När tungviktaren Todd Duffee (8 – 2) först klev in i UFCs oktagon var han obesegrad och hade goda framtidsutsikter. Han vann sin debutmatch mot Tim Hague (14 – 7) men förlorade sedan mot Mike Russow (15 – 3) och vart släppt från UFC.
Under dom kommande 2 åren efter UFC så gick han bara match 2 gånger. Först mot Alistair Overeem (36 – 12) i organisationen K-1, en match Duffee förlorade genom en knockout. Nästa match var i samband med Indiens SFL där Duffee lyckades knocka engelsmannen Neil Grove (12 – 6 – 1).
Duffee har nu återvänt till UFC och gjorde en stark comeback efter att han knockade Phil De Fries (9 – 3) under galan UFC 155, men han tycker fortfarande att det kändes konstigt att bli släppt av UFC efter 1 förlust. Såhär uttryckte sig UFCs Dana White om varför Duffee fick lämna MMA-organisationen så tidigt:
We have the ability to cut a guy when he loses a fight. He lost that fight, but the biggest problem I have with Todd Duffee is his attitude. You guys don’t see it. You don’t know. I deal with tons of guys. We have hundreds of guys under contract and I’ve had thousands of guys under contract over the last ten years and Todd Duffee, to me, doesn’t seem like he wants to be in the UFC.
He doesn’t like being in the UFC. Let him go fight in the smaller organizations and work his way back up, if he even wants to work his way back up and get back into the UFC. He just came off a knockout. He got knocked out in his fight and he’s got a horrible attitude. He’s got a horrible attitude. He can still go back and train and fight in these smaller leagues and work on his skills and his attitude.
Ed Kapp lyckades nyligen få en intervju med Duffee där dom bland annat tog upp hur det kändes att få lämna UFC så tidigt. Duffee sa såhär om den saken:
It was a nightmare every day. It was sickening. It was very depressing. It was a giant … oh, I need to find new terminology to describe this. It was a giant mind-f—. I don’t know how else to put it.
You see guys that you’re better than fighting in the UFC, you see guys you’re friends and training partners are saying you’re better than fighting in the UFC. I felt really stupid. I genuinely just felt like an idiot. Everybody was telling me I had all this talent but I was never going to be back in the UFC, it’s over. Obviously, I couldn’t let it go. I still believed I had a shot. I still knew how good I am.
I’m extensively training with seven of the top 10 guys right now. I have a pretty good idea of where I stand. And I don’t think I’d continue to be willing to make the sacrifices if I didn’t believe I have what it takes to be one of the best. If not the best. It was terrible, dude. It hurt my career. You want to talk about a bad attitude? I definitely developed a bad attitude during that time period. For about nine months, a year, I was hard to be around.
I felt bad for the guys at Grudge. I wasn’t positive. I was just grinding through my workouts. There was one point where I would drive to AKA, check my bank account and I would just walk in the gym with tears in my eyes. DC [Daniel Cormier] would come up to me, “Are you alright, dude?” This was because I felt like such an idiot.
I should’ve been out getting my college education, going to work. All my friends are finishing up their doctorates — they’re doing all this great stuff that I should be doing. Instead, I’m out here being dumb. Has it paid off now? Yes. I could’ve approached it a lot differently and maybe I’d still be in the same spot. You don’t know. I could’ve gotten here sooner, for all we know. I guess the best way to describe it was that I felt really stupid.
Man kan gissa att det är skönt för honom att vara med i UFC igen, han behöver pengarna och innan dom tog in honom så var han på väg att flytta till Nederländerna för att försörja sig på kickboxning. Det kommer antagligen gå bättre för Duffee i UFC den här gången, han verkar ha förstått vad han gjorde fel för 3 år sedan och den här gången så känns det troligare att han får stanna kvar även om han skulle få 1 förlust i sin statistik.
Unibet erbjuder Sveriges bästa MMA betting
