Rapid-fire Questions With Razor Rob Wilkinson

Pickstar is super excited to be sitting down with Razor Rob Wilkinson to chat ahead of his PFL World Championship Belt fight on November 25th.

Rob qualified for the Championship bout by completing the PFL regular season undefeated with 3 KO victories. He boasts an MMA fight record of 16 wins and 2 losses and is undefeated since 2018.

Thanks - Yeah, it's going well! We're about nine weeks out now so we're picking up our fight camp. But it was nice to have a pretty big break between the two fights because the other ones were just one after another, after another, so I had sixteen weeks between the two fights and was able to relax a little bit. I'm kind of always training, but now I'm back into the full swing of things.

I don't know, it's kind of funny. Sometimes it doesn't sink in straight away, but normally even just a few days after it has typically sunk in. Like fighting at Madison Square Garden and getting a walk-off knockout heading into the finals took a while to sink in, but I tend to take a week off anyway and just not really think about anything, just go on hikes or we've been going to a few national parks over here (in the US), so just doing that sort of stuff.

I've actually been in Denver ever since the first fight, since about April, but one of my goals when I started fighting was to be able to travel with it, so wherever I am I like to spend a week or so travelling around and enjoying whatever country or state I'm in.

That would be one of the biggest goals that I've had since I was about seventeen years old accomplished. It's a huge goal of mine to be a World Champion - it would mean the world to me.

Obviously, as you said, being the first Australian PFL Champion would be a cool aspect but also being the first Tasmanian World Champion in any organisation would be unreal for me, Tassie and anyone back home too.

Going into a fight you're always expecting to win and I was expecting it to happen as it did, not necessarily with the knee, but I knew he was going to come out pretty aggressive and pretty hard. That's how he fights.

I knew it was going to be a pretty exciting fight. It didn't last too long, it was only about 90 seconds or so.

Leading into it was a cool experience and those shots that you land that knock people out, they never feel like they're big heavy shots, you just kind of hit them and then next thing they're on the ground and you don't even feel like it was a big shot.

Yeah, it's never usually the shot where you're throwing everything into it and thinking you're going to knock them out. It's never usually like that. You just kind of hit them and then they're on the ground.

Someone said to me, I think one of my friends and training partners back home in Tassie, he said "you just got a walk-off knockout in Madison Square Garden, that's pretty f##king cool", and I was like "oh, that is pretty cool actually".

Not a whole lot of mental prep for the audience. It is cool having a good atmosphere and having a loud crowd. Some of my favourite fights might not have had the biggest crowd, but it's been really loud crowds. A small arena when it's packed usually feels better than a big arena when it's not quite full. Having a lot of people there, cheering or booing, usually brings a lot more excitement to the fight for sure.

I've got a fair few friends coming over from Tassie for this one, so it will be good to have a bit of support. They're always pretty rowdy and pretty noisy, so it's going to be good having them there.

I guess this side of things is a bit more new to me, but it makes it a lot easier when it's something that you relate to and it's something that you use, or something you want to use.

I'm working with Dabble at the moment and I like betting on sport, I've always done that, all my friends do that. Having a brand that you genuinely back obviously makes it a good deal.

Yeah, you've definitely got to be yourself. I'm not very good at faking things and I wouldn't want to promote a brand that I don't use or don't like. I'm much better at being myself, so if it's something I'm genuine about it's much easier for me to promote it.

For sure. My mental side of fighting is a priority. Outside of the cage when you're training it's all building your physical body and getting ready for that, but in there it's all mental and I do a lot of visualisation, a lot of meditating and working towards that side of thing.

It definitely has gotten more and more important throughout my career, with the more fights you have you sort of build that confidence especially when you start getting some wins and big promotions, but you've got to keep doing all the little things that got you there.

It's a bit new to me now just building into this spotlight, but it's pretty cool hearing some people back home in Tasmania messaging me asking for advice or saying that I'm inspiring them to do what they love, whether that's fighting or whatever it is.

I used to always be the youngest at the gym and now that I'm older and leading the way it's cool to be able to show that, especially for Tasmania that's quite small and doesn't have any huge names in fighting. Trying to be that person is a cool experience.

Just knowing what you want to do is a huge thing. One of the best things that I think my sister told me when I was about 20 was about setting out some goals. Short-term, medium-term and long-term goals. I've never done that before so I sat down and wrote out some goals and I actually stuck them to the roof above my bed. I moved out and moved back home and I got the goals out and went through them all. It was crazy how many of the goals I set out I had achieved.

But having that list that keeps you accountable, because if you're just going out there to compete or fight for fun then that's fine, but if you've got some goals like being an Australian Champion or a World Champion, or you want to compete in the UFC or PFL, then putting that down on paper definitely makes it a big deal.

I remember my goal when I first started was to compete in the UFC and back then there were barely any Australians competing in the UFC, let alone Tasmanians. When I started saying it to the people I was training with that this was my goal, they were a bit shocked that this was something I was aiming for. But when you start saying it out loud it definitely becomes more real and you become more accountable for it for sure.

Mike Tyson, because it would be cool to say you've fought Mike Tyson, and if it was in the cage he doesn't know any wrestling, so I think I would be able to win that one pretty easily.

Probably beers for all my friends that have flown across the world to watch me fight. But outside of that I'm pretty excited about buying a house back home in Tasmania, that's what I'm most excited about doing with that money.

Definitely, burgers would be my number one. The last time I fought in New York I was actually a bit annoyed because I was looking at this guy on Instagram that does the best food places in New York City and I went through and found his best burger. He gave a 9.8/10 - most of them didn't get above an 8 and I think it was about a $30 or $40 burger. But we didn't end up going. My next fight in Madison Square Garden I'm definitely going.

Now I'm fighting heavyweight I don't have to stress as much as I did when I was fighting middleweight, but I'm training a lot so I can eat heaps because I'm burning a lot of calories.

I just try and clean it up. I try not to eat too much processed food. Like I love steak and I love chicken, or like roast veggies and rice dishes.

I eat a lot of carbs in the morning before I train, so lately I've been eating a lot of french toast which has been pretty delicious.

But just generally cleaning up the diet, so cutting out greasy food, cutting out take away and unfortunately cutting out chocolate which is one of my favourites.

100 Duck sized horses because a duck-sized horse couldn't really do much, even if there's a hundred, you can kind of just start booting them away.

But a horse-sized duck... would be pretty scary.

Have you seen them? Imagine a duck the size of a horse coming towards you. They're flapping their wings, pecking you. I mean I'd try, but you know...

A boat, to get off the island...

But one thing, there's not a lot that would do, so probably one last burger or one last block of chocolate.

Yeah, I don't mind pineapple on pizza. I'm not super into it, but I'd definitely eat it if it's there.

Well, I don't often say this, I even say I'm born in Tasmania, but I was actually born in Adelaide and my parents moved to Tasmania when I was very young, but that's why I go for Adelaide. Tasmania doesn't have a team too.