Sherdog.com: In keeping with contracts, what is your situation? Are you signed to a multi-fight contract right now or do you have just a single bout contract and should you win it automatically increases because you’d be the champ?

Trigg: I have a multi-fight deal with Zuffa that keeps me very happy and very satisfied through. I believe, and I am not 100 percent positive, through a three deal with this fight coming up.

Sherdog.com: If you beat Hughes and become the champ, does your contract become altered because you then, in fact, have that title? Or does your contract remain the same?

Trigg: No, it’s the same exact contract. But there is a ladder in there that says that if I become the champion, I could only fight for Zuffa, blah blah blah. You know, all these legal things that my manager handles and I don’t want to get into it. It’s kind of boring, you know? But, yeah, it remains the same.

Sherdog.com: If you win the title, would Zuffa be giving you bonus money aside from what you’d normally get from a win just because you’d grab the belt?

Trigg: You know I am really not sure to be quite honest with you. I know that in my contract I get a certain amount of money to show up in that cage and then a certain amount of money when I win. That gives me more motivation, but I don’t know if I’d get even more because I’d win the title.

Sherdog.com: Win, lose or draw against Hughes, who are some other guys out there that you have your eye one and wouldn’t mind fighting?

Trigg: The answer to this question is for only April 16th. I am taking it one fight at a time. I am taking the philosophy of Randy Couture as I am looking only at the guy in front of me, which is Matt. Once I dispatch him and get the title, we’ll start looking at some of the other guys. I’ll wait for Zuffa to give me the OK and see which one of those guys they’ll give me to fight.

Sherdog.com: Speaking of Randy Couture, what is your prediction on his next fight with Liddell?

Trigg: That one is really hard to call. I think Liddell came in not properly prepared and not fully motivated for the Couture fight. I think this is going to be a lot closer fight, a lot better of a fight. It’s too close to call. I am not sure. If I had to put money down, I would pick Couture because he’s the champ and he does have that one win over him from before and it was decisive.

Sherdog.com: Are you friends with either one of them and is there any of them that you really want to win?

Trigg: I am actually pretty cool with both of them. Chuck is actually pretty close with Matt, as he and Matt have been friends for a long time. I am also friends with Chuck, too. It doesn’t really matter to me, really, who wins. It doesn’t affect me. I’ve obviously known Randy since 1991, as we’ve gone to college together for a brief moment. I’ve known Randy for a real long time. He and I are actually really close friends. He’s the kind of guy where I would call up and say that I am in the area and I’d stay at his house and eat out of his refrigerator, you know? When it comes down to this, though, it’s about business and I am not picking my friend just because he is my friend. I just think that Randy has a little bit of an edge in this fight, but it really is too close to call. It’s a tight pick ‘em match.

Sherdog.com: I have another question for you that is sort of way off topic, but whatever happened between the feud between you and Shonie Carter that stems from when he pulled out his fight with you at WFA 3?

Trigg: That was really Shonie talking more than anything. He got mad at me. Everybody got mad at him because he didn’t get his medicals in on time. We all got them in the previous week, but he didn’t put his in until he showed up that week of the fight. He had an issue with his eye and the eye doctor failed him. Allegedly he knew about the eye problem but never had it taken care of. I was like, “Dude, what the heck are you doing?” He got mad at me because he thought I was calling him out and then it snowballed from there. But Shonie and I both have big mouths and we’re both fighters. We were both trying to get our career really on track and we created a little bit of heat, but nobody picked us up and had us fight on a card together. If Shonie and I ran into each other at a bar or whatnot, I’m pretty sure we’d buy each other drinks and talk. We’d be cool toward each other.

Sherdog.com: You do talk a lot of trash, Frank.

Trigg: (laughs) Yeah, sometimes.

Sherdog.com: You sometimes come off in interviews as an angry guy and some in the sport have called you names and whatever, but in reality you are a good dude. You’ve always been cool with me and at events you are usually always cool with others around you. While you do get a bad rap sometimes, does anybody ever try to pick fights with you whether they are part of the fight game or not?

Trigg: No. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t like going out that much. My girlfriend and I go to movies and stay home and cuddle. I’ll cook dinner for her at night and the two of us do things together where it is just the two of us. Once in a while we’ll get a wild hair where we’ll go to the dance clubs, but we try and stay away from everybody in the clubs. Honestly, Mike, I have a real hard time in public. I am not real comfortable with the fame that is becoming about with the Ultimate Fighter show where others of us are getting famous, too. It’s not just Randy and Chuck, as other of us fighters are starting to get recognized. A lot more people are starting to pay more attention. I sort of shy away from it because I am kind of uncomfortable. So, no, no bad things have happened because I prefer to not put myself in those situations. I am not out all the time. I am kind of like a Bernard Hopkins where I rarely go out to places because I am usually studying the game. I am veteran fighter but I try to be a student of the game and it keeps me out of the bars, out of the clubs and it keeps me out of trouble, really.

Sherdog.com: How long do you plan on fighting? Do you plan on being the next Randy Couture and fight well into your 40s?

Trigg: I am not like Randy; I can’t go on that long. I don’t want to be 40 and keep going on the way he does. That is eight years away. I’m definitely going to be here when I am 35 and that is only three years. So you figure it’s three years with three fights a year. That is nine fights, so that is really not a bad career. But we’ll see and we’ll play it by ear. If I continue to feel good I may just keep doing it. We’ll see if my body can still do it. But the athletic game is definitely a young man’s game and as we get older we really have to try that much harder. Randy definitely is the anomaly for guys to go that long and be that good at his age. What he’s doing won’t be repeated for a long time.

Sherdog.com: At your age and knowing what you know now, if you could back to when your were 19 or 20, what would you work on the most? Would you work on your boxing, kickboxing, jiu-jitsu or something else the most? What one aspect would you like to focus on if you could?

Trigg: Yes.

Sherdog: “Yes,” what? Everything?

Trigg: Yes, everything! (laughs) I would work on everything the most (laughs again). I wrestled for a very long time, so, yes, I would go back and work on my jiu-jitsu a lot, my boxing and striking, everything. But I work very hard and I just try to make the best of what I have.