People always ask me, what do we do that’s so different in Bridgewater? To be honest, we aren’t DOING anything all that different… but the people involved care so much about the outcome that great things happen.
This whole thing started for me about 12 years ago by Joe Pomfret. He was the beginning… he laid the foundation that we would all build upon. He gave us 100% in everything and was always there to not only help us but improve himself whenever we found something useful. Always keeping an open mind… that was the cornerstone of everything we did. Several years later, we added in Steve Maze as a boxing coach shortly before my first fight in the UFC. Steve Baccari slowly worked in to help oversee all things involving violence, Kyle Holland has been around for a few years now to help with Strength and Conditioning and Ricky Lundell has been the newest grappling addition in my last couple fights. Add in more dedicated training partners than you can shake a stick at, and you are in for a VERY tough fight against any of us.
Everyone involved… are all great in their own ways… but I don’t need to tell you about how great they are technically. This is more about how tight of a group we have all become. There is a 99 Restaurant right around the corner from my gym, and we always go in there for dinner and joke about stealing the sign they have on the wall that says “Our Team is like Family.” It sounds hokey, but its true. We have a SUPER tight group that bends over backwards to help each other out.
When you have guys that can’t sleep at night, because they are so focused on winning… great things happen.
Last night, for all of us, was no exception. I fought the fight of my life against a super tough opponent in Jamie Varner… on FOX. Not some spin off channel or anything like that… but actual FOX. Primetime. Millions of people watching at home and I pulled off a crazy submission in third round. For weeks, my mom has been telling me “You go out there and pull something out of your ass!” So that’s what I did.
Jamie Varner and I had the Fight of the Night and I won the submission of the night with a pretty slick triangle choke. I am now leading the UFC for “of the night” bonuses… having won 11 in 13 fights. The next closest guys are Chris Lytle (has won 10 bonuses in 20 fights and recently retired) and Anderson Silva (9 bonuses in 15 Fights). I’m sure it will hit me at some point this week how big of a deal this all was… but for now I am going to just enjoy it. The one thing I know… is that I couldn’t have done any of it without my team.
