Issue 104

August 2013

The work ethic and discipline I learnt in the NFL has carried me in good stead for my fighting career and it’s exciting to think about the possibility of more guys crossing over.

MATT MITRIONE

The former NFL DT turned UFC heavyweight offers his thoughts on football players switching to MMA

For instance I’m never ever, ever late for practice. I’m always early and ready to go. In fact, in three years of training and being at Blackzilians I’ve only ever been late for practice once, and that was just recently, when I overslept. But I still got there before it got serious, and I paid my fine, did my push-ups and washed the floor afterwards, just like anybody else. But I learned accountability, as well as work ethic and focus.

I was thinking how guys from the NFL could move into MMA, but it would need a signing bonus or something set up by a promotion. In MMA your money is not guaranteed, it depends on performance. And whilst the same thing happens in the NFL, those bonuses are much more readily attained in football than what fight money is.

To get a really good athlete like a quarterback or a tight end, or even a safety who is much more used to contact, to get a guy like that who has been cut from a squad, say, they’d need to be tempted over with something like a $20,000 signing bonus to come in and then develop in the sport.

That commitment, with a clause the guy doesn’t get signed back up by the NFL, whilst risky, could pay off. It would certainly lure athletes in who are chasing the pipe dream but can use that money to still support themselves and concentrate on switching to the new sport.

The biggest hurdle for me, in terms of MMA and my career, is that I’ve always been learning on the job. I started out in this sport in the UFC and so I’ve had to earn my licks at the highest level.

The loss to Cheick Kongo was just down to inexperience, that’s the reason I lost that fight. I didn’t know how to fight someone that didn’t want to engage. Then after that I was out for 14 months with injuries. In sports, the wheels fall off eventually and in my football career, eventually, they came off. But I guess regarding my MMA career, well, the wheels haven’t come off – one of them just got flat.

Then I came back with a pretty serious opponent, against Roy Nelson, and that’s a tough fight to take any time, but it appealed to me and I wanted that fight. It was tough and stressful, but that fight was a win-win no matter what. 

After being out so long and against a guy with that much experience, I wasn’t supposed to win that fight, so really it was a great test to get back in there with. And, despite the defeat, I was happy with the performance.

My cage awareness was much better, my striking and kicking was much better, I kept him at distance really well. I literally made two mistakes in the same move, and he caught me because of that. 

I was way too far over my front leg when I threw that straight left, and my elbow was way too far out and Roy obviously picked up on that and punished me for it.

And what he did was not throw his patented overhand right, but throw an uppercut – a punch that I never expected from him and a punch that I certainly never saw. 

They say it’s the punch you don’t see that knocks you out, but I didn’t get knocked out. I just got hit and thought, ‘What was that?!’ Not being knocked out makes me feel good too, as Roy is one of the strongest punchers around.

In the heavyweight division, especially, two or three wins can completely turn around a guy’s fortunes and so I’m ready to get back in there now and push on with my career. I was happy to bounce back with that quick-fire knockout of my own in Sweden, and I’m ready to move forward again by defeating Brendan Schaub in Seattle in July.