Luke Rockhold focused on claiming UFC middleweight belt
LAS VEGAS – Talk to anyone close to Luke Rockhold and you’ll very quickly hear about his athleticism. Clearly, the ex-Strikeforce middleweight champion has great genes.
His father is a former pro basketball player and his brother is a professional surfer. Rockhold himself is good at just about any sport he’s tried.
But it’s not going to be his ability to hit a drive 300 yards down the middle of a tight fairway, or drain 3-pointers, or sprint around a track that will enable him to fulfill his goal of dethroning Chris Weidman on Saturday at UFC 194 at the MGM Grand to win the middleweight title.
“I’m ready to fight,” Rockhold said, simply. “I’m ready to take this belt.”
He’s long been one of the top middleweights in the world, even if he didn’t always get recognized for it. It clearly still burns him that despite all of his success in Strikeforce, both before and after Zuffa bought it, he was never given the respect he felt he’d earned.
“It feels good to be credited for your work and what you do, what you pride yourself on,” Rockhold said. “For your accomplishments to be beaten down and made less than what they really were, yeah, of course I was [upset]. I came in with a point to prove when I came here. I’m here and I’m here to make another point.
“People still look at my biggest win as my last win, Lyoto Machida. They don’t realize that my fights with Tim Kennedy and Jacare [Souza], those fights were much tougher for me than anything I’ve faced thus far [in the UFC]. I got nothing for that. So, one more point to prove and one more statement to make. It’s going to come Saturday night. I’m the better middleweight.”
Now, fighters are notorious for believing they’re not being credited. For at least the last five years, most in the media have regarded Rockhold as one of the two or three best middleweights in the world, as well as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the sport.
But if it motivates him to feel like everyone is against him or no one gives him credit, then there’s no reason to change. Things have worked perfectly the way he’s gone about them.
His only loss came in his UFC debut in 2013 when he was knocked out by a Vitor Belfort kick to the head. Rockhold has been outspoken that he believes Belfort has been artificially enhanced and, as such, discounts that loss.
Weidman, too, accused Belfort of cheating before their fight in May. Weidman is normally imperturbable, but lost his cool at the weigh-in before UFC 187, confronting Belfort about high testosterone scores.
A motivated Weidman stopped Belfort the next night.
Rockhold has tried to put the loss to Belfort in the past. He sees himself as a winner and that defeat doesn’t jibe with his image of himself.
He can forever push it out of his mind by beating Weidman, who is 13-0 and ranked third on the UFC.com pound-for-pound list.
Rockhold said fighting is about being relaxed, but clearly things are starting to build between them. He spoke of that at the final news conference Wednesday at the MGM Grand.
“There’s always been mutual respect between me and Chris, but this is the world title,” he said. “This is about taking food off another man’s plate. He’s got kids to feed and I got a statement to make. This is everything, everything we’ve worked for our whole lives. You’re in the gym torturing yourself day to day, and you have to pick yourself up. You know there’s another man trying to take this from you, what you’ve earned, what you’ve worked for your whole life.
“Obviously, tensions build as your focus gets closer. We realize what’s on the line. We’re the best two middleweights in the world. You guys are in for a show.”
It’s a rare day when the widely acclaimed Nos. 1 and 2 in their division, both at their physical peaks, meet for the championship.
And Rockhold believes his athletic ability and his talent for being able to change gears on the fly will be the difference.
“Adjustments are everything; adjustments are what fighting’s all about,” Rockhold said. “It’s about who can make those switches, who’s the A, the B, the C, and the backup plan, because you know, things don’t always work out the way you see them sometimes. For the most part they do for me. I’ve seen this fight play out many, many times over the years, and I haven’t really had to do too much homework. I adjust well. I stay relaxed. I stay focused.
“We’ve all seen with Chris that he gets frustrated when you hit him, when things don’t go his way. He sacks up, he fights with his [heart]. Good for him, [because] it’s gotten him by to a certain point, but it’s about to get him in big trouble. He’s got his game plan, but he’s going to get hit. He’ll start to strike, [and] he’ll go from A to B, but he’d better have C, D, before you realize you’re going to have an F and he’s going to fail.”
