ufc fighter says he is overhyped
Rest assured; if you have any misconceptions about the fight game, Todd Duffee will set you straight.
Duffee (6-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC), who faces Mike Russow (12-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC) on the main card of Saturday's UFC 114 pay-per-view event in Las Vegas, is not one to let a lie live. If you're misinformed, he'll tell you. If you're getting ahead of yourself, he'll tell you.
You don't like what he has to say? Tough.
"You get a lot of hardcore fans that look at me like I'm just a big monkey that sits at home and eats beef jerky and screams at my TV set (one) who says, 'I can knock that guy out,'" Duffee recently told MMAjunkie.com Radio .
He doesn't go out of his way to do interviews, but he shoots straight when he does. He can be salty if you take the wrong tact. (He recently scolded the UFC on Twitter when UFC officials poked fun at his former job at Dairy Queen). At the same time, he's well spoken and self-aware in a way that many fighters his age aren't.
But there's no nonsense in his approach.
"Fifty percent of the fans hate you, and 50 percent of the fans think you're great," he said. "Either/or it doesn't really matter unless you're winning."
He knows fighting won't last forever, and he wants to go to college when the gravy train ends. (He was enrolled at UNLV but recently took a leave of absence.) In the meantime, he's a hot prospect in the heavyweight division and has a good shot at making his mark in MMA. He believes he has the potential to make it to the top of the heavyweight division.
The jury is out on whether the fans agree.
He made quite an impression in his UFC debut when he knocked out Tim Hague in a UFC record seven seconds at UFC 102 this past August. But he's been benched for eight months due to a back injury, and fans don't have a whole lot to go on. Many get the wrong idea. On the other side of those who brand him a screaming monkey are those who think he's the second coming.
"You get the 16 year-olds who think I'm a god because I knocked someone out in seven seconds when in reality that seven seconds could have gone the other way, or it could have been a three-round war just because of their misconception of what MMA is," Duffee said.
The 24-year-old heavyweight seems to be aligned with Strikeforce light-heavyweight champion Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal's theory that misconceptions drive the sport. Fans make rash judgments because they don't understand what really does into fighting.
As such, Duffee is not ready to start singing his own praises. He admits there are many unknowns in his career such as how he adapts to pressure and opponents with different styles. Before he's even close to the level of a Junior Dos Santos or Cain Velasquez whom many think he'll soon eclipse he needs to cultivate the tools in his arsenal.
"They have more fight experience than me," Duffee said. "I have to be able to do what I do in the gym out in the cage when the lights are on. There are a lot of guys that we've probably never heard of who are at that level, but they just can't perform when it comes time, and I have to make sure that I continue to do that."
Some of the tools he thinks will factor into Saturday's fight are deceptively simple such as breathing. He's seen many competitors go into the octagon and gas out in the first round because adrenaline robs them of their ability to breathe. (Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson at UFC 113 is a good example, he said.) Against a ground-and pound-specialist such as Russow, that could be deadly.
"I haven't fought in eight months," Duffee said. "And really, if you ask me, I haven't fought in a year and eight months. So I have to go out there and make sure I'm breathing. I fully expect this fight to go past the first round."
Thus far, speed has been the distinguishing characteristic of his career; all but one of his fights have ended in the first round. A second-round TKO victory over Assuerio Silva in September 2008 stands as the toughest test of his two-plus years as a professional mixed martial artist.
Russow, meanwhile, is a 12-year veteran of the sport with notable career wins over Justin McCully, Jason Guida and Roman Zentsov. The part-time police officer holds nine first-round victories and has twice gone the distance.
Just as Duffee thinks he's overhyped, he thinks fans give Russow no love.
"I think he's by far the most underrated heavyweight in the division," Duffee said. "People don't respect him because he's fat and he's got ... a slow style that people don't really appreciate, so they automatically just think he sucks."
That's just another misconception.
"I think he's really, really tough, and he's real smart," he said of Russow. "People ask me why he's so good, (and I tell them) he knows what he's capable of, and he doesn't go outside that realm. He implements his game plan no matter what."
The question now is whether Duffee has the same resolve. He plans to defeat Russow on Saturday night. It matters little whether he feeds his own myth. The fanboys and the critics will judge all the same.
"At the end of the day, it's all about winning," Duffee said. "So I just have to go out there and win."
