Greg Jackson: You have to just understand fighting. And if you understand what’s going on both psychologically and physically in the fight then you can break those down. You can see that every fighter has what I like to call a comfort zone. So your job is to identify that comfort zone and take your opponent out of it. But that’s the big picture and it’s gets micro, into little things like in this position their comfortable here, from here he likes to do that, so you kind of try to take your opponent apart and then you have to know your guy. It’s the old Sun Tzu axiom; you have to know yourself and know your enemy. You know both of those then you have a great chance of victory. You have to know what your guys capable of…is he capable of hanging on the ground with this person? Is he capable of hanging with the guys kickboxing? So you know to me it’s this beautiful process were it really challenges me to be creative. It challenges me to look deep inside people and see if I’m right. And I love when the plan goes really, really well. It’s kind of like painting a great picture and you look back at it and go, wow! Of course the athletes are the ones doing it, but I had a part in that picture and that’s really cool to me. So the process of breaking down is basically very, very old. It goes back to 5000 B.C. or something like that. I can’t remember when Sun Tzu was writing, but he said to know yourself and know your enemy and he couldn’t have been more right.

MMAFightline.com: What are some of the most memorable fights that you've been involved with that you felt really good about how your game plan worked out.

Greg Jackson: That’s a real hard one, because I don’t want to take all the credit. There are a lot of people that help come up with the plans. I’m not a guy that like, knows it all. There are a lot of other coaches that we work with that say ‘hey when he does this you should do that’ so I get a lot of contributions from other areas too. But, you know the last couple fights have been so good. And I’ve been doing it for so long and trained so many guys, I’ve been lucky enough to train so many good athletes.

These last couple against Chuck Liddell, Koscheck and Matt Hughes…I get a real thrill, just a feeling like ‘Wow, I helped them. I did my art.” I get that feeling from those last few fights. But there’s been so many, not that I’m a guy that says I’ve been there done that. I still have a ton to learn but I’ve been in so many corners that I can’t tell you one that’s stood out. The first time when Rashad beat Jason Lambert, got in the mount and was able to beat Jason Lambert that was a really good night for him; more so for Rashad to finish the fight which he did. That’s a night that stood out. I jumped the the cage on that one and got fined $100 dollars [laughs]. There are moments like that, but I’m still so young in the coaching game. I’m only 34 years old so I feel that I have a lot to expand and a lot to learn. But those are some moments that stood out. Some of Nate Marquardt’s fights, some of his King of Pancreas title defenses and some of his UFC fights have really stood out.