this isnt about tito but ufc season 3 fighter tait fletcher mentions training with one of the DOG BROTHERS.
peace
cameron
Tait Fletcher: Understanding The Misunderstood.
By: Kal Thompson
Contact: BoxingThoughts@yahoo.com
Season 3 of Spike TV?s ?The Ultimate Fighter? has arguably sparked more interest and debate than both of its predecessors combined. With the conflicting duality of Coaches Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz, the attention that this season has received is not surprising.
However, there is more to this show than its basis of the feud between Shamrock and Ortiz.
Season 3 competitor Tait Fletcher has been the subject of more MMA online message board posts than any of his peers. What is it about Tait Fletcher that sparks such interest with MMA fans? Is it his physical appearance? --his unabashed honesty??his personality?his fighting style?
Tait Fletcher recently took the time to answer questions pertaining to the show, internet message boards, his most recent fight, his future, and much more.
BoxingInsider.com: What is the greatest thing you ?came away with? from your entire ?The Ultimate Fighter? reality show experience?
Tait Fletcher: In terms of fighting, the importance of your coaching and preparation. The most important thing in general is to show that you are natural, that you are genuine. The honesty that you present in being genuine is vital?as far as the evolution of a person, and as far as people being able to grasp on to who you are and that who you are is just fine. You don?t need rise or fall on anybody?s expectations or change yourself one iota for that. You just need to stand firm in your ideals, you know. And then with the aftermath of it all, it?s still true. It?s like with my fight, I haven?t really seen that episode at all. I?ve only seen the second round of that fight. I remember saying that it?s just a matter of opinion. I know that I didn?t get beaten. There is no domination that happened. Josh squeaked out a win on the judges? scorecards. But, that wasn?t about anything but what a couple of guys saw when they viewed that fight. What those guys think is unimportant to me in that way. What?s important to me is the experience. The outcomes of things are not the ?be all, end all.? It?s the process of doing it.
BoxingInsider.com: That leads us to this question. You just mentioned the judges? decision on your fight with Josh Haynes. After that fight, you appeared to be very respectful and ?at peace? after the decision loss. Do you agree with the judges? scorecards in that Josh won the fight between the two of you?
Tait Fletcher: No, but at the same time, when they asked me how I felt about it right after, I?m an honest genuine mother f**ker, so I wasn?t going to be grandiose enough to say what I thought one way or the other. I was in the fight, so I couldn?t be objective about it. Looking at it, I saw the second round on video, I haven?t seen the first round yet, but there was a real handsome, tattooed, bald-headed guy that dominated that whole second round. I controlled the action, and controlled where the fight went. Regardless, I would love to have fought that fight a different way as I?m sure Josh would?ve, too. As far as the judges? go, let?s go back to your question. They were f**king dead wrong. What I thought was strange about it at the time is that one of the scores was like 28-30, and another was 30-28. I thought that was a big disparity. One guy was thinking one way; and the other was thinking the opposite. Then the other (judge) was right in the middle in Josh?s favor. I understand what has happened. It?s old school boxing. These (judges) are still part of the commission; and they are the governing body. So, they put some old b*stard who has no idea what MMA is in a position of power and authority. It?s a shame. I just hope that this doesn?t happen to somebody else where it really matters. For me, I?m at peace wherever I am. My fighting is not the ?be all, end all? career for me. I have a lot in my life. My life is very full, but it?s a travesty when that happens, when there is that much of a foul up. A lot of guys whom I?ve seen have said that?s the worst decision that they?ve ever seen. Do I think it was wrong? Yes, I think that I decisively would have earned a decision. For sure, that fight would have been finished. The only guy who was in danger of being finished in that fight was Josh. As far as a guy ending the fight, that was going to be me. If Josh had had a thousand years, he would have never finished me. That being the case, I think you should give it to the guy who is the dominant fighter. At the same time, I believe in a higher level. I think there is a big picture going on that we can?t see. I don?t believe there are any mistakes. That decision was made for a reason. I might not be able to see what that reason is, right now. As it stands, I don?t have any axes to grind. However life unfolds, it?s up to me to roll with it.
BoxingInsider.com: The voice of the mixed martial arts fan base is heard more loudly on internet message boards than any other medium. When it comes to Tait Fletcher, there is very little middle ground. Fans seem to either love you or hate you. What do you think about that?
Tait Fletcher: It?s awesome in a way. It?s weird, too. There are a lot of people who feel one way or the other, but they never express their opinion. There are a lot of people watching the sport and you don?t know how they feel. And then, you have to weed out the trolls, the people who are just looking for a reaction, for someone to bite on some idiotic comment. There?s so much of that, so it?s hard to put any credibility into anything that anybody on a message board has to say, unless you know that person. The telling thing for me is that guys who f**king hated me, guys who loathed me, have emailed me after the (T.U.F.) fight and told me that they thought I got robbed on the decision. They told me that they still hate me, but in their opinion, I won that fight. The disparity of whether they love me or hate me is weird, too, because they are real fickle. They ?flip-flop.? So, you?ve got people who are of the low intellectual capacity who are willing to make an entire general idea out of one small brief ?instance in time? perception out of an edited reality show about what your character is. That?s the kind of miniscule cerebral crap that?s going on with some of these people. That?s what I think of these people. There are a lot of dummies out there, and who cares? And that?s for everybody, whether they like me or hate me. They are cerebrally challenged; and I wish them well.
BoxingInsider.com: Of course, every athlete has a limited amount of time in order to compete competitively. That being said, concerning other careers, are you still in the bodyguard business?
Tait Fletcher: Yeah, I do that. I do acting. I have jobs here and there that keep me excited. That?s really what I like to do. I like to live life fully. Whatever I can do to have enough time and enough money to do that is what I?ll do. Fighting is a hell of a challenge because there is no time for anything else except fighting. I mean, when you?re two months out, and you?re six hours a day in the gym, taking naps, and doing the diet thing, you really don?t have time for anything else. To really be at that level, you have to ask yourself how long you want to do that. Those are questions that every athlete must ask their self. The thing is that I?m 35 years old. I?m not a 22-year-old Kendall Grove. I?m not a Mike Bisping who has a lot of time and ambition to do only this. MMA started out as both a love and a distraction from a lot of things for me. I fell in love with jiu-jitsu, and then one thing led to another.
BoxingInsider.com: Describe the path that led you to where you are now, in terms of MMA.
Tait Fletcher: Well, I fell in love with jiu-jitsu, and then I began to wonder how I would do against this guy, or that guy. I?ve wrestled Jeff Monson. I?ve wrestled a lot of the best guys in the world. That?s what the competitions were like for me in the beginning. I started doing stick fights with one of the guys who founded the Dog Brothers. Then that evolved to the next. Then there were national tournaments, and then the worlds in Brazil. I wanted to see where I would really fall under all these categories. To really put yourself out there on that type of competition on the world level is something that surpassed my wildest dreams about what my own physical, emotional, and mental capabilities were. It?s like surpassing your own limits that you?ve placed on yourself; like saying that could never happen because everybody from where I?m from is either a drug dealer or a factory worker. You know what I mean. It becomes a real victory to be able to just compete on those levels. It was a privilege and a pleasure to be able to be a part of the UFC experience. To be able to fight in the cage in front of the Fertitta brothers and Dana White, that?s the super bowl for me. I don?t have any delusions about taking the light heavyweight title. I don?t want to put the time into anything like that. Whatever I do is for fun and to try to?I have a whole other part of my life where I speak in front of high schools and stuff. I get opportunities to speak in front of different people. From where I?ve come from and where I?ve ended up, I was supposed to be either incarcerated or dead by now. I wasn?t supposed to have been able to be a professional athlete, or to travel the world with any kind of sport with a clear head, and be a functional part of society who is able to give back rather than take. Nobody would have ever guessed that from Tait Fletcher. That is what precisely has happened. Through perseverance and being lucky with the people whom I?ve met in my life, I?ve put one foot in front of the other and tried to live a righteous way. It?s been phenomenal for me. It?s the one gift that I can give back to people when I talk with them. Your limits are the limits you post up in your own head. The only person limiting yourself is you. Really, anybody can change their destiny. You can either accept your fate and sit on the couch, or you can go out and try to form your destiny into something different. And I don?t care what your surroundings are or what your background is, if you?re a junkie, or a thief, or whatever your deal is?anything can happen. There is hope for change in anybody.
For more on Tait Fletcher, his camp, and his sponsors, please visit:
www.local505.net www.taitfletcher.com www.thetwister.tv www.sinisterbrand.com www.jacksons.tv
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