QuickQuote: Kenny Florian on Grey Maynard: "cocky, lives in non-realistic world"
UFC 118 will be the most important card to the LW divison in a very long time. But not only because of the fight between BJ Penn and Frankie Edgar. In my opinon the fight between Grey “The Bully” Maynard and Kenny “kenflo” is the co-main event of the evening. But with the fight card rapdily approaching fighters have entered “hype mode” and have been promoting their fights like crazy. Kenflo is no acception, he had the following to say on Maynard:
“One thing that needs to be made clear is Gray’s the one who asked for this fight. He’s the one that called out the winner of our fight,” Florian said about his fight with Takanori Gomi when appearing on MMAWeekly Radio.
“He was pretty quiet as far as wanting to get the belt at first, seems like he didn’t want to fight B.J. or Frankie or whatever, and then all of a sudden when Frankie won it seems like he started to get real cocky, or started trying to make a name for himself. I don’t know, it seems like he got cocky over night, all of a sudden.”
“It’s motivating for me. I don’t see any reason for him to be cocky. He’s had decisions over guys. He hasn’t finished anyone of note. He’s squeaking by on these decisions, yet he’s talking like he’s already a world champion.
“I don’t really understand where the cockiness is coming from. In those decisions he had against Roger Huerta, I thought he probably won it, against Nate Diaz, he barely won it, but I could have seen it going the other way. So these are fights to me, I don’t think he was very impressive.”
“Maybe it’s because he feels obviously he has a win over Frankie, but it just seems like he got very verbal and very cocky, so I’m looking forward to going out there and fighting him. I think he’s fought tough guys, but he hasn’t fought anybody like me. I think he’s looking past me. I think he thinks he’s already going to fight for the title or he’s already won the title.”
“Sometimes we try to talk to ourselves and make us believe that we’re something that we’re not. That’s what I call believing the hype, and believing your own hype.”
“I fell victim to it, and you live in this kind of a non-realistic world. You start believing what people are telling you, you start walking around with a chip on your shoulder, and maybe you feel you don’t get the respect. So you start talking things up and you try to make things bigger, and convince yourself ‘oh I’ve faced a guy like this before, I’m undefeated, and no one’s done anything to me before.’
“Maybe that is the case, maybe he is that confident, but when I see a change in human behavior like that, going from being quiet to being outspoken and saying these cocky things, I think it’s a matter of him trying to get him to believe a certain thing, more than him really believing it.”
HT: mmaweekly.com
