Jens Pulver’s WEC Blog – Week Three

By Jens Pulver

Fight week. Right now everything’s about just trying to get through everything and having positive days. Basically, that’s trying to have the kind of workouts where you walk out of there positive. Sometimes when you’re training you have good days and bad days and all in between, so it’s just one of those things where you make sure the last couple of days are good days. And things have been going good – I’m just ready to get out there and get this going.

No matter how long I’ve been doing this though, there are always butterflies, and it never gets easy. I’ve set high standards on myself, which are higher than they probably are, a lot of people of watching and supporting me, and I don’t want to let them down. I carry a lot of weight on my shoulders with that stuff, so it’s just one of those things where I get butterflies every time. It lets me know I still want to be in there.

As for the fight itself, being able to go into a fight is a day off. I only have to train for 15 minutes? Cool. Compared to the six to eight hours I’m doing now, that’s vacation time. I’m actually gonna get punched on by somebody my own weight rather than the 165-170 pounders – Neer, and Spencer, Junior and the rest of them. It’s the same thing with the grappling. I don’t have to grapple for two hours straight. I get to go for 15 minutes, so I’m excited.

Last week I watched the Outside the Cage show on VERSUS, and I thought they did a real good job on everybody, and it was fun to watch. When it comes to Cub’s segment, it’s nothing new. He’s fired up and he should be – he’s 24 years old, only lost his very first fight, and he has it all mapped out and all figured out according to him. That’s called confidence and you’re supposed to have that. That’s why you go to a good camp and why you have the coaches that you have, and why you do what you do. I don’t expect him not to have confidence, but the whole knee thing, that bothered me to the point it made me mad. I was watching it and I said why can’t I just have a fight where it’s just good down home competition? Why does there always have to be animosity? I don’t have to be angry to hit this guy as hard as I can.

Anyway, so the guy thinks I ducked him. I have just been pounded out and I ain’t ever ducked nobody. They tell me to fight and I fight. I almost want to bring him the MRI. But the reason I didn’t have to get surgery is because I didn’t tear my meniscus. The meniscus is what doesn’t heal. The ligament, with a partial tear, heals in six to eight weeks. Look at when I pulled out, and look at when I picked to fight – in December – and that’s plenty of time for it to heal, and I knew it. Was I gonna be 100 percent in the beginning of training? No, but I wasn’t gonna wait until next year. I’m tired of waiting. I’ve fought twice in almost two years and that’s just too long. That’s like retirement, and I hate that. So I couldn’t wait any longer – this has been long enough.

And when it comes to all this bad blood, I don’t need that stuff to push me - I’m already pushed. I don’t need that and I don’t even want that. The pressure that I put on myself is what’s gonna push me. The fans, my family, my coaches, my corner, that’s pressure enough. I don’t need anger and animosity because I’m still gonna fight you 120 percent. Look at me and Stephen Palling. We walked out of that thing the best of friends and he’s like a soul brother to me now, but we beat each other up so bad it wasn’t funny. I don’t hate (Takanori) Gomi and we whaled on each other. I love (Hayato) Sakurai – that guy put me in the hospital. Of course he scratched my eye out, but that fight was nasty too. My best fights didn’t need that.

So with everything else out of the way, now all that’s left is Wednesday night. You know Cub’s gonna come forward. And you know I’m gonna come forward. I don’t even know how to go backwards. So here comes two trains - let’s see who gets knocked off the tracks. There’s been a lot of buildup, a lot of hype, and deservedly so. The fans are gonna see a great fight no matter how long it goes. If I can, I want to get it done early; if it goes all 15, so what. But either way, I’m looking to make a highlight reel, without me on the receiving end, and everyone can expect a great fight. Welcome to the world of 145.