“It quit being fun when I realized I wasn’t getting better. I’m plateauing or almost getting worse sometimes,” said Forrest Griffin, when speaking of his career as a fighter. “One of the essential elements to have in this is your perceived expectation of the future, and I’m a painful realist, so I realized that I’m not going to get better; this is it.”
Griffin recently took to Yahoo! Sports, blogging about his training and preparations for UFC 134, his perspective of himself as a fighter, and his life outside of mixed martial arts.
The former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion has fought once already this year, defeating Rich Franklin at UFC 126, and now he’s scheduled to rematch Mauricio Rua this Saturday in Rio. The two met for the first time at UFC 76, with Griffin winning the fight by rear-naked choke in the third round.
Before the Franklin fight, Griffin had a long lay off and he seems happy to be fighting on a regular basis again.
“This camp is definitely easier coming off a fight, as opposed to my last camp before the fight against Rich Franklin, which came after almost 15 months off. Anytime you think about ring rust and travel and camps back-to-back, it helps not having any bad injuries and being able to train consistently.”
Elaborating on that point, Griffin went on to talk about his training camps in a more general sense.
“I’ve been in the UFC for more than six years, but I ain’t got it figured out when it comes to training and training camps. In fact, I think I’m doing everything wrong and I think for my next fight I’m gonna go somewhere for five or six weeks and see what they do.”
As far as training camps he would like to try out, Griffin mentioned the American Kickboxing Academy as one he would like to look into.
From there, the blog took a bit of a dark turn, as Griffin shared some of his feelings about being a fighter.
“You’d think me not having stuff figured out yet would keep it exciting. Not really. It ain’t been exciting, fresh or fun since 2008. It’s a job, it’s money, and I have a great job, I realize that. Just because it’s work doesn’t mean I’m not gonna do it. You man up and you do your job.”
That might seem like a depressing way of looking at things, but Griffin also made a point of saying that there are perks to competing in the UFC that he really does enjoy.
“I make a lot of money doing this, and I love money and I love the freedom and ability money gives you. I’m having a kid and my kid ain’t gonna ever want for anything. My little brother wants to go to college, so he’s going to college. The only thing that gives my mom pleasure in life is buying stuff off QVC, and I’m gonna pay those bills. I paid my mom’s house off. My wife’s family needs help? I’m gonna take care of that.”
It seems that the take away point of this blog is that Griffin’s heart is no longer in the fight game, or, at the very least, he doesn’t have the same love for it that he used to.
Will Griffin’s apparent lack of motivation have any effect on his performance this weekend against Mauricio Rua?
Tune into UFC 134: Silva vs Okami this Saturday and find out.
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