Fitch is ready for His Main Card Closeup Saturday - Fight Forum - MMA - UFC - Boxing - K1

The-Iceman-Chuck-Liddell · 09-19-2007, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Fitch calls it his “biggest benefit”, the one thing that may make the critical difference in the battle he will engage in with fellow welterweight contender Diego Sanchez this Saturday night at UFC 76 in Anaheim. Because for two months, Fitch was Sanchez as he helped prepare his teammate Josh Koscheck to beat ‘The Nightmare’ in April.

“I was Diego for the Koscheck fight,” said Fitch. “I had to imitate how he fights, I switched to southpaw for a couple of months, and I did everything that Diego does. I’m in his head a little bit because I can see how he thinks and what he’s looking for.”

Yet for a student of the game like Fitch, that’s not the only weapon he’ll bringing into the Octagon with him. He’ll also be bringing in hours and hours of research that he has done on Sanchez since the Albuquerque native emerged on the world scene by winning season one of The Ultimate Fighter reality series. Suffice to say that Fitch knows every wrinkle of his opponent’s game.

“I’ve been watching him since The Ultimate Fighter season one, so anybody who’s in our weight class, I’m usually studying quite a bit,” said Fitch. “I’ve been studying him for years before ever even getting this fight.”

This woodshedding process is vital to any fighter’s success, and it’s been a key aspect of Fitch’s game. Especially now though, Fitch’s years of studying and honing his game will be tested as he looks to make the transition from being the best unknown fighter in the world to becoming simply one of the best welterweights as he finally enters the spotlight for the first time in a UFC career that has seen him put together six wins without a loss.

“It feels great,” said Fitch. “It’s been a long time coming and I can’t wait to get out there and fight. I’ve been anxious all through training camp just to go out there and get it done. I’m pretty good at keeping focused and keeping my perspective though. I concentrate on my training and the fight, and I don’t really worry about all the other crap. As long as I continue learning every day and getting better every day, everything’s gonna take care of itself.”

It’s a statement uttered by many up and coming contenders who then see their good intentions fall apart when the lights go down and everyone has put them on the spot. With Fitch though, you get the impression that no outside influences will affect his game, and that the idea of being in a featured bout is a good thing, not a burden.

“It’s pretty cool,” he said of being in one of the main card bouts this weekend. “I’m still getting used to it, but the biggest thing I’m happy about is that I don’t have to eat ramen noodles and rice for every meal. (Laughs) I can afford some good tuna steaks and I can eat good food now. I’ve got a nice flat screen TV I can watch fights on, so those are the things that I’m really enjoying. But while those things are nice, that’s not why I do this. Those are just little extra things. If they weren’t there, I’d still be the same person and I’d still be doing the same thing.”

And for Fitch, the main and only focus is to keep getting better as a fighter and to fight the
ad
best in the world night in and night out. It was a request he made of UFC matchmaker Joe Silva early on, and he hasn’t wavered in his commitment to excellence.

“I told Joe Silva a long time ago, ‘I just want to fight the toughest guys you’ve got to offer,’ and he’s made that happen,” said Fitch, 19-2 with 1 no contest in MMA. “I could have come out and said that I wanted to fight the biggest names out there, but that’s not the same – I want to fight the best guys. And he’s done that. Whether people know who they are or not, I want to keep doing that and hopefully it will lead to a title, where I’ll be in a position where I’m always fighting a number one contender, so that’s where I really want to be.”

Sanchez fits the bill as one of the best in the world, and the biggest name on a fight resume that holds the likes of Josh Burkman, Thiago Alves, Kuniyoshi Hironaka, and Roan Carneiro. And even though Sanchez is coming off his first loss in 20 fights to Fitch’s AKA teammate Koscheck at UFC 69, Fitch’s opinion of his foe hasn’t changed a bit.

“I’ve seen a lot of his fights and I pick out the same problems he has throughout all of his fights, so that one fight didn’t really change my opinion of his style or how he is as a fighter,” said Fitch. “He’s always in great shape, he always comes to fight, he’s got a great chin, and he’s fantastic in the scramble, so I have to be careful where I’m stepping because you can get twisted up pretty quickly with him.”

But what effect will Sanchez’ split with Greg Jackson’s camp in Albuquerque have on the ‘Nightmare’s fight game or psyche?

“I don’t think he will regress at all as a fighter, but I wonder how much he will improve with this new camp,” said Fitch, who left his home state of Indiana to move to California and train with AKA in San Jose, where he still makes his home today. “Not that the people he’s training with aren’t great instructors, but I don’t know who he has as training partners. I don’t think we’ll see any less of a Diego Sanchez in this fight; it’s just how much more of a Diego we’re gonna see. I don’t know how many more improvements he could have made, but he’s always gonna be in shape, he’s always gonna come at you hard, and he’s not gonna lose any of the skills he’s had in the past.”

Jon Fitch is ready for all that and more though. He’s waited his entire career for this moment, and he’s not about to let it slip away, whatever version of Diego Sanchez shows up. He’s fought this fight a thousand times in his head, and he’s just waiting to do it one more time for real.

“He’s made statements already that he’s gonna come out fast and furious and try to make a statement and try to overwhelm me early,” said Fitch. “But I’ll be ready for that, we’ve trained for that, and I know what to expect. Either way, if he comes at me hard or if he tries to trick me by sitting back and playing it safe, I’m prepared.”

I really like Fitch and really believe he will be a champion someday.