Fightin' Words

So the semifinals are set up, Mac Vs Matt, and George Vs Tommy. One problem: Matt Arroyo got hurt while training with Richie Hightower. It took him a couple of days to try and train through it, but, ultimately, he didn’t think he’d be able to fight with the injury. To be honest, I knew he had hurt his rib but I didn’t know it was that bad until we had a conversation about it. In any event, it’s his body, and he knows it better than anyone. Some people seem to think he punked out of the matchup because he was afraid of fighting Mac, but, think about it, he’d already won twice and was one step away from a shot at a guaranteed contract. Matt does not strike me as the type of person that would back out of a fight unless he was really hurt.

With Matt on the shelf, we needed to find a replacement for him. Ben had a broken nose so he was out of the running. We looked into War Machine, Richie, Rudeboy, and John, and even explored the possibility of a guy on the other team filling in – Billy Miles, as he was healthy. Dana had Matt Hughes on a conference call with Ray Longo and I sitting in on it, and Hughes compared Miles to Mike Whitehead – good in the training room, but he wasn’t sure he’d deliver come showtime. We eliminated Billy after that conversation, War Machine was mentally out of it at that point, and both Richie and Rudeboy weren’t afraid to fight, but were dreading the weight cut, so John Kolosci’s eagergness to take the fight at made our decision easy. We were happy to give him a chance at some redemption versus Mac.

Though Mac was able to defeat John by rear-naked choke, just like he did in their first battle, John has nothing to be ashamed about. In their quarterfinal matchup, it looked like John didn’t belong in the Octagon® with Mac, as he was pretty much dominated. Mac’s got around 30 fights under his belt and is a former King of the Cage champion, there’s no shame in losing to him if you give your best effort. This time around, John hung in there with him and made Mac earn it.

The 2nd semifinal had Tommy going up against George, and while Tommy has amazing strength and wrestling ability, I thought George would win this matchup with his all around game.

Unfortunately for George, it didn’t work out that way. After the accidental poke in the eye, I don’t think he knew he could have taken five minutes to recover, and I really think it made a huge difference in that battle. When the action resumed, Tommy landed a lot of right hands that I just don’t think George saw coming because his left eye was almost shut. Eventually, George was on his back and Tommy finished the fight with some brutal strikes, and earned a matchup with Mac this Saturday night in Las Vegas.

While it is somewhat disappointing that Team Serra won’t be represented in the finals on Saturday night, Ray Longo, Drago and myself are very proud of everyone on my squad. Everyone worked together and improved a great deal over the course of our six weeks of training, and we managed to win the majority of the fights that we were in.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to get back in the Octagon™ soon.