This past Saturday night, Sept. 19, 2009, Frank Trigg made his first Octagon appearance in four years. Unfortunately for him, Josh Koscheck sent him to the canvas early with a big right hand, followed it up with more punches, and forced the referee to step in at 1:25 of the first round for the TKO. Trigg started off aggressive and was doing good. One small mistake was all it took.
Trigg was a guest on “It’s Time with Bruce Buffer” Tuesday to talk about what went wrong.
“Obviously with Josh, he was better than me on Saturday night,” said Trigg. “That’s just how it is. Now I have to move on and try to get a win. Hopefully in my next fight I can get a win and then we’ll be able to step myself back in and try to fight myself back into that space where I can start fighting top ten guys again and hopefully get back in the title hunt.”
Make no mistake, Trigg is a competitor. He still wants that title. “I don’t really see a point in fighting if you’re not going to be getting the title, holding the title, or defending the title,” Trigg stated. “If you’re not doing one of those three things, why are you fighting?”
He broke down exactly what happened in the fight from his point of view. “I came out a lot faster. I came out a lot quicker. I controlled the pace. I was controlling where we were going in the Octagon,” he said. “I actually put him in the corner where is right where we wanted to be. I wanted to have him up against the cage and have him up against a little bit of panic and a little bit of duress.”
Few fighters seem to have the ability to step back and assess their own skill level and performance and be as candid and open about it as Trigg. He described what happened next.
“A couple of things happened. Josh, being very very smart and very very wise, side-stepped out away from my left hand and stepped off to his left, which moves to my right as I’m facing him, and moves him away from my power left, so it caused me to have to stall my left,” explained Trigg.
“At the same time, I stepped forward and stepped on his foot. So now I’m standing on his foot at the same time he’s stepping away and I lose my standing, I lose my balance a little bit against the canvas. He’s very very quick, very very fast, and very very mobile. So when he side steps, I’m a blink of an eye behind him a little bit and he gets out of my view so I have to turn my body to try and re-acquaint myself and get myself back square with him again so we can start to battle again. And when I’m squaring up with him he throws a nice big heavy straight right hand that catches me right dead in the chin that puts me down on the canvas.”
UFC commentators Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg thought maybe the fight was stopped a bit early. Trigg also thought it was stopped a bit early and explained most of the shots that Koscheck threw at him while on the ground missed. However, Trigg went on to say he doesn’t blame the referee.
One prominent MMA website posted an article that stated the UFC was not having Trigg back for another fight and he was all but retired. As usual, many other MMA sites posted the regurgitated information without confirming a word of it.
According to Trigg, he will be back in the UFC. “As far as I know, they’re going to have me back. They’re definitely going to have me back for at least one more,” Trigg said. “There were some media reports out there that they were going to let me go, but I was assured that I’m OK and it’s just going to be a little bit before I come back in there.”
Ever the warrior, Trigg wants to get back in there as soon as possible. There are a couple of Vegas cards coming up he would like to fight on and he also expressed interest in possibly fighting on next year’s rumored Australia card.
Love him or hate him, if you know anything about Trigg at all, you have to respect his honesty and candidness, especially when talking about himself and assessing his own skills and performance.
Trigg knows he is winding down his fighting career, but when it comes time to hang up the gloves, it is likely he will always be involved with MMA either as a commentator, radio host, or in some other aspect. “I am one of the lucky few. I do have a couple of things I can fall back on once the career is over,” said Trigg.
Like Guy Mezger and Bas Rutten before him, Trigg is one of the greats who have not only helped to pave the way, but will go on to support and help further the sport’s growth long after battling the world’s toughest fighters inside the cage.
By: Jack Bratcher