Griffin accepts reality as career enters final chapter

He’s a former policeman, a reality TV star, a published author and a mixed martial artist of some repute. But popular UFC light-heavyweight Forrest Griffin is also, as he puts it, “a painful realist.”

This week, in the latest instalment of his fascinating UFC 134 blog, Griffin did what many fighters find impossible: he accepted his own mortality.

With the sort of brutal honesty for which he is renowned, the Ohio native admitted for the first time that his career is in decline:

“It quit being fun when I realized I wasn’t getting better. I’m plateauing or almost getting worse sometimes. One of the essential elements to have in this is your perceived expectation of the future, and I’m a painful realist, so I realized that I’m not going to get better; this is it. It’s only gonna get worse from here on and you fight as much as you can, you fight until you don’t have it anymore, and then you fight a couple more times after that.”

The last line is particularly striking.

In the past year, fan favourites such as Chuck Liddell and Wanderlei Silva have effectively been retired by UFC boss Dana White after painful losing streaks. Despite their protestations to the contrary, White felt that their best days in the Octagon were long gone, fearing that their bravery would result in permanent damage.

Boxing too is littered with fighters who refuse to accept the inevitable. Some of the sport’s biggest names such as Roy Jones, Jr. and Evander Holyfield plough on despite their advancing years.

Both are mere shadows of their former selves but remain convinced that they can still reach the heights they scaled previously in their illustrious careers.

Jones and Holyfield have claimed many big-name scalps, but in the battle with Old Father Time, there is only one winner. Pundits and fans accuse them of tarnishing their legacies by continuing to pursue a goal which is becoming increasingly unreachable.

Forrest Griffin seems unlikely to follow their lead.

Too often a fighter will trot out well-worn clichés about a “great training camp” and being in “the best shape of their career” before a contest.

There will doubtless be some sports psychologists out there who will claim that Griffin’s brand of honesty borders on defeatism; merely playing into the  hands of his opponent on Saturday, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua.

Rather, Griffin should be respected for having the honesty and the perspective to evaluate his abilities in the cold light of day.

It’s the same honesty in the Octagon that has endeared him to millions of UFC fans. They appreciate the feats of a man who’s given them such notable wars with Stephan Bonnar, Tito Ortiz and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson amongst others.

Through hard work and determination, Forrest Griffin has earned his reputation as a true warrior of the sport, a fighter unafraid to go toe-to-toe with anyone the UFC puts in front of him.

So if Mauricio Rua thinks that he’s given up already, then he should definitely think again.

Ralph Welch

Twitter: @ralphwelch