Jon Fitch – On Fatherhood and Fighting

Posted by MMA-Heat in MMA , News | 0 comments

As a perennial contender in the UFC's welterweight division, Jon Fitch always has plenty of eyes on him. On Saturday night, when he battles Erick Silva in UFC 153 main card action, the two most important ones will belong to the fighter's newest fan, his son Mason, who Fitch and his wife Michelle welcomed into the world in February.

The arrival of the newest Fitch, a life-altering event any way you slice it, was also a rebirth of sorts for the 34-year-old father, who could count the birth of his son as the day when one of the most discouraging 12 month periods of his career ended.

In the year preceding Mason's birth, Fitch had battled to a disappointing draw with BJ Penn at UFC 127, underwent shoulder surgery, then got shockingly knocked out in 12 seconds by Johny Hendricks at UFC 141, a bout he entered with a second degree tear in his MCL.

"I didn't get to wrestle, didn't get to grapple the whole time," said Fitch of the lead-up to the Hendricks fight last December. "I just boxed and did cardio, that was it. I know I should have pulled out and postponed the fight, but even if my leg would have been broken or cut off, I would have walked into the cage that night. I'm strong headed and I still believed I was going to be able to win the fight with one leg.

It's an attitude Fitch was born with, and one honed by years of wrestling in high school and then Purdue University. If you can walk, you can fight. If you can't walk, crawl. Then you can fight.

"As a wrestler, you push through injuries, push through pain, and you forget sometimes what you are capable of because you are being held back by physical limitations," said Fitch, who finally paid the price for his stubbornness against Hendricks. But when you couple the birth of his son with a nice long break to heal up and get back to one hundred percent, Fitch is finally back to feeling like himself again.

"My body's been kind of broken over the last year and a half and this is the first time I've really been healthy in that time. I haven't really felt like this in a long time."

He pauses.

"This is the first time I've been able to kick in over a year."

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