Jon Fitch interview recap
MMANews.com's own Scott recently spoke with the consistent UFC Welterweight contender Jon Fitch to discuss his upcoming UFC bout in June, why he keeps falling under the main-TV or PPV radar, his teammate Josh Koscheck's recent victory over Diego Sanchez, the UFC acquiring PRIDE and if he'd go over there to fight, among a number of other topics.
Check out the full transcription of the interview below. The interview was conducted on Thursday, May 3, 2007.
Scott of MMANews.com: This is Scott with
MMANews.com and I am here today with Jon Fitch. First off let me thank you on behalf of everyone at
MMANews.com and myself for taking the time to do this interview. Let's start off with some easy questions - do you admire anyone in MMA right now?
Jon Fitch: As I said before, you can’t be a fighter and a fan. But I do have a lot of admiration and respect for some guys, one of them is Randy Couture. Just because of doing things he has done at his age. His last fight with Tim Sylvia, he did something that I didn’t expect out of him which was completely change his stand up game and he added elements to it that he never used in his previous fights and to do that at 43 is impressive.
MMANews.com: Yeah I watched the fight and was on my feet the whole time.
Jon Fitch: People ask me my opinion on that fight and well, you know, Randy is going to have to get inside Tim’s long reach but I don’t think he’s gonna do it because he’s an older guy but sure enough he comes out - slips the punch, overhand right and knocks Tim on his ass and I was like, "holy crap". It was an extremely impressive fight for him.
MMANews.com: I didn’t think Randy was going to be able to do it.
Jon Fitch: It was impressive.
MMANews.com: What did you think of your teammate Josh Koscheck’s fight against Diego [Sanchez] at UFC 69?
Jon Fitch: He executed a game plan perfectly, he did a great job circling out, staying away from the take downs and then making Diego pay for rushing in and dropping his hands. He did a very good job and I’m proud of him. He’s a great sparring partner and I can’t wait for him to get back to the gym because I need him to work with for this next fight.
MMANews.com: I actually picked Josh to win. I was looking forward to him beating Diego.
Jon Fitch: I knew he was going to win. I thought he won the first fight. The first time they fought, Koscheck he had no training at all. He was just a wrestler. He didn’t have any experience going into that fight. He had like 2 or 3 fights and he didn’t know anything - no submissions, no stand up and I still think he won the first fight. But I knew he was going to win that fight - I actually expected him to knock Diego out, but Diego has an incredible chin.
MMANews.com: Did you start fighting at Light Heavyweight?
Jon Fitch: Yeah. My first few fights were at 205 lbs.
MMANews.com: That’s impressive.
Jon Fitch: Yeah, I mean I wrestled at 184 lbs. my senior year of college, so I was walking around at about 195lbs. Several times I had gotten as big as 210, but a lot of that’s beer weight. I thought I would be able to lift and get bigger and be able to fight at 205 before I really knew anything about the sport. I didn’t really start fighting at the lower weight classes until I moved out to California.
MMANews.com: Is it a hard cut for you to get down to 170?
Jon Fitch: Nah. Every cut is hard. It's never fun or comfortable to you know you have to lose more than a few pounds. But I’ve got it down to a science and it’s not really that hard. I can drop 15 or 20 pounds pretty easily.
MMANews.com: This is the question a lot of people want to know, do you feel you keep getting over looked by the UFC?
Jon Fitch: You know at first I kind of thought maybe I was getting over looked but in hindsight I kinda see maybe some strategy by the UFC because you know you might of realized early on that I was a top level fighter and I was going to be around for a while. So they didn’t feel the need to push me right away because they knew I would be winning fights in the UFC. With some of the other guys they win one, lose one, win one, they're up and down. The TV show guys, they needed to push those guys sooner to get the money out of them from the publicity they had surrounding them from the show, before they got beat a bunch of times and couldn’t use them.
MMANews.com: You're on a roll in the UFC and I have enjoyed all your fights. I really liked your last fight with Luigi [Fioravanti].
Jon Fitch: Luigi is going to be something to deal with in the future - he has a great future ahead of him I think. He just has to develop a little bit more skill on the ground and come forward a little bit more with the stand up. I think he was a little bit too worried for my takedown.
MMANews.com: If you would have been on The Ultimate Fighter, do you think you would have already had a title shot or already been champion by now?
Jon Fitch: I think that’s a possibility but you know at the same time I developed a lot of skills from in between that show and now. I might not have been able to develop [those skills] if I was on the show, you know? If I was thrown into those fights earlier I might not have been ready for those top guys. Where now I’m absolutely most definitely ready for anybody at 170.
MMANews.com: I have been waiting for a fight between you and [Matt] Hughes for a while now.
Jon Fitch: That I would love. Hughes, Karo [Parisyan], Diego [Sanchez], GSP [Georges St. Pierre], now even Matt Serra has established himself as the real deal. There are a lot of great guys to fight at 170, I think there are a few guys who they're going to pick up from acquiring PRIDE. Some of those guys who won’t be able to make the cut to 155 will bump up. There is going to be a lot of great competition coming up in the future.
MMANews.com: Speaking of Matt Serra, how do you feel you match up against him?
Jon Fitch: I think I match up with Serra pretty well. I’m tall - I got a big reach on him. My punches are getting a lot crisper and straighter, so I think I can work around the outside and pick him apart. My wrestling’s pretty good so he would have a hard time taking me down. I’m a brown belt in Jiu-Jitsu now, so I really doubt he will be able to submit me or be able to control me on the ground if he were to get a takedown. So I think I match up really well with Matt Serra, you know? He hits really hard so I would have to be careful not to drop my hands at any point.
MMANews.com: I was really surprised at the outcome of Serra vs. GSP. What do you think GSP did wrong, do you think he over-looked Matt?
Jon Fitch: Watching that fight all over again looks kind of like GSP got clipped a little bit and lost his equilibrium and he just reacted wrong to it I think. Instead of retreating and pulling guard or clinching and finding time to recover and regain his speed again. Kind of like Fedor [Emelianenko] and [Kazuyuki] Fujita when Fedor got rocked he quickly clinched and recovered himself and put the beat-down on him. GSP kept trying to box and fight with him while Serra closed the distance and finished him. First title defense, there might have been pressure. He might have been lackluster going into it because it was another TV show guy, he might not have treated it the same way as if he had a rematch with Hughes. There are a lot of factors that could go into it you never know, and again Serra is a tough guy.
MMANews.com: To be honest I didn’t think Matt was going to win. I thought it would have been GSP beating Serra in the first round.
Jon Fitch: Yeah I thought Serra was too small to stand a chance against a bigger, longer GSP. But you know Serra found a way to get inside of him and made it work. Congrats to him.
MMANews.com: Where do you see yourself as a contender right now?
Jon Fitch: I’d say fifth in the world, at least. You have Koscheck beating Diego, he jumped up the rankings quite a bit. Then you got Serra, Hughes, GSP, Karo, and Diego. I think those guys just because they fought higher level guys then I have would be ranked higher than me so I’m like around fifth or sixth in the world. Plus Jake Shields is out there to fighting for Bodog, but I train with him pretty regularly, he’s a little tough guy too.
MMANews.com: If they offered you a title shot after your next fight, would you take it?
Jon Fitch: Yeah, absolutely.
MMANews.com: How would you feel about a rematch with [Jeff] Joslin?
Jon Fitch: You know I have no problem fighting anybody, but I’m not going to take a step backwards in my career to fight somebody just to prove a point. He needs to string together some wins to get himself ranked in the top 10, because he is a very skilled fighter. He’s very good, don’t get me wrong but at the same time he has not put wins together against top guys. If you look at the guys he’s beaten they're terrible. Anybody he’s fought with skill has beaten him. I heard rumors that he might be fighting Chris Lytle, so that will be a good test. So it’s one of the ones he needs to get, to get his career where he wants it.
MMANews.com: How do you feel about Zuffa acquiring PRIDE, would you move over there if they started a 170 division?
Jon Fitch: Fighting in Japan is awesome, I had a fight there once. I have cornered over there a couple of times, it's just an awesome experience to get to travel to another country and fight. I think it's cool - UFC buying Pride. They can jump in between organizations so you can fight anyone now. It's probably going to be a really good thing in the long run. So yeah, there's not too many fighters I have to worry about fighting for them because Pride never had a Welterweight class, it was always 160 then 183 so you know some guys might be able to drop to 170 and some guys would have to move up because they can’t make 155. There is not many guys that are in there that are true 170 pounders.
MMANews.com: Final question - how do you feel about your upcoming fight with Roan "Jucao" Carneiro?
Jon Fitch: I finally got some video of my opponent. It's going to be tough. He looks to me like he is a really good wrestler, looks really strong, his transitioning is fantastic on the ground, really good at passing guard. I haven’t got to see him do any guard work so I don’t know how he is off his back. I think I have an edge in stand up but then again when you have to worry about takedowns, that takes away from your stand up a little bit. It's going to be a tough fight. People haven’t heard of this guy but his losses mainly come from a higher weight class. He’s a tougher opponent, he’s the real deal. I am not going to underestimate him at all - just like if he were Matt Hughes or GSP.
MMANews.com: It's those guys that are unheard of that you have to watch out for.
Jon Fitch: Yeah, they are the most dangerous because this guy has heard of me, because I heard a post-fight interview after he fought Rich Clementi and he mentioned me. So yeah this guys knows who I am and he’s been studying me for months before he even had a fight with me. You can’t underestimate these unknown guys or the guys where people don’t recognize their name or you might not have heard of or seen before because they know who you are. They have been studying you and they probably know every single move and hole in your game. So you have to come prepared.
MMANews.com: I just want to thank you again for taking the time out of your schedule to sit down with me and do this interview.
Jon Fitch: No problem.
MMANews.com: Take care.
Jon Fitch: Thanks a lot.
{plug}
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