UFC 106 interview: Koscheck willing to take risks to get title shot

Clark Kent

<B>News Bot</B>
Joined
Sep 11, 2006
Messages
7,128
Reaction score
6
11-20-2009 05:15 PM:

Josh Koscheck is a promoter's dream. He'll fight anyone, anytime, even with less than eight weeks to prepare for a fight. When the UFC needed a major fight to fill the gap left by Brock Lesnar at UFC 106, matchmaker Joe Silva brainstormed and came up with an excellent fight featuring Koscheck against Anthony Johnson. Frankly, Kos should've said no unless he was guaranteed a UFC welterweight title shot with a win. But he didn't do that and he's taking all the risk against a guy who's biggest wins have come against Yoshiyuki Yoshida, Kevin Burns and Luigi Fioravanti. Koscheck (13-4, 11-4 UFC) was originally scheduled to fight Michael Pierce at Ultimate Fight Night 20 in January. He took that fight which was even more of lose-lose situation but jumped at the chance to get on this card on pay-per-view.

"The 106 card was falling apart and pretty [expletive]. I told Bob [Cook, Koscheck's trainer/manager], 'you know Bob, call Joe Silva and see if there's a chance we can get on that card and fight anybody.'"

That was only five weeks away from the fight card. Koscheck said at anytime he's just three weeks of training from being ready to fight. Koscheck wants to test Johnson's heart. He has some doubts after seeing Johnson (8-2, 5-2 UFC) tap back in 2007 at UFC 76 against Rich Clementi, who is now fighting down at 155 pounds.

If he gets the win, Koscheck says he deserves the title over Dan Hardy, who beat his teammate Mike Swick last week at UFC 105. He also said he's done talking about a potential Matt Hughes fight, saying the former champ "doesn't want to get his *** whipped by a kid."



More...
Yahoo! Sports.
Cagewriter is an MMA blog edited by Steve Cofield.
 

Latest Discussions

Top