What It’s Like Defeating Kimbo Slice

Purdue’s Matt Mitrione talks about the reception he got from friends and teammates after defeating Kimbo Slice in UFC 113, what he needs to improve in his game and when he sensed Kimbo was in for a long night (run time is 4:40; transcript below the jump).

[podcast]http://www.lostlettermen.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Mitrione-1.mp3[/podcast]……..

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Purdue’s Matt Mitrione, who defeated Kimbo Slice last week in UFC 113. Matt thanks so much for joining us.

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Could you talk about what the feedback has been like since you beat Kimbo Slice and all the calls you’ve gotten from former teammates and things like that?

Matt Mitrione: It’s been pretty overwhelming. I got a pretty good response from guys I used to play with both through texts, phone calls and also through Facebook. It’s been nice to see that people have interest and that this fight with Kimbo caught their attention. That’s pretty flattering.

LL: Can you go through the fight with Kimbo? Obviously there’s so much hype around this guy and you’ve said you fight the man, not the hype. But were you surprised at how easy the fight appeared to be?

MM: At the time I didn’t realize it was such a one-sided beating. At the fight I didn’t realize that. But in hindsight, no not really. I prepare really hard. It’s just like in football. You practice like hell to make sure the games are easy. So it’s kind of the same thing. You bust your stones as much as you can in practice and make sure you have people that can push you and will push you and challenge you so that way, once you’re in that situation, while you’re fighting for paychecks, it’s not nearly as stressful and not nearly as difficult.

LL: Now Kimbo has since been fired by UFC president Dana White. What’s it like to essentially have ended Kimbo Slice’s UFC career?

MM: I feel bad. Kimbo’s a good dude and he’s got a couple of kids and I’d like for him to be able to support them and pay the bills. But when it comes down to who’s going to stick around, me or him, I’m sure glad it’s him going and not me.

LL: Right. Could you talk a little bit about this hype? You seemed really excited to have this fight with Kimbo because you knew the exposure it would bring for you and UFC. What was it like when you learned you were going to Kimbo Slice?

MM: I was excited. Aside from the hype it’s a great fight for me. It was a great fight for me. The match-up that he brings, the style of fighting plays directly into what I like to do. And I feel that when it comes to letting them fly and being athletic, I think that I’ll rank up there at the top with the top handful of guys. So I was excited for the opportunity. I don’t think anybody had an idea it was going to be a jiu-jitsu match. I didn’t expect that at all.

But it was that way and I was forced to use a little bit of my ground game, but the fact of the matter is I was able to sink in four or five submissions and I didn’t finish any of them. So that just shows me that I have a lot more mat time that I got to get in to and develop my ground game because it’s unacceptable to have that many submission attempts and not finish any of them.

LL: Could you talk about the end of the fight? You were just pummeling Kimbo in the face and he would not tap out. Could you sense that he could feel this would be the end of his UFC career if he were to lose this fight?

MM: I don’t know. I can’t speak on that. But I can tell you that he knew he was in a lot of trouble and that he had to restick my power quite a bit. And once we started tapping up a little bit I think he saw that I wasn’t intimidated by him at all, that it might’ve been a little bit rougher fight than he had hoped for.

LL: Were you surprised by how long it took him to tap out? It seemed like you were just pounding him into submission in the head.

MM: Yeah he was doing a good job. He blocked his face with his forearms so it only left me a couple angles to get into. He did a good job of being patient through submissions. He fought off a handful (of them) I mean a triangle, an anaconda, (inaudible). I was going for the rear naked but I couldn’t get his chin to lift up. He fought a lot of those off. So I’m impressed with how tough he was.

To be honest he had a lot more heart than I gave him credit for. Because I thought he was going to quit once I started sinking things on him, especially in the fight.