CSNWashingtonAfter losing to Mauricio "Shogun" Rua at UFC 134 on Saturday night, Forrest Griffin wasted no time leaving Rio de Janeiro. Not because he was disappointed about the loss -- well, he was -- but because his wife was set to go into labor to deliver the couple's first child.
"If I had known it was going to work out like this, I would not have taken the fight," Griffin said, adding that he was "supposed to have nine more days" until the baby's birth.
Griffin flew back with UFC president Dana White on the Zuffa plane immediately following the event. At the time of this writing on Sunday evening, his wife had yet to give birth.
"I have so much respect for him for coming in and taking this fight, being in this situation," White said. "He knew he was going to be in this situation. Like he said, she was supposed to be nine days later. He was just texting with her before we came in here and she thinks she's ready to go. I'm leaving tonight, he's flying home with me tonight."
Griffin, who submitted Rua in 2007, dropped to 2-3 in his last five fights.
"The game plan was to get off after he missed, and he missed a couple times and I let him off the hook," Griffin said, although when asked what went wrong in the fight, he was unable to really explain the series of events that lead to his first-round TKO loss.
Griffin talked earlier this week about being unhappy with having to fight so far from the confines of his adopted hometown of Las Vegas. Some took his pre-fight comments as an indication that he wasn't motivated to fight Rua again, but Griffin refused to blame the loss on being so far away from home.
"I would like to use that as an excuse, but we ended up fighting so late that we actually ended up fighting on Vegas time," Griffin said.
"If I have to do this again, I know I have to bring everything because you're not getting Pepto Bismol here, apparently."
Junior Dos Santos flattened Frank Mir with a huge right hand and finished him on the ground at 3:04 of the second round Saturday night, emphatically defending his heavyweight title at UFC 146 on Saturday night.
Can anyone top the big three of Silva, Jones, and GSP as the best pound-for-pounder fighter?
Roy Nelson calls for voluntary drug testing in MMA
Slideshow |
more photos |