Notes and quotes from fighters from the Great White North. In this Remembrance Day edition: Soszynski, Goulet and Ford.
This weekend there are three MMA events televised live in at least some parts of the country.
Two are in Canada, one is overseas (and in all three, at least one Canadian will have local crowd support). In this edition of K-O Canada, I feature the most prominent fighter on each who will be waving the red and white.
(But before I continue, I just want to pause on this Remembrance Day to honour those who have “carried our flag” and given their lives for the people of our nation.)
Winnipeg’s Krzysztof Soszynski waving the double in Germany
In the case of the Krzysztof (The Polish Experiment) Soszynski, the two colours work for the flags of both countries he’ll be representing. Sozynski, as his nickname suggests, has Polish heritage, of which he is extremely proud. And he couldn’t be happier to be fighting in good old Deutschland, a neighbour country to Poland.
Fighting Saturday in Oberhausen, Germany, which is about six hours from the Polish border, he will be well represented for his UFC 122 main card fight against Croatia’s Goran Reljic.
“I'm going to have some of my relatives coming down for the fight,” Soszynski said. “I’m pretty sure there’s going to be a lot of Croatian fans waving their flag (but) there’s going to be a lot of Polish fans waving the red and white.”
The 33-year-old Soszynski, who was born in Poland but has lived in Winnipeg since he was 10, said he hasn’t been to Europe, let alone his native land, for seven years. He admitted to campaigning to be part of this second card in Germany after missing out on the first one in Cologne last year.
“I'm very excited. The second after my last fight with Stephan Bonnar I read online the UFC was going to Germany in November, I (sent a message to) Joe Silva saying I wanted to fight there and he said yes.”
He’s going to take full advantage of the trip; after the fight he and his wife are going to Poland for two weeks to see some of his friends and relatives, including his grandparents and some cousins.
In order to get his body accustomed to the six-hour difference in time zone, Soszynski said he did all of his training throughout the entire 15-week camp in the mornings. Even though Reljic is from Croatia, he trains at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, so the Canadian doesn’t think his opponent will have an advantage.
One area Soszynski does expect to have an edge is in the fact that they’re both lefties but he is already used to that, having fought Bonnar twice and Brandon Vera, who used the unorthodox stance the whole time against him.
“I think I'm the first southpaw he's going to face,” Soszynski said. “I have several left-handed training partners at my gym that I get to use and train with. I think he’s the one who’s going to have to work real harder to figure me out because I’ve already fought lefties and know how to fight them.”
Soszynski expects Reljic to be “a very desperate fighter” after going 0-2 in his last two fights. But both of those were at 185 pounds and he’s returning to light-heavyweight where he’s likely more comfortable.
“I have a feeling he's going to have go in there and pull out all the stops. He's going to be very aggressive with his punches and strikes and his kicks, he's got a really powerful left kick, so I'm going to have to be ready for all that. … Whoever breaks the other first is going to win the fight.”
(Make your pick for his fight and seven other UFC 122 fights in the first round of sportsnet.ca's new MMA Fantasy tournament bracket pick'em contest. And you can watch Soszynski's UFC debut against Shane Primm at the TUF 8 finale in December 2008 for free this week at ufclive.com.)
Road Warrior makes Montreal stop, with normal vision and hair
While not all MMA fans from coast to coast will be able to see former UFC fighter Jonathan (The Road Warrior) Goulet compete live, viewers in Quebec will be able to watch him on television as his welterweight title fight against Chris Clements Saturday night at the Centre Pierre-Charbonneau in Montreal headlines Ringside MMA 9: Payback, which will air on Canal Indigo, a French pay-per-view channel.
One thing viewers won’t be seeing however is the Victoriaville, Que., native’s patented designer buzzed hair cuts with dyed-in messages. Goulet said he’s done with that, for good.
“I'm tired of it, because when I was doing that I had to drive three hours, and getting my hair done I was on the chair for a mininum three hours a day, so that was too long,” said Goulet, who added the whole colouring process was very painful on his hair. “I decided to stop doing that and look more natural.”
Goulet, who trains at the same Tri-Star gym in Montreal as Georges St-Pierre, has also made another change that should really help him in his career, or at least avoid the problem that helped lead to him being cut from the UFC earlier this year.
The veteran of 35 fights used to wear contacts for extreme near-sightedness (myopia degree of minus-8), which became a big problem when they came out in his UFC 113 fight in May against Marcus Davis, who defeated him by second-round TKO.
“I lost my contacts during the first round, so in the second round, I didn't see the punches coming,” Goulet said.
So immediately after the fight he had laser eye surgery so that he would never have to worry about that again.
“I never said I lost one fight because of this or that, I always say that the other guy was better than me. So that was the first time I was using that one excuse,” Goulet said. “Now I won’t have to use that excuse again. My vision is perfect now, so that's very cool.”
His clear eyesight was clearly evident in his first appearance since the loss and his subsequent release; Goulet demolished Matt MacGrath by TKO in less than two minutes at an August Ringside show in Quebec City.
Now he takes on the Clements, a fighter he’s quite familiar with since they both used to compete in the Montreal-based TKO Championship Fighting and a guy he actually sparred with once, albeit a long time ago.
“I was in Toronto (a few years back) and I had a fight coming up and was missing my sparring on Friday so he and Sam Stout helped me,” Goulet said.
The London, Ont., fighters won’t be helping him for this one.
The Real Deal ready for the bright lights this time
After a current UFC fighter and a former one, now we’ve got a potential future one. As always, Ryan (The Real Deal) Ford will be the huge crowd favourite Friday night in Edmonton when he takes on American Pete Spratt on the main card of MFC 27: Breaking Point at the River Cree Resort and Casino. And as usual viewers in all of North America will be able to watch the show live on HDNet.
As an added bonus, fans will be able to watch Thursday’s weigh-ins live online for the first time (at 12:30 p.m. MT).
The 28-year-old Ford is back the MFC ring for the second time since his returning to the organization after a stint in the cross-town rival promotion The Fight Club. Only this time, the Edmonton fighter is coming off a loss to Douglas Lima, which he in part attributes to the whole atmosphere of coming back to the promotion that built him into a huge star and big crowd draw.
“It was a little distracting,” Ford admitted. “Even my coach (Adam Zugec) said to me after the fight, ‘I kind of thought you were unsure of yourself, I think it got to you a little bit.’ I guess yeah it did.”
Ford also said the “bright lights” led to a bad approach against Lima, who thanks to the victory will be fighting for the welterweight belt against Jesse Juarez in the show’s main event.
“I beat myself in that fight,” Ford said. “I knew what was going to happen and what he was going to try to do. I think I gave him too much respect and was thinking instead of fighting.”
Ford doesn’t expect to have any such issues against the veteran Spratt, whom he beat by surprising rear naked choke in only his fifth career appearance nearly three years ago.
“I expect to dominate from start to finish way more than the first time,” Ford said. “He wanted this rematch so I’m going to give it to him, and when I say give it to him, I mean give it to him.
“He fought me when I was coming off four fights. Now I’ve got 10 fights and have actually been training with a real camp for two-and-a-half years. The only thing I've seen changed with him is he’s gotten older.”
Ford will have one other distraction soon. His wife Nina is pregnant with their second child, a boy due on Jan. 1.
“It’s going to be either an late Christmas present or a New Year’s present,” Ford beamed.
