Manager Spotlight: Democratic Republic of Aggerud

Spotlight is back once again after couple of months! This time I have the honour to interview the most successful manager in Scandinavian history, the man with 63 World Titles as of now and the manager generally rated as one of the best in the whole WeBL; Democratic Republic of Aggerud!!

Let's start with the basic stuff. Tell us a little bit
about yourself, where you're from what do you do etc.

Ok. My name is Jonas, I'm 22 years old and come from a small town called Karlskoga. Right now I study law at Uppsala University and I've been doing so for about one year. I basically don't do anything but listening to music, studying and watching TV, but it's a pretty nice life and I can't complain.

What got you into the game in the first place? As I
understand there were bunch of guys from Aggerud
starting roughly at the same time in early 2001.

My friend called Aggerud Threepointfives started playing and once when I was at his place he was checking the fights. He explained some of the basics and the part that I liked most was the small luck factor. I talked AFC and AZE into creating a gym and since then I've been hooked. When I started I worked with customer relations over the phone so I was online 9 hours a day, more or less unsuperviced. That time was well spend on WeBL and I think that's why I got hooked so fast.

As I remember, you learnt the game very quickly. Did
you study the rules and tactics a lot when you started
or did it all just make sense instantly?

After a couple of weeks of only losses I started to understand why I was loosing. I started doing advanced fights plans and I remember that AFC and me were going by car to a nearby town and he'd printed the complete rules. Since then I guess I've known the rules more or less and judging by my increasing win-percentage after reading the rules I'd say it really helped...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember you starting
the same way as most of the quality gyms, with
dancers. What was the reasoning behind your guys back
then?

In the beginning I was looking at the "fighters creation guide" when creating my fighters. They recommend strength at about 10. I liked
the styles outside and counter because I could use the advantages without having to scout. Since I made tall fighters, I needed a lot of
agility to be able to use their height advantage, so I guess most of my fighters ended up with a lot of agl, thus becoming dancers. Ola "Slangen" Danielsson was
one example. He started out with str 8 in middleweight and ended up as a balanced dancer in Cruiser with strength 20.

When exactly was your first fight, and what was the outcome?

I think it was on April 14th 2001. My heavyweight Lars Lundberg (AFC:s real name) met Peter "pedda" Lindhsky and won by a 1st round KO.
It was a nice start and I used the fp "go for early KO".

And what are your favourite types of fighters as of
now, and why?

I manage one KP-dancer in straws, and the rest of my fighters are balanced. With a balanced fighter I mean that they have 0 KP and strength,
speed and agl at almost the same level. They are usually heavy or very heavy build.
The reason why I use them is that they are very simple to manage so I can use a lot of pre-made fightplans. That saves me a lot of time. They
are also good against all types of opposition and with the right management they can dominate tall KP-dancers as well as clinchers. It is the best
type of fighter, it's that simple. ;-)

You are famous for being the unofficial father of the
now legendary movement B.A.R.F. Tell us about the
events leading to the infamous fight of March 18th
2002 between Ulf "Malotto" Ottosson and Francisco
"Paco" Bojado.

Well, Paco was about to break the finest record in Scandinavia by being undefeated with only KO wins. The problem was that he'd flashed all his opponents and me and a lot of other managers didn't really like flashers since fighting them, IMO, is like a coin toss, and
that is what I wanted to avoid by playing this game. To stop Paco I moved Ulf "malotto" Ottosson from Super-lights down to feathers (I think) to stop his streak. The problem was that malotto had fought on Tuesdays during his entire career, and now the fight ran on a Monday.
I had started the fight before going 5B/10/5 (allout) and by forgetting to change the fight plan, I met Pacos 6H/13/1 (allout) with my 5B/10/5 (allout) and I handed him the easiest win of his career and 613 IP's. I took 213 IP's, gave him the record, but I still felt pretty good. After that B.A.R.F. was founded somehow and the rest is history...

Tell us little bit about your first regional- and
world title fights.

My first regional title fight was with my super-bantam fighter Fredda Spangberg vs. Jim Unbreakable Johnson from Copenhagen Pro Boxing. I was (as usual back then) 5 inches shorter and Jim was jabbing with 14 agg for most rounds to take the win on points. I was 2 points behind going into the 12th round. He kept jabbing like a madman and I threw an allout. It was enough to KO him and it was a great feeling. My first WT fight was in bantam with For You Aggerud ZOO against Spanky "D" from DOD. It was a pretty comfortable fight and I had the score and endurance advantage from round 1. In the end it was a close but unanimous decision. I must say thought that the first regional title was sweeter.

Are there any other memorable fights you would like to
share with us?

One fight that I remember is when I fought David Ellis for the WT. It was my first WT fight and it ended up being a draw. It was nice to fight the legendary Ellis though. The fights that I've enjoyed the most though are when I fought LGD back in the early days. I was often pretty
lucky against him and my post-fight smack even made him retire for a while. ;-)
But he came back and after some e-mail contact he wasn't pissed anymore.

How much time do you spend on each fight nowadays, i.e. do you still put an effort to scout your opponents thoroughly?

I've got very little time for WeBL at the moment (new girlfriend taking up a lot of time) and probably spend about 3 minutes on each fight. I only scout flashers and KP-dancers to find out how much KP they have, but that's about it. Scouting is important for sure but experience can tell you quite a lot about your opponent without the time consuming AP-scouting.
If I want to compete with the bobbleheads I think I need to do more scouting though, but there just isn't enough motivation for that at the moment.

What do you see are your strengths and weaknesses as a
manager?

One of my strengths are that I'm pretty good at creating balanced fighters that works well on high contender level. I think that my biggest strength is the way I control endurance. That is very important and reduces IP's. I think IP-management is very important and an aspect that a lot of managers ignore just to win the fights. As I see it I've got two weaknesses. The first and biggest is probably that I'm very predictable and seldom spend time on new FP's. I also have very little experience with flashers and KP-fighters in general and that is a big weakness when fighting that kind of fighters.

You've grabbed more Scandinavian awards than anyone so
far. You've been voted the manager of the month 8
times, Up'n'commer of the month, Fighter of the month
6 times and once the Smack talker of the month. How do
you feel about the awards and is there anything you
would change about them?

I think the categories and format is great and it's an honour to win an award. I think that the finest award is up 'n' comer award and I still remember the motivation boost I got after winning that one.

You became the no1 manager in Scandinavia few months
back. What are your thoughts on that and at what point
did you realise that you were actually becoming the
dominant force in both Scandinavian and world levels?

Of course it feels nice to be no1 but it really feels strange since I feel dominated by a lot of Scandinavian managers. Of course there is a difference between WT-level and regionals but if I can get badly beaten at rating 10 I think that manager should have the same
chances that I have to take WT's. The day I'm 2nd in Scandinavia will be a fine day for the region and I really look forward to that! But being dominant...nah. Scout me, surprise me and I can easily be dominated. Just look at what those bobbleheads are doing...

As of today, you've won 63 world titles and 53
regional titles, what are your goals for t
he future?

I guess what I really want is to succeed in a tournament. I've sucked in all tourneys I've been in and that feels really bad. The WT's aren't that special anymore and I have big problems winning regional titles so I hope to succeed in WICT, that'd
be great!

Apart from yourself, which managers do you rate
highest in Scandinavia and in the world level?

In Scandinavia there are so many good managers. I struggle against Nick's Naughty Ninjas a lot and take on average 50 IP's when fighting him so I rate him pretty high. Flat Out is good and I think we have a lot in common when it comes to fighter design. Anfield is also a very fine manager and I'm surprised he doesn't have more WT's. But there are many more Scands. In the world I must say the Bobbleheads. They have the design and FP's to really dominate. Triple B and Kramer are other managers that I think are very good.

There is a lot of talent coming up in our region, as
usual. How do you rate the up'n'commers of today,
which ones have impressed you the most and do you see
anyone who could in turn threaten your position as the
main man?

I've already mentionen Nick's. I think he could go ahead and win some WT's. The guys from Östersund are doing well. But I see a symptom with tall fighters from some of them and that's not enough to win WT's today. Since I don't fight that much in regionals it's a bit hard to say so I suppose I forgot to mention a lot of great up 'n' comers but if I forgot YOU,
take the revenge in the ring and show me you were worth a mentioning.... ;-)

You've taken part in the WeBL Olympics for 2 times
now, last time as a member of the region. What do you
think of the experience and of the tournament as a
whole?

I think it really brings the region together and you learn a lot from the other managers in your team. I think that a lot of the Scandinavian success comes from the positive spirit that the olympics bring, with the sharing of thoughts and strategies. It's great that the Olympics forum is now open to everyone because there's a lot of good stuff in there! But I'm really disappointed with my own performance, as usual.

You've been here to see most of the rule changes so
far. What do you think about the current rules and is
there anything you would change as of now?

Personally I wouldn't want to change anything. I think the speed-hack helped me to get where I am since I've always been fond of speed (I used to counter a lot). Clinchers can still win fights and tall guys are pretty good in regionals so I think that most fighter types
have a chance. The latest rule change was a low blow on KP-dancers but I don't think that's bad since they were way to strong before and now they compete at the same level as most other fighter types.

What do you think are the biggest differences between
regional- and contender fights, and do you take that
into account when developing your fighters?

The biggest difference is that my fighters are designed to be well built at rating 28 and I often have a weight division for them that I like to stick to. Therefore I often keep cond as low as possible in regionals and that really makes fighting hard against other balanced fighters designed to win RT's primarly. I tend to take more IP's and lose more fights at regional level against good managers such as Nick and tnt when they fight with balanced guys.
The speed-hack is a big difference and since some managers underestimate speed at high levels there are a lot of easy fights where you have a good speed advantage against a similar fighter.

What advice would you give to any new gyms coming into
the game?

Read the rules, do advanced fight plans and don't forget speed. Always remember that high chin and conditioning can get you through fights but at a cost in IP's that just isn't worth it.

Any final words?

Thanks to Flat Out for doing the interview and thanks to PityPart for keeping the SoS running; I'm sure it is the main reason why Scandinavia is so successful.