Author: By Thomas Gerbasi

It’s never easy to lose a parent. Jake Shields is finding that out first hand right now as he deals with the sudden passing of his father and manager Jack at the age of 67 on August 29th.

The two were as close as you hope a father-son team would be, and having those positive memories can soften the blow. But as the welterweight contender is finding out, getting over the initial shock of the loss is just the beginning. The rest hits you when you least expect it, and it’s in those times you hope that something will take your mind off the pain, even if just for a few moments. So when most expected Shields to understandably withdraw from his Saturday main event fight with Jake Ellenberger, he instead looked to the sport he loved to help him when he needed it the most.

“It was a pretty easy decision,” said Shields of his choice to carry on with the fight. “Of course the first few minutes I was little in shock and I didn’t know if I could fight or not, but then I got my head clear and I figured it was a thing I needed to do for several reasons. One, him being my manager, my biggest supporter and fan, he would want me to do that. And I think I need to do it for myself too. I think if I would have pulled out of the fight it would have put me into a lot more of a depression. This way it gives me something to keep focusing my energy on and keep moving forward. Bad things happen in life, and we were really close, so of course it’s hard, but I can’t just stop my life and not do anything. It’s not what he would want, not what I want, and I’ve got to go on and continue doing positive things.”

So for the 32-year old, it was back to work, where he could focus not on the loss of his father, but on training partners trying to punch and kick him as he got ready for Ellenberger.

“I definitely think it helps a lot because, of course, I have those moments where it hits me,” he said. “There have been times when I went to go call him about something, and I realize that he’s not there to call, and it hurts. But there’s so much going on with the fight that I have to stay focused. And when you’re sparring, you have to have your head together. You can’t go drifting off. So I’m able to put my head in the right spot every day, and it keeps me feeling better.”

On Saturday, Ellenberger (who has sent his condolences for his opponent’s loss) won’t be holding back, and Shields wouldn’t expect him to, especially since the Nebraskan was the one calling for the fight until he got it. Shields admits that at first, he didn’t even know who the hard-hitting up and comer was.

“I never heard of the guy, and he kept calling me out,” said Shields. “Recently I’ve obviously watched his fights and he is pretty tough, but I kept hearing about this kid I never heard of talking trash and wanting to fight me, and he got what he’s asked for, but he better watch it because I’m ready to teach him a lesson.”

That’s the fire you want to hear from Shields, not just because of what he’s going through in his personal life, but because professionally, he’s coming off his first loss in over six years, a five round decision defeat at the hands of UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre in April.

“Losing a fight like that is never good and I want to go show that I’m not a loser, but that I’m a winner,” said Shields, who had a 15 fight win streak broken at UFC 129. “I want to get back on track and I want that title still. I want to go out there and not only win, I want to show that I’m on a different level.”

He always has been, but while he showed off an improved striking game against the champion in their title bout, his vaunted ground game was nowhere to be found. So what went wrong that night in Toronto?

“A few things,” he said. “First off, he (St-Pierre) is a great fighter. He fought great, he fought smart, and I have to give him the credit. I did do a few things wrong of course and you always do things wrong in a fight. I think I should have started a little more aggressive. I think he had a little trouble after I started putting on the pressure, but I didn’t start fighting harder until the later rounds. And I should have shot a lot more. I only shot once or twice in the fight, and I’m a groundfighter. It’s one of those things you look back on and say ‘what the hell was I thinking?’ but sometimes you get out there, and in the moment you just don’t fight how you’re supposed to fight.”

It wasn’t a blowout loss, as two of the three judges had Shields only trailing 48-47 (the third had the fight 50-45 in GSP’s favor), but the Californian isn’t claiming any moral victories.

“I started feeling a little too comfortable, but I was still losing,” he said. “In the later rounds, I think two of the judges had me winning the last two rounds, but it still wasn’t enough. I should have been shooting a little more, and to GSP’s credit, he’s a very hard guy to shoot on. He has some of the best spacing and timing in the sport. And unless you’re in there with the guy or you really watch the fights closely, you don’t realize where he’s placing his legs and his side to side movement.”

Not surprisingly, walking out of an arena without getting his hand raised was a feeling he had forgotten, and it took a little while to shake it off and get back into the gym.

“For a minute I was a little bummed out, and it takes a little time to get re-motivated after something like that, but once I took a month off or so, I got my head clear and started training for this fight, the fire came back and I trained harder than ever,” said Shields. “I actually feel like I had the best camp of my life and I feel like I’m the best fighter I’ve ever been right now. When I fought GSP, I wish it was the way it is right now. The way my sparring’s going, my training, my jiu-jitsu, my conditioning, everything feels better than it’s ever done. I’ve made some small changes in my camp, made some things simpler, and I think those small things have made a big jump in my game.”

“Coming so close and tasting it and failing, it’s just not what I want to do,” he continues. “So it’s motivating me harder than ever and I really want to go out there and beat him (Ellenberger). I know it’s not easy to earn another title shot, so I’m doing whatever I can right now to work harder and trying to put some people away and work my way back to that rematch.”

Not to get too melodramatic here, but those are words Jack Shields would have loved to hear from his son. And it’s clear by the grace and professionalism Jake Shields has shown in a time when he would have been forgiven for showing anything less, that Jack raised a helluva young man. But the way Shields the competitor sees it, Saturday night is all about the fight and all about letting the world know that not only is he back in the title hunt, but that he’s better than ever.

“I want to make a huge statement and I want to blow this kid out of the water,” he said. “I want to show that I can beat him on the feet, on the ground, anywhere. I want to go out there hungry and put him away. I don’t want the fight to go the distance.”

UFC Fight Night, which is headlined by the welterweight bout between Jake Shields and Jake Ellenberger and the middleweight battle between Court McGee and Dongi Yang, airs on Spike TV from the New Orleans Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana at 9pm ET / PT. Fans who “like” the UFC on Facebook can also view eight live prelim bouts beginning at 5:30pm ET / 2:30pm PT.

MAIN EVENT
Jake Ellenberger (170) VS Jake Shields (171)

SPIKE TV
Dongi Yang (186) VS Court McGee (184.5)
Eric Koch (146) VS Jonathan Brookins (145.5)
Jason MacDonald (185) VS Alan Belcher (186)

FACEBOOK FIGHTS
Vagner Rocha (155.5) VS Cody McKenzie (155.5)
Shamar Bailey (156) VS Evan Dunham (156)
Lance Benoist (170.5) VS Matt Riddle (171)
Donny Walker (135.5) VS Ken Stone (136)
Clay Harvison (170) VS Seth Baczynski (171)
TJ Waldburger (171) VS Mike Stumpf (171)
Mike Lullo (146) VS Robert Peralta (145.5)
Jorge Lopez (171) VS Justin Edwards (171)

When you consider the millions living in South Korea, perhaps two people isn’t a significant sample to make a scientific deduction, but if Dongi Yang and his Korean Top Team squadmate Chan Sung Jung are representative of the first wave of Korean fighters, then the future looks bright for MMA fans who not only want to see solid technique, but also want to be entertained.

Take Jung, “The Korean Zombie,” for example. The berserker style he showed off in his instant WEC classic with Leonard Garcia in 2010 was surpassed only in this year’s rematch, when he pulled off the first “Twister” submission in UFC history. And he did it all with an ever present smile and an accessibility that has crossed all language barriers.

Middleweight Yang has done the same thing, albeit to a lesser extent, in his two fights in the UFC, first a razor-thin decision defeat to Chris Camozzi at UFC 121, and then with a punishing second round TKO of Rob Kimmons in March. And when it comes to personality, just ask “The Ox” what changes he made to reverse his fortunes between the two fights, and his first response (through manager / translator Brian Rhee) is “I changed my hairstyle a little bit,” before adding, “Also, I was more motivated to win, since I didn’t want to get cut from the UFC.”

It’s that kind of candor that makes good, entertaining fighters into stars, and while Yang knows the language barrier can be an issue in terms of getting his personality and humor across to the American public, he’s not going to stop trying.

“My English is really limited, so it’s tough,” he said. “I’m working on my English, so it’s getting better…slowly. Having an interpreter helps.”

And putting on exciting fights on national television here in the States does wonders as well, and he’ll get his biggest opportunity to date this Saturday in New Orleans when he faces TUF 11 winner Court McGee in a main card bout on Spike TV.

“It would definitely give my career a boost to get a win against McGee,” said Yang, 10-1. “His name has allowed our fight to get on the main card for the “Battle on the Bayou” and that’s a big step for me as well. It’s a big deal over in Korea right now, as well.”

In recent years, South Korean fighters have started showing up on the big shows, with Jung, Yang, and welterweight Dong Hyun Kim being the notable names. And while that’s a good thing for the fighters and for the fight scene back in Korea, it can also put amazing pressure on the shoulders of the handful of fighters charged with introducing their brand of MMA to the world and opening the doors for those who come after them. Yang isn’t bothered by such a responsibility though; he embraces it.

“I don’t really feel pressure from anything,” he said. “I have a lot of younger fighters who contact me through social networking sites online and I try to give them advice when I can, and it’s an honor for me to represent Korean MMA.”

And in part through Yang and Jung’s success, the scene in his home country is getting bigger by the day.

“After my win against Rob Kimmons, Chan Sung Jung, the Korean Zombie, pulled off the “Twister” against Leonard Garcia in the same month, so it was a good month for Korean Top Team,” said Yang. “MMA has had an audience for a while now in Korea, mostly because of the Japanese promotions, but now Koreans are really into the UFC and the MMA scene is growing in leaps and bounds.”
 
Not that it’s easy for fighters like Yang to get things done here in the US, as travel and training expenses are an issue, not to mention good ol’ jetlag.

“The time difference is the biggest problem,” admits the 26-year old from Seoul. “Korea is 14 hours ahead of US Eastern time, so getting over the jetlag isn’t easy. Also, financially, it’s tough because it costs us a lot more than American fighters. We like to come to the US at least 10 days early and I usually bring a sparring partner. So, paying for hotels, airfare, and food, it all adds up. Thankfully, our manager has friends and family in a lot of cities around the US, so sometimes we stay with them.”

This time around, Yang and his team settled in at the Nashville Mixed Martial Arts Academy in Tennessee to finish up preparations for the similarly hard-charging McGee.

“He’s a tough, physical fighter, so we’re preparing for a difficult fight,” said Yang of his opponent. “His stamina is one of the main things that would be a concern to any opponent. I did see some of the episodes of TUF when he was on, but I didn’t specifically follow his career.”

Well, if things go well on Saturday night, plenty of fans and fighters will be following the career of Dongi Yang, and that’s what he’s counting on.
 
“I’d like the US fans to see what the Korean Zombie has already shown them, that Korean Top Team fighters are tough and put on exciting fights,” said Yang. “Generally speaking, on our team we don’t fight for decisions, we’re always looking to finish and that’s just what I’m hoping to do against McGee.”

 

Sugar Ray Leonard beat Marvin Hagler.

If Alan Belcher needed any more convincing that he could return to the UFC and make a run at the middleweight title after two surgeries for a detached retina in his right eye, he doesn’t need to look any further than the boxing great from Palmer Park, Maryland, who came back from the same injury to beat one of the best middleweights of all-time in 1987.

Belcher has an all-time great ruling his weight class as well in Anderson Silva, but before he can get to that point, there is the issue of the man facing him this Saturday in New Orleans, veteran submission artist Jason MacDonald. It’s been a long time since Belcher has walked up those four steps into the Octagon, over 16 months, and while the return is a welcome one, it wasn’t always set in stone. In fact, many, including Belcher, believed his UFC 113 win over Patrick Cote in May of 2010 was going to be his last one.

The ordeal began in Brazil, where Belcher began to lose vision in his right eye. He rushed home to the United States and underwent surgery for the retina detachment. His big main event bout against Demian Maia that September was obviously scrapped, and when his vision became blurry again, he was forced to undergo a second surgery.

“That was really bad for me,” recalls Belcher of the days in recovery. “I thought I wasn’t gonna fight again, and we weren’t even talking about it with the doctor. I was just trying to get my sight back. After a while, I started thinking about it a little bit and there definitely was a chance that I wasn’t gonna fight again. Even if you do get good enough to get back in there, do you want to risk doing that again? There are so many different variables, and it was a tough time for me.”

I bring up Leonard’s return and his subsequent win over Hagler, and ask Belcher if he took any inspiration from it.

“I sure do,” he said. “I use that as inspiration, and I hope to do the same thing. But detached retinas ended a lot of boxers’ careers too, and it’s actually a pretty common thing. I guess back in the day guys didn’t really know what it was and they ended up being blind because they didn’t take care of it fast enough. I hope to be another one of those success stories, and the way I’m feeling right now, I think I’m gonna make a pretty strong comeback.”

There were still some dark days to go though, and the straight-shooting Belcher isn’t going to feed you a story about being all rah-rah about making a return right away. Maybe he would have a few years ago, when the only responsibility he had was to himself, and when you believe the invincibility of youth will eventually kick in whenever you need it. But he’s 27 years old now, a family man, and with too much time to kill, you wonder whether you want to make that walk again. So when doctors gave him a clean bill of health and green lighted him to fight again, he didn’t make an immediate decision.

“When you take that much time off and you don’t know if you’re gonna come back, a lot of different things go through your mind,” he said. “Your life changes, and then you’re reinstated exactly where you left off to go back and fight again. You’re like, wait a minute, I was starting to make another plans. I kinda hesitated, and it was kinda weird. I had to actually think ‘do I want to continue to do this? Is it worth it?’ It was one of those times in your life that things get flipped upside down and inside out, and you have to work through it and figure out what’s best. So after a lot of thinking and praying and talking to my wife and my family, my dad and my coaches and friends, we decided that I’m gonna finish what I started, give it my all, take it one fight at a time and go from there.”

The next step was to get back into the ring in the gym and get over the hurdle of sparring for the first time. It wasn’t easy.

“The first couple sparring sessions were pretty nerve-wracking,” said Belcher. “I was really nervous about reinjuring it (the eye), and real cautious about babying it real bad. I made sure I wore a facemask and that kinda stuff, and it seemed like everything was going towards my eye. But I worked through it. It took a couple weeks, I got that going, and now I don’t notice it at all. I see fine, and I don’t miss anything.”

Belcher’s return was welcome news to the fight world, as you never want to see a fighter lose out on an opportunity due to injury. This was never more apt than in Belcher’s case, as he looked to have finally hit a consistent rhythm in which you knew what version of him was showing up on fight night. Yeah, he lost a questionable decision to Yoshihiro Akiyama in UFC 100’s Fight of the Night, but his performance was top-notch that night, as it was in post fight bonus-winning efforts against Wilson Gouveia and Cote. A win over Maia might have gotten him in the title race, but it was not to be. And it wasn’t a good feeling.

“Even the most positive person in the world has those low moments, and that’s the time when you have to remind yourself to dig deep past the negativity and find the good in it, and I think I found it in this whole scenario,” said Belcher. “I was just right there. One more fight and I was right there where I dreamed about being, and then bam, I got it all taken away from me. But as well as I was doing, I was getting to the point where I was needing to work harder and I had to take it up a notch and step it up one more step and keep pushing. You’re almost there, and it was a real stressful time and I didn’t know it, but I was really getting burned out mentally and physically. I think I found the positive part in this whole thing, and it was the break and taking the time off and letting my body heal and letting my mind relax. And all the years that I had been cutting weight and dieting and doing the yo-yo, up and down thing for so many years without stopping, I finally got to take a break from that, focus on some other stuff, have a life for a minute, and I got to come back when I was ready to come back.”

Now he’s raring to go, reenergized and rejuvenated. And waiting for him is MacDonald, who made his own successful comeback to the UFC (from a broken leg) in April when he submitted Ryan Jensen. Needless to say, the kid gloves aren’t anywhere to be seen in the Big Easy.

“I think he’s a really challenging opponent, and I think the fact that he’s been in and out of the UFC just proves that he deserves to be here,” said Belcher of Canada’s MacDonald. “He’s been in here for years, he may lose a couple to the best guys in the world, but who’s gonna knock him for that? He works his way right back up to the top because that’s where he deserves to be. He’s someone who’s not gonna go away and he’s really devoted and dedicated to the sport and being the best that he can be. I don’t think he wants to just be an opponent for the rest of his career. I think he actually wants to be a top contender or a titleholder, and that makes him really dangerous. So it would be a mistake for me to think it was a gimme fight or for anyone else to believe that the UFC would be giving me a gimme fight. Everyone’s tough.”

So is Alan Belcher. Then again, he always was. But he proved it again just by agreeing to fight, and he promises that when the bell rings, he’ll be picking up where he left off.

“(Before I fought Akiyama) I knew that I would never be scared of losing again, I would never underestimate an opponent, and I was just gonna take one fight at a time and be the best that I could and give it my all,” he said. “That was all I was gonna do, and I wasn’t gonna be disappointed either way. From that time forward, I kept that attitude and I believe I still have it. I know it’s really cliché, but I think the mind is the most important part of this game. And when I figured that out, I think that was the key, and that’s something that I’m never gonna lose.”

When middleweight contenders Michael Bisping and Jason “Mayhem” Miller were announced as coaches for the 14th season of The Ultimate Fighter reality series, you had a feeling that the two polarizing personalities weren’t going to exactly become kindred spirits by the end of six weeks of taping in Las Vegas.

Well, judging by the first shots the two fired at each other Wednesday during a media conference call to discuss the upcoming season, which premieres on Spike TV with a two-hour show on Wednesday, September 21st (10pm ET / 7pm PT), neither is about to disappoint when it comes to verbal fireworks.

“I’ll say this about Michael,” began Miller. “He is a complex character, an individual that you could write many tomes of knowledge on, and as the season wore on, yes, I hated his guts. And then I didn’t mind him so much, and now I’m back to hating his guts.”

“If you’re saying I’m a complex character, you have about 15 different personalities,” countered Bisping. “Jason is one of those guys, you either love him or you hate him. I definitely hate him; I think most people around him find him very, very annoying. I know the people on The Ultimate Fighter did, and I was no different. At the start of the show I hated him, during the show I hated him, and at the end of the show I hated him. December 3rd I’m gonna kick his ass, so it’s all good.”

Bisping would soften his tone on his antagonist later in the call, but it’s clear that once the series airs, it’s going to have plenty of back and forth between the two, and that’s just what the doctor ordered for a must see season.

Then again, with 16 bantamweights and 16 featherweights fighting first for 16 overall spots in the Las Vegas house and then going on to compete for a UFC contract in each division, there should be more than enough action to keep fans tuning in weekly.

“The fighters were very dedicated, they trained very, very hard, they listened to everything we had to say, they wanted to improve and they weren’t there for airtime,” said Bisping. “They were all real fighters, and when you see the fights this season, you’ll know what I mean. The fights were absolutely incredible.”

“Ultimately, that’s what The Ultimate Fighter is about,” he continued. “It’s not about me or Jason. It’s not about the coaches, it’s about the contestants on the show and trying to give these guys a break into the big time.”

“(UFC President) Dana White, the man who’s watched more fights than anyone that I can think of, has exclusively put a stamp up that these are the best fights to get into the house, ever,” added Miller. “Once he said that, I said ‘that’s my tagline right there.’ If he said these are the best fights to get in, then these are the best fights. But aside from the excellent fights and the very talented group of guys that came into the show, me and Mike’s personality clash put a damn good show on. There’s no way around it.”

And as a bonus, the two will fight in the main event of the season finale card on December 3rd, with Bisping risking his three fight winning streak against Miller, who is returning to the Octagon for the first time since a UFC 52 loss to Georges St-Pierre back in April of 2005. Since then, the 30-year old “Mayhem” has been in with the likes of Jake Shields, Tim Kennedy, Robbie Lawler, Frank Trigg, and “Jacare” Souza, going 12-3 with 1 NC in the process. In his most recent bout, in September of 2010, Miller submitted Japanese great Kazushi Sakuraba in the first round, and if newer fight fans haven’t seen him compete yet, they certainly saw him as the host of MTV’s “Bully Beatdown” series.

As for Manchester’s Bisping, the winner of The Ultimate Fighter’s third season, his last three wins have come against Dan Miller, Yoshihiro Akiyama, and Jorge Rivera, and while he doesn’t believe a win over Miller in December will earn him a shot at UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, returning to coach on TUF for the first time since leading the UK to victory on season nine was an offer too good to refuse.

There was never any hesitation in accepting the role of coach,” said Bisping. “In my opinion, to be offered it is very prestigious and I thank for the UFC for the opportunity. The reality is that there is a downside that it means almost 10 months out of the game, and I like to stay active; it means taking a fight against Jason Miller, which, with respect, probably doesn’t get me a title shot by beating him. So those are the downsides, but obviously it’s a great opportunity and it shows the UFC holds me in high regard to offer me something like that, so I never wondered for a second whether or not I’d take the job.”

And while the UFC jobs of Bisping and Miller are secure, it’s the journey of the 32 hopefuls to get to that place that Spike hopes will have everyone tuning in beginning next week. Miller doesn’t believe getting viewers will be an issue once September 21st rolls around.

“It wasn’t the normal TUF crowd where it was a bunch of guys that were 2-0 coming in,” he said. “Some of these guys had 30 fights. These were developed, excellent athletes and great fighters already that me and Mike had the pleasure of gameplanning with and giving our view on how they should fight. That made this season of The Ultimate Fighter complete because these guys already were great fighters, and now it was all about the competition. We didn’t have one lackluster fight the entire season, and that’s including all the fights to get into the house. Those alone were worth the price of a DVD box set.”

So Jorge Lopez, how did you spend your summer vacation when you were 14? If that was the assignment handed to the welterweight prospect when he returned for his sophomore year in high school, it would have been the essay to end all back to school essays.

Well, at least if you were a mixed martial arts fan. For those who weren’t, the names Wanderlei Silva, Anderson Silva, Shogun Rua and Ninja Rua wouldn’t mean much, but for every fight fan, you might as well call them the Mount Rushmore of Chute Boxe.

The teenage Lopez also called them training partners.

A talented athlete who was playing football as well as wrestling in Utah, Lopez began training with renowned jiu-jitsu master Pedro Sauer in Salt Lake City, and through there he met someone who knew Chute Boxe’s jiu-jitsu coach, Cristiano Marcello. One thing led to another and an invitation was issued to Lopez and his father Daniel to visit and train with the team in Curitiba, Brazil.

They accepted, figuring it would be a cool little vacation for a couple weeks while Jorge got the opportunity to train with some of MMA’s best fighters.

“Once we got there, we fell in love with it and I fell in love with the training, so we decided to stay a little longer,” he laughed. “Two weeks turned into five months, and we just stayed there and trained.”

But what about school?

“I made a deal with my dad,” said Lopez. “I told him when I came back that I’d do summer school the following year. I missed a quarter of school, came back in the second quarter, did wrestling, and finished out the school year. And that summer I made up for my lost credits in summer school.”

So forget all this boring school stuff – what was it like to train with some of the baddest men on the planet? For the uninitiated, think of it like being invited to spring training with the Yankees or training camp with the Patriots. Lopez even admits that while it was a great experience at the time, especially being a big fan of “The Axe Murderer” Silva, it’s taken on even more meaning eight years later.

“It’s sinking in more now than it did then,” he said. “Back then, I just thought ‘this is just a cool experience, Wanderlei’s awesome.’ (Laughs) But I didn’t want to be one of those kids who was super star struck or emotional about it. I wanted to get there and train and test my limits to see how good I really was. At that age you want to be everything. I wanted to be a football player, I wanted to be a professional fighter, I wanted to be a police officer. So I really wanted to see how it felt training with these guys and I saw it and it was great because it kinda opened my mind and made me realize that it really wasn’t far-fetched. It was actually something that could be accomplished. But I look back on it and say whoa, that’s not common that you see a kid at 14 going to Brazil to train with what was at the time the best team in the world.”

No, it’s not, yet even when Lopez returned to Utah, it wasn’t like he dropped his books and ran to the nearest promoter. That would come in college, when his second year at Snow College proved to be his final one.

“After my first year in college, I started second-guessing it,” said Lopez, who had a football scholarship in hand. “And after another semester I realized that I had a better chance of fighting than I did of playing football, so I told my parents I was gonna drop out and pursue fighting.”

Needless to say, his mom wasn’t happy about it, but dad, not surprisingly, said if his son’s mind was made up, he was going to be behind him.

“He said ‘okay, if this is what you want to do, then let’s make it work,’” recalled Lopez, who moved to Ogden, Utah, and then Los Angeles, before settling down to train in Las Vegas at the Xtreme Couture gym. He turned pro in 2007, and with the exception of a split decision loss in his second fight to Nick Rossborough, won all his fights.

Then one day, a familiar face walked into the Xtreme Couture Gym – Wanderlei Silva.

“He was walking in to get a sparring session in,” recalled Lopez. “I was walking out and he actually recognized my dad. And after he looked at him he looked over to me, recognized me, and we started talking. He told me that he was opening his gym in about a year. He gave me his number, we stayed in touch and when his gym was starting to open, he asked me if I wanted to teach. We’ve been together since.”

And the buzz about the talented 22-year old keeps getting louder, so when the 11-1 welterweight steps into the Octagon this Saturday night in New Orleans to face TUF 13 vet Justin Edwards, plenty will be expected of him, especially considering that Silva expects his fighters to fight with the same ferocity that made him one of the game’s legends.

“There is a little bit of pressure from the fans,” he said. “I try to not let it get to me or try to not pay too much attention to what people say or what people expect out of me. I know that I’ve got to go in there and perform to the best of my ability. And if that means I can go in there and grapple, then I’ll go in there and grapple. If that means I have to go in there and counterpunch, I’ll go in there and counterpunch. I don’t have to be one-minded and just straightforward and brawling with people. That does have its advantages at times, but at the same time, you want to be smart about it.”

And the level-headed Lopez isn’t putting too much stock in his increasing popularity. The way he sees it, the attention is nice, but it doesn’t mean anything until he proves with his performances that he deserves it.

“I’m getting more interviews, more friend requests, more people following me on Twitter, but none of that really matters right now because I haven’t done anything in the sport yet,” he said. “I need to prove myself and prove to everybody that I belong here in the UFC and that I’m here to stay. I try to not get too wrapped up in it and I try not to let it get to my head.”

Jorge Lopez is not the second coming of Wanderlei Silva. He’s the first Jorge Lopez, and that has proven to be pretty impressive in its own right thus far. But if there is one thing he shares with his mentor, it’s that feeling that on fight night, there is no place in the world he would rather be.

“That’s just part of me,” said Lopez. “I love the fight week, I love getting on the airplane knowing that I’m going somewhere else to fight, and I love that feeling. I want to get out there as fast as I can, and when they call my name or my music starts, I don’t walk; I run out there.”