as a goalkeeper
(06:38) Not watching soccer
(07:41) Training with Paul Craig
(09:55) His opinion on the Tyson Fury-Anthony Joshua clash
(10:44) Whether he considered transitioning to boxing
(12:23) Hoping to get Mariusz Pudzianowski soon
(13:05) Opening about mental health issues
(15:09) Outro