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The following was posted by Kenny Florian on jiujitsugear.com's message board. I had already posted it in the MMA forum but thought you guys may appreciate reading it here.
Leading up to the fight was filled with problems but I thought I did a good job of concentrating on the fight considering everything. A month before the fight I smashed my knuckle on my right hand in an accident which kept me from punching or grabbing with my right hand for a while. I injured my shoulder pretty bad, my shin, my toes and badly over trained for this fight leading to tremendous fatigue in the 2 weeks before the fight. I had to take a bunch of time off from conditioning and training because I was just so fatigued during training. I was training too hard, too early and just hit a wall. People warned me that I was training too much but I was too focused on winning to listen to my body. I then almost lost all my sponsors and my money before my fight. On top of this, the day of my fight, my mother had an accident while she was in Vegas with my Dad and both of them ended up in the emergency room instead of watching my fight at the Cox Pavilion. With all of this, I stayed focused on what I had to do and was able to stay calm before, during and after the fight. I was determined to not have another bad performance.
My goal was to put on a good show and I wanted to bring the fight to my opponent. I wanted to have an exciting fight and wanted to strike with him and knew I could use a takedown as a last resort if need be. I stayed with simple combinations and they were working for me. I thought I was going to get the win with that kick to the body and wasted some gas trying to finish him off as I got a little too excited. Alex told me after the fight, he could not breathe for 30-40 seconds and that was the most painful thing he has experienced in fighting. That just shows how freakin tough that kid is. I thought I was very successful with the thai clinch and I knew I was getting him concerned and hurting him with the knees to the body so I wanted to work the body and then go upstairs with the kick.
One thing that got me concerned was when we would trade punches, he was headbutting me (not because he did it on purpose) due to him being shorter and me rushing in. It threw me off and was causing me to lift my chin up after that. He smashed me in the face with his head 3 times and I felt it once pretty bad.
I thought I handled the 1st round pretty easily, his best shot landed at the end after the bell rang and my hands were down. I got tired going into the 2nd round after the takedown. Alex was claiming I was twisting his fingers as I tried to get out and Cecil was asking if I was ok and then threatening to DQ me for twisting the fingers. The choke was uncomfortable but not close at all so I just chose to wait there to avoid Cecil from doing something crazy again so I got lazy with my positioning and allowed him back up. This pissed me off seeing the fight again. The last flurry before the elbow was not a problem. He never hit me solid once. They were all grazing blows. I knew I could not trade with him inside due to his short arms and good hooks so I just covered up and threw the elbow instead of punches that I like to throw and knew it was over after. The elbow cut him and broke his nose. A lot of people think they know how to throw elbows but have no idea how it should be done. Cutting opponent
Leading up to the fight was filled with problems but I thought I did a good job of concentrating on the fight considering everything. A month before the fight I smashed my knuckle on my right hand in an accident which kept me from punching or grabbing with my right hand for a while. I injured my shoulder pretty bad, my shin, my toes and badly over trained for this fight leading to tremendous fatigue in the 2 weeks before the fight. I had to take a bunch of time off from conditioning and training because I was just so fatigued during training. I was training too hard, too early and just hit a wall. People warned me that I was training too much but I was too focused on winning to listen to my body. I then almost lost all my sponsors and my money before my fight. On top of this, the day of my fight, my mother had an accident while she was in Vegas with my Dad and both of them ended up in the emergency room instead of watching my fight at the Cox Pavilion. With all of this, I stayed focused on what I had to do and was able to stay calm before, during and after the fight. I was determined to not have another bad performance.
My goal was to put on a good show and I wanted to bring the fight to my opponent. I wanted to have an exciting fight and wanted to strike with him and knew I could use a takedown as a last resort if need be. I stayed with simple combinations and they were working for me. I thought I was going to get the win with that kick to the body and wasted some gas trying to finish him off as I got a little too excited. Alex told me after the fight, he could not breathe for 30-40 seconds and that was the most painful thing he has experienced in fighting. That just shows how freakin tough that kid is. I thought I was very successful with the thai clinch and I knew I was getting him concerned and hurting him with the knees to the body so I wanted to work the body and then go upstairs with the kick.
One thing that got me concerned was when we would trade punches, he was headbutting me (not because he did it on purpose) due to him being shorter and me rushing in. It threw me off and was causing me to lift my chin up after that. He smashed me in the face with his head 3 times and I felt it once pretty bad.
I thought I handled the 1st round pretty easily, his best shot landed at the end after the bell rang and my hands were down. I got tired going into the 2nd round after the takedown. Alex was claiming I was twisting his fingers as I tried to get out and Cecil was asking if I was ok and then threatening to DQ me for twisting the fingers. The choke was uncomfortable but not close at all so I just chose to wait there to avoid Cecil from doing something crazy again so I got lazy with my positioning and allowed him back up. This pissed me off seeing the fight again. The last flurry before the elbow was not a problem. He never hit me solid once. They were all grazing blows. I knew I could not trade with him inside due to his short arms and good hooks so I just covered up and threw the elbow instead of punches that I like to throw and knew it was over after. The elbow cut him and broke his nose. A lot of people think they know how to throw elbows but have no idea how it should be done. Cutting opponent
