The Fighting Pride of Clarksville Nate "The Train" Landwehr joins Charlie to talk about music, Fighting in the UFC and Fatherhood. This fun and far-reaching conversation will have you rooting for one of Clarksville's rising stars.
Clarksville Conversations with Charlie Koon
Nate Landwehr: Fighting and Fatherhood
I've lived in Clarksville, Montgomery County nearly my entire life, and I've seen a lot of growth and met some amazing people along the way. There's a lot going on in our community, and on this podcast, I hope she had some light of what's going on in Clarksville. I'm Charlie Kuhn, and this is Clarksville Conversation. Well, well, well. Should have been ready, I grew my mustache out for this one now. Man, I'm telling you. It's tough. Nate, welcome to Clarksville Conversations. You know, I don't know if we can top the pre-recorded stuff. I know, right? You're so good. You're so good. Now, we want to talk about fighting. We want to talk about fatherhood. But let's start with the concert we just went to, because I was on the other side of the arena for me. Yeah. I mean, it was amazing. It was my first concert live. We went with some buddies, and it was an amazing experience, and it's just so cool that Clarksville has its venue now to offer the city. And, you know, we're talking to people, and it was coming from all over, just to our little city. Yeah, I tell you, Bradley Gilbert, I mean, he's got energy anyway, and then the folks he had with him, they were, I mean, everybody thought it was a country show, but it was a rock and roll show. I know it's amazing. He was just talking about it, what a country music has become. You know, it's a rap rock and roll. It's like, you know, it's kind of like the old version of country, but it's like kind of grew up to where it's like, where's the voice for people like me kind of, you grow up country, but you kind of like a little thug life, you know, you don't mind getting into a fist fight, but then you don't mind playing the garden too, though, you know. Well, I heard there were some fights at the concert. Did you see some of them? I've seen a little, I just seen a little commotion. I don't know if any of these kids got thrown. Most people out here bluffing anyway. Yeah, they are. That's what I call it. I'll fight you. Yeah. And the time it took you to say I was going to fight you, you could have punched me already. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. If they wanted to hit you, they would, right? Yeah. It's all blue. What's your, what's your favorite kind of music? I would say this new, this new country, kind of the new country music guy. We got to beat to it, get a little beat to it, got a little twang to it. You know, something for, something for my, my generation, you know, what, uh, you got a favorite artist. I want to have a favorite artist. I just, I like, I like what I like, you know, and I listen to that. I'm a bad about, I'll listen to one song on repeat just for hours, especially when I'm training. Yeah. Especially if I'm going to walk out to the song, I just listen to it for days and days and days. Yeah. What was your last walkup song? ACDC back in class. Man, he played them. They had that last night at the pre show. Yeah. That's what he came out to. I was like, well, okay. Yeah. Great mindset. Yeah. And I'm going to tell you that he's that album, that ACDC album is so good. It's iconic. And every song as soon as you hear a note, you know what it is. Oh, it's just the way it is. I don't know what it is. When I'm about to walk out to a fight, I feel like a rock star, but then after the fight, post fight interview, I feel like a rapper. Yeah. That's why I like to see that. He's captured music. Yeah. He's got a little bit of both. You like jelly roll, don't you? Oh, for sure. My 100% big fan. He's got some soul and he's he's blowing up. Man, this seems like everybody acts like they loved him. I think it's like anything when you get successful, everybody acts like they've been with you. Uh huh. Yeah. That's right. Man. So that was your first ever live concert. Yeah. First ever live concert. I've known my wife. She's been to a few. She makes funny. My friends make fun of me. I just, you know, I'm like a hermit man. I'm grinding. Well, you're always working, even when you're resting, that's getting ready to work some more. Yeah. And it's amazing. It's been a while since I've been on your show, man. Yeah. Last time it was different. Yeah. I know I got a couple more scars now. You did. You did. You got to go. Let's hear a little more scars. Yeah. Yeah. The hair is going to go. It's going for me. That's right. You know, the scars. But you got you got a big blessing in your life last year. You know, huge blessing. Man, let's tell me about that. Man, it's just amazing experience. His fatherhood. You know, my wife and I, we had a little experience, you know, conceiving. So we had to go through a couple of different processes. Yeah. Somebody out there with trouble. Just keep on pushing through and, you know, it's going to happen or it's not going to happen. You can only put it in God's hand. I tell you what one thing, when my son on the way, we started going to church to put him in the church. Yeah. It was something that I needed for myself to get right with a big man. So my son's already helped me in that aspect and it's just, I just always knew that, you know, once you start breathing and have an offspring, that they're going to be the one, they're going to be everything in your life. But it's easier said now that you get in your life and say, wow, they really are number one. It's, but it's amazing that, you know, I see, see pictures of you guys, right? Yeah. Social media and whatever, and you don't really know that kind of love till you have it. Yeah. For sure. You know, my mother, I had a single mother, I was the baby and other sisters go to college. You know, I'm just kind of jacking around for a while and then I run off to college. I said, peace out. I'm out. Yeah. She told me years later, that was the one that hurt because I was the last one to live. You used to be baby. I was baby too. I was about to be baby, right? And now that I have a baby, I'm like, the baby's the baby's baby. I know. Man, I'm telling you, I think it's awesome. It's fun to watch your journey because you've been, you've been growing up, maturing in a lot of different things. Now you got your family going and your, seems like your fighting's on track too. Yeah. Everything's coming. I think things happen when they need to happen. Yeah. It's happening now. I really needed to happen now. So come on now. Come on. You're talking about it now. Let's go. But you know, you know, the thing, you brought up church. So I'm going to tag on that a little bit. And we've all got flaws. We say things and we do things, you know, but you know what? I do believe it's God's timing. And so with your baby, that's timing with your career. Great timing. That's timing. And you just got to keep, keep rolling. Yeah, I heard a good one. They said, it's kind of like taking a shower. You won't get clean to go take a shower, right? You're just getting a shower to get clean. That's right. You know? And it's the same thing with church and God, you know, coming as you are. You're not going to pre, you know, you're not going to try to pre-clean yourself up before you jump into the shower. Just like you're not going to try to pre-clean yourself off. You're just who you are and you bring what you are to that to that. Yep. And then you raise your kids the best you can and you just keep on rolling. So it'll be interesting years from now when he's looking back and, you know, really getting a grasp of what you're doing. Yeah, I know. It's like, I think to myself, it'd be cool to have a little bit older kid that he could see behind the scenes of the pain and stroke, because everybody sees the, you know, 15 minutes of glory, but it's the behind the scenes. I wish he could see the struggle, the pain, and that's what I tell my nephews. I'd be like, look, man, you can be anything you want in his life, but look at my face now. It's going to come at a price, you know, it's real easy. The fight game is real easy to see because you can see these wounds on me. You can see these scars and it's real, you got to pay that price and it's prices do daily. I heard this saying it's a, it's like hot water. As soon as you stop heating it, it ain't hot water no more. That's exactly right. You got to constantly heat that water from hot water, you know what I'm saying? That's that stuck. Well, that's a really good saying that stuck with me. It's like anything in life. As soon as you stop, you ain't got hot water no more. You got some, it's cool enough immediately. You know, you talk about the fight game and people, even the generation younger than you now, right? Even though it's hard to believe there's one younger than you. I know. But you know, a lot of times kids see the success and think they're going to walk into success right when they get out of school or whatever, but you're a prime example. You're successful, but you're still striving to get to the top. You can't just walk outside. I'm a fighter and be number one. You got to work your way up to it. Yeah. And I think that with anything, it's all about lining it up. I feel like Clarksville has a bunch of great athletes in it. I think that it's always kind of been strong out. Just leave, you know, high school teams, think about, we got, we got what seven high schools. We got each, I think about the football teams, one school, have a good quarterback, a good running bag. But you know what I'm saying? If it was just one school, I think we have a better chance of going to state, winning the state. You know what I'm saying? But the talent spread out, but if we could get some of these guys, there's ultra talented athletically and mentally strong to start, maybe they want to start, say to playing basketball or a football baseball, they want to go into miss martial arts or boxing, just kind of changing that culture. And now since I've led the way, maybe, maybe they're going to look, oh, these guys from Clarksville. Yeah. That's right. Maybe he's, he could be good. And hopefully we can get some of these younger guys that want to try this paid better a little bit sooner. Yeah. I mean, well, I tell you, you, I'll give you credit every time I see any kind of video of you talking, you shout out Clarksville every time. Oh, yeah. You know, it's funny because I yesterday at the concert. Yeah. I was out about, I had to go use a bathroom and get a couple of things, you know, and this guy came up to me and said, I know who you are. You just out here lurking around, thinking nobody's going to know you. I was like, I mean, I'm not hiding our yellow Clarksville. You know, I'm live here. I'm born here. I'm race here. I'm when I die, I pass away. I want to be buried. Yeah. This is my home. This is a privilege. And it's an honor for me to throw it on my back and compete on the world's biggest scale of fighting and be able to represent my city. How can, how can we get you to fight in town? I mean, who we, who we got to call? Probably going to have to get a couple more good hotels because I think that's what you, I think our venue, the venue that we have is big, but I don't think we could accommodate the amount of people that will come for UFC. I got you. I got you. That would be the main thing. That's what they look for. So Nash, usually they'll come to Nashville, like Nashville, which ain't too far off. Yes, I bet. And, and, you know, we got the double tree that's going to be right downtown. Yeah. That'll be opened in, uh, in August. Okay. So that's all renovated. There'll be another smaller boutique hotel that's going to get built in the next couple of years. Yeah, I'm definitely enjoying them trying to, uh, different parts of the city. Yeah. Put stuff that way you don't got to fight to get the Wilma Rudolph. That's exactly right. It's a bigger fight to get the Wilma Rudolph than it is when I'm fighting Saturday night. It's almost. That's crazy. For five, six years ago, 10 years ago, you get down anywhere 15 minutes. I know. It takes 15 minutes. Just start to 15 minutes to get through the red light on Riverside drive and McDonald's. It's not a bad thing though. No, it's not a bad thing. You're growing up. I'm growing up. It's good. It's changed. Well, let's talk, let's talk a little bit about your career because I really want to talk about your fighting style because I, I watch you and then I, I, I dug through some, some things and it says how the finish is, you know, if it's a chokehold and all the different things and I don't know what they are, but you know, I know one thing you're not afraid to anybody. Right. You know, when you go into that zone, you're, you know, weeks out, you give you a little bit of respect when it respects do, but many sound you don't, you don't respect the man. You out here ready to hurt him. Miss him or me. Yeah. I saw a thing with Mike Tyson recently because he's got that, whatever that fight is, he's got coming up and somebody asked him if he ever gets, if he ever gets nervous or scared and he said something about, yeah, man, I, you know, I, I get a little scared because I don't know what I'm getting into. He said, but the closer I get to the fight, the more zoned in I am and he said, and then it's on me. You feel almost invincible. That's what he says. I think everybody gets that feeling in your stomach, you know, anything, think about it. When you do stuff that's the get you, that you know, your body knows you feel this pain. You're on a different alertness. Your body gets on a different frequency and, you know, you get that feeling in your stomach a little bit. It's about kind of learning to deal with. That's where I live. You know what I mean? Yeah. I've been doing this so long. When I'm feeling that's what I tell men like I live here. That's why I'm out. I was born to do that little feeling in your stomach. That's lunch time, baby. What? So let's talk about you, you're, you're in the UFC. That's the ultimate. That's the top of the game, right? Top of the game. And it took you how long in your career to kind of work your way up to where you are. The whole time, I mean, I've been doing this since 2010, I think I got my first big shot. My first big shot was when I went to Russia and fall over there, they were just as elite as the UFC, but in Russia. Yeah. I did five fights with them. This is my, that was my eighth fight in UFC. So I've been fighting at the highest level now for 13 fights. So wow, it's been a, it's been a good one. It's been a good one. So I'll be 10 to three at the highest level right now. Wow. Yeah. That's man. That's, that's, that's for sure. The guy you just fought, he's a pretty good fighter, right? He's good. I think he's, he's did well against really good competition. I don't think he's ever been quite finished like that. I mean, and he was doing well against me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you look like you got scuffed up for a minute. Yeah, definitely. He got the first laugh. I got the last laugh they like to say, but yeah, man, what people don't realize is this, this is might be the realest thing that you can do. It's not play time in there. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, the highs are high and a little something about after you win that fight and you walk them back through that tunnel and everybody's like, they just, man, you could just be, you feel like you might be different. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. You get a little high. It takes a while. You could never sleep after that. Oh, yeah. It takes a few days to come down from that high. I bet it does. Now, can you, how many fights could you do in a year? I mean, realistically, you know, it just depends on, you know, for example, you going to break your arm and it's going to be, it's going to take you a while. You get cut. It's going to take you a while for the cut to not, you know, you don't want to get cut again. It is all about how hard the fight was on you physically and, you know, how long you need to recover after that and then how long, say, for example, if you can't train for a little while, you're going to get back in shape. Yeah. So it's a bunch of tangibles, but I mean, yeah, you think about all these tangibles, but if you was out with your family, somebody ran up on you, you wouldn't think about that. It's him or me, you know, you know, when people like to try, people like to test people out when they, you know, it's always, that's why I don't really try to get out too much. Yeah. Everybody always wants to prove something to themselves, you know, yeah. So yeah, I know you train, train, train, but what do you do when you're not training? Oh, man, when I'm not training, I'm on a now it's different because now I'm on fatherhood, you know, when I'm not training, I'm not here to train and diapers and, you know, out here is. Ain't nothing wrong with that? Yeah. Swaddle it. Yeah. I got to that. Here I have it. And now he's like, where I'm just hanging out. I got this little sway to be like, I don't even have this dude in me with me. And it's like, it's funny because it's like, you can't yourself watching some cartoons and like, Oh, man, he's, he's being gone for it. I'm still watching these cartoons. It's just what happens. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I got a daughter and she's getting grown, but you know, we went through all that, went through all the dance academy stuff and traveling with dance and, you know, at the time, I thought, man, this is a lot. And now that we've kind of grown past that, you're like, man, that went by quick. Yeah. It won't be like this for law. I've been liking that song by Darius Rucker. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My wife cries about it when I play it through her. Should I stop playing these sad songs, man? Do you say, do you tell you you're just romantic? Yeah. I'm a romantic, I'm a heartless, I'm a, you know, oh my goodness. So have you, have you already got another fight schedule? No, but I told them, I told them, Mike, this usually, you tell them about when you ready and they call you and it's usually, you know, it's a yes or no type thing, but you don't say no to the UFC. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, does that get somebody else? Yeah. You're a place of everybody's replaceable. Yeah. Yeah. And it's one of those things where it's not so much as a career path as it is a string of opportunity, so when your opportunity comes around, you gotta check out, you gotta check them boxes. Yeah. And the more wins you get, the more opportunities you get. Sure, yeah. I think it's cool. I think it's a cool. I think a lot of other careers should be like fighting, you know. Yeah. You have a rank besides your name. Yes, you have. Like, you meet somebody, they tell you what they do. What's your rank in that? Yeah. You have a couple bad days, you get cut. Oh, man. You can put everybody on it as to where performance will be demanded. Yeah. Well, there's a time or two that I've seen you fight where, you know, you've got your card of fights and then you've got like the fight of the night or something. What's that called? Performance. Yeah. So do you actually get a bonus for that? Oh, for sure. You get a bonus. I'm actually pretty much every one of my fights have been a bonus. And then always go to me to the guy who got me, but it was definitely entertaining for the crowd. I think the crowd wins. But yeah, that's kind of my style. I'm all in. Yeah. It's no back pale. And I was doing an interview the other day and they're talking about when you better. I'll be like, when you rather start a little bit, I was like, well, honestly, I would like to be better fighting. That's what I do. If I could be better, fighting it definitely will help my job, but I can't change what it is. I go in, you know, you bring what you got, you know, sometimes you're faster, sometimes you're not, sometimes you're stronger, sometimes you're not. It's one of those things to where you is what you is and you ain't with your aim. You got to deal with it, you know, like kind of like how life hit you. Man, that is true. I think fighting is kind of like every fight is kind of like a little bit, a little life. And you got your ups and your downs and you got your stars and your finishes, you know. Yeah. Man. It's like a little mini life span right into every little fights kind of like it's the own little mini life span, you know. Does Robin worry about you? I think honestly, the people who love me, my fighting career is harder on them than it is for me. Yeah. For me, I'm just doing it for them. I don't see what's really going on. I mean, I'm in here just having it, you know what I mean? So that's what I will say about it. It's harder on my loved ones than it is for me. Yeah, I guarantee. I tell you what, that has got to be. I watch a lot of sports, just you could name one, I probably watch it. But there's not one much more exciting because that thing could last 10 seconds or, you know, like say 15. That's what I tell. It's sportish, but it's not quite that, you know, it's fighting. It's a battle. It's a it's as close as you can get to real life gladiator with a few rules to keep, you know, just a few, a few little rules that it's like combat, Mortal Kombat, you know. You know, I was wondering, like, so when you when you got somebody down, right, and and now you're in control and you're just hammering them. You're just hitting them. You're just hitting them in the face. Just buy, buy, buy. Do you ever sometimes think, man, he needs to go ahead and call this fight for I hurt this guy or you just you're not thinking about it. It's one of those things where that part of your brains off. Yeah, you're just going till you're not you're in there and it's like you'll go back and watch everything that's kicks in. That's what the training time is. That's what all the years of training puts into you and you see yourself is like you're not thinking about these little things, but you just do it kind of like how we're just sitting here talking your breathing. Yeah. You're really thinking I got to take a breath. Yeah, that's right. The breath out. I got a blink. You know, these things, these things are built into you. And that's the kind of what you do. You build these tendencies until you so it's all second nature. So what do you do when you go to work out? You go in your training and you just don't want to. You just feel sluggish. You feel. That's how it is. You got no energy. I mean, you just mentality. I do just like every other man does when he wakes up in the morning and don't want to go to work and he knows he got to support his family and he's got to put his boots on. He's tired from working the day before construction or whatever he got to do, you know, the hard jobs, you know, you know, that's why that's why I like about traveling. Everything you see was built by somebody somebody who probably didn't want to do it one day, but it's all these beautiful things we got from hardworking men and women. You know what I mean? It was there to build everything. Yeah. You know, you got these geniuses and you got these mega smart people that probably invented some things that came up with the plans, but you got your average Joe, yeah, that built it, got his ass up every day, tired, sick, didn't make no excuses, you know, so he got to pull the self up by his bootstraps, walked out that door, came home that night. That's right. That's right. Did again that next morning. That's what I take pride on right there, you know, yeah, keep going, man. Well, you, if you're, if you're not ready, you better get ready. Yeah. Somebody else can win the bonus. Yeah. That's why I love about fighting this. Like there is no excuses, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Do you ever spend much time at it for Campbell? Have you ever done any like any of the training courses they've got? Younger when they was a little bit more lax would go out there and get training in with the groups and they did a bunch of training. They're a little bit more, you know, I bet you we'd get you to do that aerosol school, man. I like see you do all the obstacle courses and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. I take to myself now. It had been different doing the 18 now 35 bit a little different now. Are you 35? Yeah. 35. Holy cow. Yeah. I mean, you look young. Yeah. I feel good. I was like the man that was jumped after a skyscraper, every floor that he said, he passed, he said, it's going good so far. It was. He passed that 12 floor and he's like, Hey, it's going good so far to fit floor. It's going good. That's funny. It's going good. What until you hit that bottom floor? It wasn't going to. Yeah. Oh my God, that is that is too funny. But have you got somebody that that's in your, are you a feather white? Yeah. Is there somebody that you just? 146 is what I'm fighting. Is there somebody you just want you got you just really want to fight? I would say it's necessarily somebody that I would want to fight, but I would say that I'm ready to fight anybody. Yeah. They say I like roster. You know, UFC is good about putting the best fights on and we're talking about the ultimate form of combat at the highest level. Yeah. Think about kind of like how football is. You think it's a world thing, but really it's just a bunch of Americans. Yeah. And how you got soccer and you got, yeah, but fighting breaks all barriers, no matter what language, religion, you could be the king son of son of a peasant. Yeah. When you match up, it's equal. I like to call the equal rights and laughs and uppercuts to you, and it's fair. I think it's one of the most fairest career paths you can go on. Yeah. You know, it's honest. It's to the point. It doesn't really can't. You can get catered to a little bit, but at the end of the day, you ain't getting carried. Is there, is there, do you have a, do you have a move or do you have a patented? Yeah. Yeah. Ford. What was that mean? Going forward. Oh, just just coming at you. Coming at you. And then whatever that involves, whatever, I like to try to, I like to try to get into a fight and see what happens. Yeah. You know, it's one of those things to where kind of like in life, you on the outskirts a little bit, you know, trying to take your time thinking about it, it really ain't gonna happen to you. It's not too jumping that fire. You got to deal with it. You know what I mean? So once you're jumping that fire is when, uh, that's funny. Yeah. Forward. Forward. I'm coming at you. Forward. But my motto, we gonna see, I ain't from Missouri, but you're going to show me. I tell you what, you, before and after the fight, you boys got some interesting comments. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's entertaining. Yeah, man. I love it, man. I'm blessed. I was, I found my passion at a young age. Yeah. I found my wife at a young age. Yeah. And now that, uh, they're going to church, I found died at a pretty young age and, uh, man. Yeah. Yeah. I got a beautiful city here in Clarksville. Man, you like sports getting harder, better and better. You know what I mean? Yeah. Heavier on me. Everybody. Everybody's just cool, man. Yeah. It's just one of those things where Clark show's growing, but I like to think there's still a small town down in the middle of it, you know. I think it is when you, when you start talking to people. Yeah. I mean, when you're in traffic, you realize, man, we're growing, but when you just start talking to people, even last night at, at the, uh, concert, man, it's still pretty small. People still know. Yeah. I like it because you know, I've been down there in South Florida, training. That's why I do my training camps at, uh, you know, you got to wait, you got to, you know, to do that little wave that you do to people. It'd be like, what are you waving at? Uh, a few, a few weeks ago before I came down here, I was at, I was walking to the door and this guy held the door from, I was like, what are you doing? Yeah. Where are you from? Oh, yeah. I thought I was the only person to help us do it right here in South Florida. But you know, you come up here. It's common. Yeah, it's common. You say hello. You know, thank you. Call people, you know, ma'am, sir, you know, look at the eyes, shake hands. I get in trouble. Cause I, I say yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. All the time. And people like two thousand twenty four, it might get you in a little situation. Oh, thank you ma'am. I'm not. You go wilding out on you. Go around. Wilding out. Go out here. Good. I'll just stop. I just trying to be nice. Get ma'am. Look, ma'am is to me. Oh my gosh. She's so funny. What can people, what can people in Clarksville, Montgomery County and in our region do to support you? I mean, honestly, this new wave in Asia we're in. If you want to support me, you go just follow me on Instagram seems like the followers is what everybody likes. I like to train simple Instagram, of course, my name on Facebook, but you use everybody looks at Instagram and Twitter or whatever it's called, X or something. I'm a little old school. We don't post much, you know, spoiler alert, but go ahead and go on there if you hear it is, make the train on Instagram, give you a boy a follow, quick look like I got your phone handy. Yeah. You, and you put a lot of good video clips on there and it's, I mean, it's entertaining. Yeah. Yeah. See the train and then, you know, I hear the train. And then sometimes I think of Yellowstone, take them to the train station. Yeah. We've talked about that. I like the other style, you know, it's a good one. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. Well, I sure appreciate you taking time to visit with me and, you know, man, we're pulling for you. We might not be at the show, but we're pulling for you. Sometimes when you come to the show, you end up looking at the Megatron anyways. So the best view, I tell people all the time, the best view of the TV. I think that's why they spend the amount of time, million dollars on the TV, on the cameras and the angles and now you have a little experience, a little bit more. If you come to the, you have to hold this site, man. You'd be there to be a nice little night, but, you know, yeah, I just don't think you, your heart doesn't jump off out of your chest if you're, if you're sitting at your TV where you'd be surprised, you know, when you zone there, it's like, uh, I feel like when I'm fighting, all my, all my loved ones, it's like, you know, when you play a video, you get to turn it with a little bit moving and moving. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's right. 100% yeah. Wow. Well, man, we're proud of you. Culture's proud of you. And if you ever need something, we're here for you. Definitely. I appreciate it, man. Thank you, Charles. I see you. [BLANK_AUDIO]