Forrest Griffin won’t blame anyone but himself for losing to Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at UFC 134.
Considering that his wife was due to give birth to their first child around the same time as his fight with Shogun, there were definitely excuses Griffin could have made for his embarrassing first-round defeat this past weekend. However, according to ESPN, Griffin made no mention of any of his current life issues when speaking of the loss.
“I had a decent camp going into this,” Griffin said. “It’s been nine weeks since the last time we were [in Brazil]. It’s just setting in. I think that’s a fight that I definitely could have done a lot better. It sucks when you do poorly at your job.
“I’m not really 100 percent sure [what happened]. I had a lot of opportunities to go, and I didn’t go. The gameplan was to get off after he missed. He missed a couple of times big, and I just stood there and let him off the hook. It was partly that, and I didn’t really stay in a rhythm.”
Griffen lives his life with a lot of emphasis on “being a man,” so it comes as no surprise that he’s no looking to deflect any blame. That said, UFC President Dana White appears to be cutting Griffin some slack, expressing that a lot of other competitors might have dropped out of the fight under the same circumstances.
“Forrest is a warrior. He wears his heart on his sleeve,” White said. “I have so much respect for him for coming and taking this fight in this situation. He knew he was going to be in this situation. He was just hoping, she was supposed to be nine days later.
“I want to thank him. I appreciate the fact he took this fight. His wife is literally getting ready to deliver their baby in Las Vegas right now. So we’re going to try and get him home as fast as we can.”
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