Done and Done.

King of the Cage: Underground 69 is over and it went well.  I won the main event fight via armbar at 1:48 of the first round, even though it seemed a lot longer than that.  More than anything I am relieved to have that fight over with.  While my preparation going into the fight was good, the week before the fight was not.  Almost exactly a week before fight time I injured my back.  I'm not sure how, but I could barely put pants and socks on.  Just getting around and doing everyday activities was tough, never mind fighting.  A few chiropractor and massage appointments helped a little, but I was still in a lot of pain, and not very mobile.  To make things worse, at the same time I got sick and had to go on antibiotics.  Those things really kicked my ass and made me feel sluggish.  Cutting weight while on antibiotics was brutal.  Needless to say, the week leading up to the fight was less than ideal.  Luckily all of the hard work had been done by then anyways.

Sizing up the opponent.

As for the fight, everything went pretty much according to game plan.  My brother Mitch and I had done the scouting report and put together our plan.   It was as if Mitch choreographed the entire fight.    I was able to stay patient and make it through my opponents striking and exploit a few positions we knew I could get to.  I would have liked to pull the trigger a lot more in the striking aspect of the fight as I feel that my striking is much better than I showed in the fight.  The one thing I didn't want to do though, was get in a firefight with a guy who's strongest skill is boxing and who's most dangerous weapon is fast flurries of punches.  With my limited mobility in my back I was much more keen to get my hands on him, control some heavy top positions and take what he would give me, which turned out to be an arm-bar.

Looking to finish.

For those of you that were at the fight and booed my opponents apparent lack of respect in the cage after the fight it's worth noting that I went and talked with him afterwards and he was pretty cool about everything.  For people who've never fought it's tough to describe what happens to you at the end of the fight.  You have so many chemicals being dumped into your system that it's tough to keep your composure, especially after losing a tough fight that you spent countless hours preparing for. trust me, I've been there.

Now I'm looking forward to healing, relaxing a bit and getting ready for my next fight which looks to be not very far away.

Thanks to Trevor Dowhaniuk for the pictures I've used here, he captured some great ones.