By Mark Nolan, Getty Images
Fitch for years has been the No. 2 welterweight on most MMA lists, including the USA TODAY/MMA Nation consensus rankings. Since losing to titleholder Georges St. Pierre in 2008, Fitch has put together a six-fight undefeated streak and hopes ot make it seven when he finally returns to action Friday at UFC 141 (10 p.m. ET, pay-per-view; 9 p.m. ET, Spike TV) in Las Vegas.
USA TODAY recently spoke to Fitch about this weekend's bout with Hendricks. Excerpts from the conversation:
Q: How's the shoulder doing?
Fitch: Shoulder's good. Hasn't been a problem at all. It's not even really a thought. I'm just preparing and getting everything for the fight. It's been good and healthy for awhile now.
When did you get to the point of being able to train as hard as you wanted?
What UFC was it that Koscheck fought Hughes? (Note: UFC 135 on Sept. 24) I was 100% to train as hard as I could two weeks before that fight.
How did you hurt your shoulder in the first place?
Just wear and tear over the years. Part of the problem they saw was a fully torn supraspinatus, but it turned out when they got into the shoulder. … my acromion process bone sits too far forward and actually rubs on the bicep tendon head, and was creating bone spurs and some scar tissue. They ended cleaning that all up. It's something that's been building up over the years, I guess.
Given that this was damage over time, how did you finally discover the problem?
The thing was, I actually thought it was a neck problem. I was having some issues with my neck and I thought the pain was radiating down into my shoulder. I thought the pain in the shoulder was just something pinched or something with the neck.
They didn't see any significant neurological damage or anything with the spine. There was a little bit of a bone spur in there, but nothing too much to worry about, so they went ahead and ordered an MRI of the shoulder and saw there was actually damage in the shoulder.
So I guess the shoulder was a separate problem where I thought they were connected. They might have been connected because I might have been compensating for the shoulder and that's what hurt the neck, or who knows?
How much this, do you think, is simply the natural result of being in your 30s after doing sports for a long time?
I don't think it has anything to do with age, but more or less, I've been in sports and active and doing a lot of stuff for a long time. I started wrestling in the fourth grade and played a lot of football and all those things, and I've been pretty much injury free. I think a long enough time of being active and playing high levels of sports, you're going to have some wear and tear.
There wasn't any kind of freak accident or weird position I was put in. Your body wears down sometimes.
What areas of your game were affected the most by the shoulder problem?
I think wrestling was the biggest problem. Not being able to really use that arm in certain positions because I couldn't use the leverage. I was losing strength; sometimes the arm would give out in certain positions.
That was the biggest thing, was the grappling and being able to wrestle and control positions.
On paper, it seems like you and Johny Hendricks have a somewhat similar style, with a strong wrestling base and some striking mixed in. How much would you agree with that surface impression?
I think I'm a little bit smoother with mixing my stand-up and wrestling together. I think I'm a much better submission guy than him; I think I've got better jiu-jitsu.
I've got a ton more experience in the fight game. He's an outstanding wrestler, but I think my experience just in MMA and the fight game is what's going to overwhelm him in the fight.
You just mentioned your submissions. We haven't seen that from you very often. How much would you like to apply those skills in the future?
I do it when I can. I think it's difficult when you have opponents who are in the fight to not be finished, and they're not really fighting to win.
When we spoke before the BJ Penn fight, you mentioned that you want to show that you can finish opponents more than people think you can. But you weren't able to do that BJ, even when you were dominating him in the third round. Why do you think you weren't able to finish him?
For me, it was a slow start. I wasn't in the game mentally at the beginning of the fight.
In the last round, I thought I was close to getting a stoppage from the referee, but I probably should have backed off and stood back up to our feet when he was beat down and tired at that point. I think I just could have punched with more leverage and done more damage if I would have stood up; maybe I could have finished then.
Why do you think you weren't in the fight mentally at the beginning?
It's hard to say. I don't know. I kind of just didn't wake up until halfway through the second round.
How often do you experience that sort of thing?
Never, really. That was kind of a first-time occurrence. Maybe in college I might have experienced it a few times. Just not having my head in the right place at the beginning of the fight.
How do you make sure it doesn't happen again?
I just have to make sure I stay focused and I'm not focusing on the wrong things. I was focusing on too many outside factors, rather than the fight itself. I've learned from that now; I'll never let that happen again.
What sort of outside factors were weighing on you at the time?
I can't really talk about it. Career hasn't always been exactly what I've wanted it to be. I haven't gotten the fights I wanted to be. There's pressures in there that can weigh on you sometimes.
Johny Hendricks has a high level of wrestling. What makes him so good in that area?
That's the thing. I'm not a very good wrestler when it comes down to it, really. I was an average Big-10 wrestler when I was in college. It wasn't until I graduated from college that I started finding a way to excel and have confidence in what I was doing.
The blending of all the arts together is where I excel at best. Being able to mix the stand-up with the wrestling and the jiu-jitsu all together and try to make it flow together seamless is why my wrestling seems effortless.
What makes Johny's wrestling so effective in MMA?
He's just a hard-nosed wrestler and comes from a really good school, Oklahoma State. He had one of the best coaches ever, John Smith. I think that's what helped him become such a great wrestler.
You see yourself as smoother than Johny in transitioning between the different aspects of MMA. Is that an experience thing, is it something in which you're naturally better, or something at which you've worked harder?
I think it's definitely something that I've worked at. I don't believe too many things just naturally happen.
I've said it over the past few years: I'm no longer a believer in talent. I think that people have what they have because of some kind of condition through their life that they've worked hard at or been exposed to, rather than just being born naturally good at something.
I think that's kind of copout. People who are unable to achieve kind of use that: "Oh, well he's just talented and I'm not, and that's why I can't do it."
There is such a thing as different levels of physical ability, isn't there? Not everyone has an 84-inch reach or...
I think it's small in comparison to what people build it up to be. If you really look back through an athlete's childhood and how they grew up, and the things they're exposed to and the sports they're exposed to, I think there's a much greater influence among those things rather than just being born good at something.
Both of you have fought Mike Pierce. What did you think of Johny's fight with him?
I thought he did good. It was a solid performance. I think Mike Pierce kind of gave the fight away a little bit because he was kind of sitting and waiting too much for Johny and was allowing Johny to get off first. I think that kind of was the small factor that ended up losing the fight for him.
You arguably were more dominant against Mike Pierce. How indicative is that of the difference in skill level between you and Johny?
You can't really do that. I know people try to do that; they call it MMAth. … It's different because different guys fight differently for different fights and prepare differently for different fights.
You have no idea where that guy was in his career or what his mental game or his physical game or aspect was going into that fight, so you can't look too much into that. All you can look at is the skillset that's displayed, and how they're able to accomplish or not accomplish certain things against different techniques.
UFC's title picture now includes a few guys: Nick Diaz; Carlos Condit; Jake Ellenberger, to an extent. But you have a longer unbeaten streak in UFC than any of them. At what point does the lack of a title shot bother you?
I think one of the reasons why I haven't been talked about, especially this summer, is because I've been injured. You kind of stop existing, you become invisible a little bit, when you're on the shelf and you can't fight. I kind of have to deal with that and accept that.
When you're not fighting, no one's really thinking of you as the next guy to fight for a title whenever you're kind of on the shelf. After this fight, I'm sure I'll be back in the mix and people will be talking about me fighting for the belt again.
But these other guys are fighting each other, and I don't see UFC pitting you against, shall we say, other title-contender types; I don't think people view Johny with that regard yet ...
I think they spent a lot of time and money that they didn't need to to make sure that my shoulder was healed and taken care of right. I think a big part of it is making sure that I'm healthy and I'm ready to go and my body's ready and step in and fight for those positions and those guys.
Zuffa President Dana White wasn't that impressed with your performance against BJ. Do you think the draw set you back on the ladder, even if you hadn't been hurt?
Yeah, of course. A draw is a draw. It's pretty crappy. You can't get thrown into a title shot off of a draw, so I've got to come back and make up for that lost fight there.
With your style of fighting, it seems like you might be favored against Condit or Diaz because that their wrestling defense isn't that great. How much of an edge do you think that would give you against them?
I think so. I have an edge slightly in wrestling, but I I think I stack up evenly in other departments, so I think across the board it's a pretty good match-up for me.
I don't think there's anybody in the world I can't beat, so I don't really care. I think anybody is a good match-up for me. I don't care who it is; if I'm healthy and in shape, I'm going to win that fight.
You've had a documentary brewing for a few years now. Will that see the light of day any time soon?
I don't know. We're still trying to get distribution and still trying to get some things worked out. We kind of got held up for awhile trying to get approval from the UFC to use a couple of minutes of footage; it took about a year to finally get a 'No' answer on that.
We've been trying to shop it around to different places and we've got people working on it. There's some interest, but we don't know yet. Hopefully 2012 will be the year it gets out.
Seems like you might have a rematch with Georges St. Pierre before we get to see the documentary about the first fight.
Maybe. Maybe we'll work it out where it lines up and comes out at the same time and helps build the fight or something. It's a little bit of a point of frustration, because it's such a good movie. It really is well done; it tells a great story.
It's not just about me. It has all the guys from AKA in it. There's a lot of awesome stuff to see in the movie.
I think the fans really are missing out. Even if you're not a fan of me, if you're a fan of MMA, this will definitely be probably one of your favorite documentaries to watch.
We're just having a hard time getting it out.
source: usatoday.com
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