UFC 148 proved to be something of an emotional rollercoaster for Forrest Griffin that came with a happy ending after he defeated Tito Ortiz to complete their trilogy of fights.
Afterwards he spoke to MMAfighting’s Ariel Helwani and talked about the moments after the fight when he walked out of the Octagon and appeared to be heading back to the dressing room without waiting for the result to be announced.
“I was actually coming back anyway to be respectful towards Tito. I just forget sometimes. I’m an emotional guy, I get frustrated with myself…but when I crossed Dana White was yelling at me to get the ‘F’ back in the cage.”
Griffin goes on to admit that he didn’t know if he had done enough to win the fight in the judges eyes after three close rounds.
“I don’t know…He got two takedowns and a knockdown. I got a sh!t load of jabs and low kicks. Honestly I feel like we’ve almost had three draws.”
When asked if he’d entertain a fourth fight, Griffin quips, “Best out of five, that’s what I told him, you know?”
Reflecting on his performance overall the former light-heavyweight champion admits he wasn’t happy with how he did.
“Not great,” was his assessment. “He gassed at the end of the second and third round. He was strong as f*ck at the beginning of the first in case you didn’t notice. The first time when he was holding me down, that wasn’t laziness on my part, it was just good base on his part and he dropped a couple of elbows and I got motivated.
The second time I was being lazy. It wasn’t even a great takedown he got me with. Just, you know, frustrated.”
Asked why he had decided to conduct the post-fight interview with Ortiz, Griffin doesn’t really know, it was just a spur of the moment thing.
“I kind of just wanted to, you know. I don’t think about things, I just do it man, it’s emotional.”
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