Photo Credit: www.forrestgriffin.net
It was supposed to be the triumphant arrival of Mauricio “Shogun” Rua onto the UFC stage. Forrest Griffin had other plans. Requesting a shot at Rua with the aim of catapulting himself towards the top of 205, Griffin made the most of the opportunity he desired and choked out “Shogun” in round 3 via rear naked choke. “I didn’t think I’d be able to submit the cat”, admitted Griffin afterward. “He gets tired, he still comes forward. I thought maybe there would be a little more clinching.”
Requesting this fight, Griffin obviously had a beat on his opponent. “I knew he’d come forward, I knew he’d cut angles, and throw a 2-3-2, come forward and throw a high kick, pull out of the clinch, turn, cut angles”, noted Griffin. “I had a lot of plans, I worked a lot on the neck tie, I worked a lot of neck strength stuff, I worked a lot of defending against knees and stuff like that.”
As far as future bouts, the light heavyweight division is wide open now and many potential matchups loom in the future for Griffin. A rematch with Jardine, a battle with Houston Alexander, fighting Rua’s teammate Wanderlei Silva, Dan Henderson, Rashad Evans and a rematch with Tito Ortiz as well. Whoever it is, this victory over “Shogun” has upped Griffin’s confidence level to be ready compete with any of those names. “I want to fight all those guys, I really think I’m a pretty decent athlete, I enjoy fighting, I’ll fight anybody.”
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