Jens Pulver's Blog on Last Nights Episode

[Ramma]

Courtesy of the UFC and Spike TV, Jens Pulver and InsideFighting receive a copy of each week’s episode of "The Ultimate Fighter 5" before it airs. Jens then provides InsideFighting readers with his reaction to the episode in his coach's blog which is immediately posted online after the show is done airing every Thursday night.


Matching up Geraghty and Lauzon

We made the match up because Brian was real confident. He felt it was a good match up for him. The match up wasn’t a bad match up at all. My eyes were just opened by Joe Lauzon. This kid just goes after it.

I told Geraghty that if you are in the guard you either keep him close or you keep him away. You can’t let him rain big hard shots, you have to roll up. There are no kicks and no knees allowed to the head on the ground, you are safe there. You can’t let him load up with big elbows. Geraghty got caught with one big elbow and that’s what got him. Even though he moved around after that, he was out after that elbow.


“Forget that he hit me”- Jens Pulver to Brian Geraghty before the fight with Lauzon

I told Geraghty “try not to think about what he did and who he beat in his last fight. Don’t sit there and worry, don’t let that play in your head. Get out there and get after him.”

Geraghty is real good, he is well rounded and has a good ground game. I kept on telling him, “this guys is going to come at you hard straight off” but you can only tell somebody so often.

Hey, it got me too. I can’t be a hypocrite and act like I handled Joe well myself. Hat’s off to Joe. He’s a tough fighter. Getting to watch him fight, seeing how he conducts himself on the show, it was a little easier, a little more bearable that I lost to him because he’s a respectful kid who does work hard and takes his fights very seriously. Good guy, real good fighter.

The reason I told Geraghty to forget about Joe beating me was because nobody wants to go out there without belief in their camp, coach and corner. So I wanted to tell him I know its there, on everybody’s mind that “he beat your coach” but the bottom line was that in order for him to be confident he needed to look past it. Don’t go in there with the mind set that what you are getting is inferior. We know what we are doing, you’ve been doing good work and you are ready.

On being on the show with Lauzon after fighting him

It wasn’t too awkward only because, what can I do? I can’t sit there and harbor it. I know that I don’t suck. That fight happened and I can’t sit there and condemn him. In my fighting career I’ve had wins and losses and I can’t dwell on them.

I got to talk to him and he’s a good guy and I have no disrespect towards him. He’s a quiet kid that works his ass off. BJ made a comment during filming about Joe beating me but the thing is you can say things about Joe beating me but you didn’t. So don’t try and steal his thunder.

You have to hand it to Joe. He did have a bull’s eye on him because he already fought in the UFC and beat me quick. But to his credit he still fought extremely hard and aggressive. He didn’t say, “yeah I beat Jens so I’m good to go.” Joe wants a lot more in this sport than that.

Doing the show really showed me that I’ve got to move forward. Yeah it was embarrassing losing to Joe, and I can claim at all day that I was just caught up with being happy to get back to the UFC, but the bottom line is I’ve got to get back and have a great showing against BJ Penn. That’s my opponent, that’s who I’m fighting next.

Would I want a rematch with Joe? I never ask for rematches, I’d love one sure, but I never ask, I want to earn them. I don’t want to sit there and say I deserve it because;

1. Joe’s a hell of a good fighter and a good guy and 2. I was embarrassed period. I’ve got to come back from that.

That’s all I think about now is beating BJ Penn and making a statement. Sometimes if you are falling down a hill all you can do is grab a rock and try to climb back up. That’s what I’m doing right now.

History of the rivalry with Penn

It’s never been outside of the ring, I don’t know him outside the ring. It was just one of those situations where I was the champion when BJ was storming onto the scene at 155-lbs and knocking out every one.

I was set to defend my title as a 6-1 underdog against him, and you start to think “maybe I can’t make it out of the first round.” From the word go you are pitted against him. You know its coming, its all you think about. Every thing is “BJ Penn, BJ Penn” and we were just pinned against each other, made rivals.

Then to have a really close fight like we did where no one dictated the whole fight just added to it. He had his moments, definitely almost got me with the arm bar in the first round, and I had my moments.

At the end of the fight it was a close fight and everyone wants to see it again. But with BJ moving around in weight, winning the welterweight title fighting at middleweight, heavyweight. He’s done crazy and incredible things with career.

I think we’ve always known there would be rematch, when where and how, we didn’t know but we knew it was coming. We knew a rematch was going to come, and here it is. There’s not so much hate between us I think, it’s more that we’ve had to talk about the each other so much that it just makes it that I can’t wait to fight him.

Corey not having any pro fights before the show and lying about it

That was the thing, we knew it, we knew all the time. So our goal was to use as much time as we could to sharpen him up a little. Guys like Nate Diaz said they wanted to work on his ground game with him and others his boxing. So we were like, “lets take two weeks and get him ready.”

He was already in great shape he just needed some time to get some idea. And at this point he has an idea of how he wants to fight and what to look for and what to not look for. And everybody on the team agreed to do this. I never made a decision without everyone agreeing, it was unanimous.

The close decision

I felt Corey won the fight only because neither person was landing enough to be the guy to say “ooh this guy is really putting it on the other” so it came down to ring generalship. For Corey, to be in only his first pro fight and on this stage, I think he did well.

When he did use his jab he had a lot of success and he kept coming forward. Emerson just kept on backing up and counter-punching and he didn’t do enough damage counterpunching to get the decision.

You’ve got to come forward. Oscar De La Hoya is still kicking himself for easing up late in the fight against Trinidad. Judges are going to look at it like this; “why is he backing up? Did Corey hurt him to make him do that?”

Unless you are just wrecking him with counterpunches it might not work for the judges. You are just trying to persuade opinions out there.

This is why I also would have liked to of coached Emerson. He doesn’t believe in his stuff as much as he should. He fights if he is backed into corner but otherwise it’s one kick at a time, back up back up back up, its defensive. It’s effective and will get you through you a decision but like this time it probably will not win you a decision.


Corey’s definitely green but he showed his potential. I always told him and everybody on the team, skills can be learned but heart and willingness to compete and conditioning, you either have them or not, and he has them.

When you are under fire will you throw back or not? When your legs are burning and your lungs are on fire, are you going to fold? Corey won’t and those are the things I like about him.

Source - http://www.insidefighting.com/betwee....aspx?uid=3598