Rich Franklin - “I’m ready to fight.”

UFC.com recently interviewed Rich Franklin and I have captured some very interesting quotes from Mr.Franklin about his last fight against Anderson Silva and his upcoming fight with Jason "The Athlete" MacDonald at UFC 68.

On the loss of his UFC Middleweight championship:

“I cornered against Silva when he fought Jeremy Horn,” Franklin explained about his prefight mindset. “He was a lot smaller then. I was banking on my size and strength to carry me through the fight a little bit. I thought I would be able to push him around in the clinch. When he grabbed a hold of me and hit me with those first few knees, [his strength] surprised me.”

On learning from a loss:

“I hate when people talk about losing being a learning experience”, “Naturally, you are going to learn something each time you lose. But I really believe that people tell themselves that losing is a learning experience in order to feel better over the fact that they lost. I don’t like telling myself that. The fact of the matter is that I lost the fight. I don’t like losing. I just want to get back in the ring and win again.”

On accountability for the loss:

“After a loss like that, I am not going to go back and point the finger at my coaches or anything,” he said. “There were a few things that I personally overlooked. But my coaches did a great job preparing me. Those same guys are helping me prepare for MacDonald.”

On facing Jason MacDonald at UFC 68:

“This is definitely a big fight for me”. “I think MacDonald said it best when he beat Ed Herman. He said, ‘If they brought me in here to be a stepping stone, they were wrong.’ I think he has proved that he is not anybody’s stepping stone. He is red hot after two big wins, and I’m coming off a loss. I definitely don’t look at MacDonald as just some easy win.”

On the difference in conditioning for 3-round Vs. 5-round fights:

“There is no difference between having five-round cardio and three-round cardio for me”. “My cardio is based on whether I can out push my opponent. If I’m only fighting for 15 minutes, then I just up my pace [during the fight]. But that means my cardio has to be just as good for a three-round fight as a five-round fight.”

On Franklin's fight plan against MacDonald:

“I’m just going to go out there, throw some punches and see what happens”. “I’m ready to fight.”