By Mark Daniels
Boston Herald
The roller-coaster that’s been Josh Grispi’s MMA career is at a standstill.
The 24-year-old Plympton native was released by the UFC last week after losing to Andy Ogle at “UFC on Fuel TV 7.” The loss dropped the featherweight to 0-4 in the UFC and left him looking for answers.
According to his coach, Scott Lockhart, of South Shore Sportfighting, Grispi is unsure if he’ll resume his career.
“I think he will,” Lockhart told the Herald. “Right afterwards he was saying, ‘I’m done. I’m done.’ But he has been back in the gym a couple of times. Now it’s turned into, ‘Yeah, maybe.'”
The loss to Ogle was a tough pill to swallow. In the first round, Grispi had Ogle locked up in a triangle choke for 2:42 of the five-minute frame. He looked close to his first UFC win, but Ogle overcame the adversity and went on to win a unanimous decision.
“(Grispi) said after the fight, ‘I never felt better. I was never gassed.’ I don’t know, it just didn’t go his way,” Lockhart said. “When he couldn’t finish that first triangle, I think it was just enough to take that edge off of him and take a little bit of energy out of him. (Expletive) happens.”
It hasn’t been easy for Grispi, who first got the taste of the limelight in the WEC when he was 19 years old. He won his first four fights with the organization and was labeled as an underdog. When the WEC merged with the UFC, he was awarded a title shot against Jose Aldo.
The title shot never happened, and Grispi lost the first four bouts he was afforded.
UFC lightweight Joe Lauzon, who’s trained with Grispi on and off, said the 145-pounder looked good in his last fight camp, but will have to improve in the mental aspect of MMA.
“A big thing with Josh is he has to be confident in himself,” Lauzon said. “I felt like he’s coming off a couple losses and it’s tough to go from being the kid that everyone locally is terrified of and having so much confidence to know where you lose a couple in a row. He lost to good guys, but it’s tough to go from a guy who everyone is scared of, to a guy who has lost a couple in a row.”
At 24, Grispi has plenty of time to work out his kinks and get another opportunity. Many local fighters, including John Howard, Chuck O’Neil and Marcus Davis, have been able to stay active on the New England scene.
“I’d like to see him get some fights around here because I think it’s more of a mental thing,” Lockhart said. “He was on a roll until that title shot fell through. I think that was the first time where people weren’t like, ‘Hey who’s this kid? He’s the underdog’ to ‘Oh, this kid is the next big thing, he’s going to kill everybody.’ That might have had an impact. I could see him back in there.”
Lauzon agrees and says ultimately it’s up to Grispi.
“I think it’ll be a case where you give him a few fights locally and (UFC) will bring him back,” Lauzon said. “He’s got a super exciting style. He comes out trying to hurt people. I think we’ll see him back. It’s kind of if he has the motivation and he wants to get back in there. If he has a fire lit under his ass and he wants to smash a couple local guys and get back there.”
An unkind cut for Lauzon
Lauzon’s on the road to recovery, but it hasn’t been easy.
The East Bridgewater native was medically suspended 60 days after his Dec. 29 loss to Jim Miller in UFC 155. He suffered three cuts and received 40 stitches. He’s been getting treatment on the biggest cut, near his right eye, to hopefully avoid reopening it.
“It’s a little frustrating. I’ve been training. I’ve been boxing hitting mitts, lifting. I’ve been able to grapple a tiny little bit, but there’s a bunch of scar tissue all underneath,” Lauzon said. “At first, it was as hard as a rock. I’ve been getting Graston (Technique therapy) and basically what they do, they take a medal tool and they scrape at it. They’re not cutting me. They’re scraping it over and over and over and you slowly breakdown the scar tissue and it’ll all go away.”
Though his medical suspension ended last week, Lauzon is erring on the side of caution. The worst case scenario is that he rushes back too soon and splits his cut open again. Then, he’d be forced to see a plastic surgeon and start the recovery process over.
Typically, the 28-year-old likes to have a three-month fight camp. But because he’s been active and his cardio is solid, Lauzon said as soon as he’s comfortable with his healing, he thinks he could fight 6-8 weeks later.
Ideally, he’s like to fight by June to set up another fight this fall when the UFC may possibly return to Boston.
“The UFC is talking about coming back to Boston this year, so that would be awesome,” Lauzon said. “I don’t think they’ll come in the summer again. I think they missed a huge population with all the college kids that were home during the summer. I think it’d be the fall. But I’d rather fight sooner than later so I can fight again when they come back in the fall. If I’d make a rough guess on timeline I’d say maybe June … but who knows.” . . .
Methuen’s Jimmy Quinlan is slated to fight Clint Hester on Tuesday’s episode of “The Ultimate Fighter 17” on FX.
(c) 2013 the Boston Herald
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