Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be nice. I was trying to be a nice guy here on this blog, and then Bisping went and made all these comments about me last week and now I’m training five times a day because he pissed me off. How is he gonna say that I’m making a mistake in saying what I did last week? I think I’ve got him sized up right and I wasn’t wrong about one thing I said about this guy.
He surprised me when he fired back the way he did, but that’s exactly what I want to hear and I want him to believe what he’s saying. I want him to believe that he can go in there and knock me out. We’ll see on the 17th.
Anyway, it was perfect timing though, because I was getting bored in training camp. Seriously though, this camp has been good, and I’ve even got a British guy down here training with me, Tom Kong, just so when Bisping opens his mouth I’m not surprised at what he sounds like, and he moves and fights just like he does.
With less than a couple weeks left to go, I’m chomping at the bit and my coaches are trying to pull me back a little bit. I’m in better shape, my body’s feeling good, and now I’m getting pulled back. The practices are more intense, but they’re shorter, and I’m just getting revved up, so when I read something like what Bisping wrote, it makes me want to fly to New Jersey right now and fight him. Him saying stuff like that is getting me excited and I might need that little push because that really, really motivates me. That makes me not just want to beat him; that makes me want to punish him. That makes me want to be able to finish him off every single round, but carry him through just so I can beat him for the next five minutes.
Outside of the ring things are picking up as well and it can be hard sometimes. After practice, I’ve got to feed my body, but then I’ve got to do all these interviews and everybody wants a little piece and I have to go to do this and that, so that’s getting a little tough and it can get frustrating. I try to schedule my interviews for days when I really can handle them, but my coach is so evil that I don’t really know if he ever has a minor practice. Some days I think that it should be a nice, easy practice and I should have enough energy to deal with all the press and everything, and then he’ll surprise me and kill me in practice. I’m so happy though because I’ve got Georges St-Pierre down here, David Loiseau coming down this week, Paul Buentello was down here, Drew Fickett’s here, and it’s just been a really good camp.
I read that Bisping’s staying home to train for this fight, and I think he’s making a mistake by not going with Rampage’s camp again because it’s so important to have great guys to train with who can push you. You can’t go into practice and be the top dog every day. You want to get your ass kicked in practice. You want to walk away from practice saying, ‘man, what is going on?’ You want to have that little bit of frustration because if you’re not to that level, that means they’re not pushing you to that level, and when you go into the fight you may go against someone who may be better than your training partners and you’re getting your butt whipped and you don’t know why, and you can’t make the adjustments. So you really need partners who can kick your butt, and I really want to thank Nate Marquardt, Joey Villasenor, Keith Jardine, Georges St-Pierre, Tom Kong, David Loiseau, my older brother Lance Evans, who’s a fighter now, and Paul Buentello.
I’ll leave this week’s blog with a message for Bisping. Mike, on November 17th, you can look forward to staring across the ring at somebody who’s gonna bring immense pressure, something you’ve never felt before. We’re gonna stand and just got toe to toe and battle it out. Believe me, you’ve never felt this before. You probably went to camp with Rampage and Rampage never gave it to you like I’m gonna give it to you. If you got jumped by ten people, I think your ass whipping would be less than what I’m gonna give you on November 17th.
Source: UFC.com
