Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson's UFC 143 Blog: Week 1

Being a fan I was surprised and saddened by the numbers that came in from the last Strikeforce show which saw Luke Rockhold successfully defend his middleweight title against Keith Jardine. I can't imagine the organization lasting much longer than a year with numbers like that. We've already seen a lot of the big name guys make their way
over to the UFC.

In keeping with the Strikeforce theme for the second time in two months one of their fighters tested positive for steroids. In December Cris "Cyborg" Santos tested positive after defending her women's featherweight title against Hiroko Yamanaka and this past week "King" Mo Lawal also was found to have tested for performance enhancing drugs. That's another nail in the coffin for Strikeforce. Using steroids is cheating and giving you an unfair advantage over your opponent. Go out there and use what God have you and do it the honorable way. I think it makes your whole team look bad.

I'm super excited to be fighting on UFC 143. The main event is going to be sick. Both Condit and Diaz are great strikers, but for me it's the attitude and the way you present yourself that determines whether I like you or not. I want Condit to win just because he is very respectful in and out of the cage. I look at Diaz and I see a punk with some fighting skills, but they are both very good at what they do. The caliber of fighters both of those guys are makes it hard to determine who is going to win that fight. If I like a fighter it's because he's respectful of the martial arts, not the guy who gives the sport a bad name.

I was recently made aware of a reality show on MTV called Caged. It centers on a group of kids just out of high school who fight for a local promotion. It focuses more on their lives outside of the cage than inside of it and doesn't really tell the story of what MMA is about. Most of the guys say they want to be MMA fighters, but the way they train, the way they represent themselves, it's just not the right way to go about it. The one guy was two days away from a fight and was drinking beer and he wonders why he had a tough time cutting weight? There is one fighter named Danger who seems like he has his head on straight and is taking things seriously. He looks fairly decent, like he could go somewhere. No matter what you choose to do in life whether it's working in a hospital or being a garbage man you have to give it your all, that's my philosophy.

When I'm not training I really love to spend my free time with my family. I love hanging out with them. I love going to movies it takes my mind off of everything. It takes my mind off all of the hype and calms my nerves. It puts me in a different world; I'm big into sci-fi and action movies. There are some really good movies coming out. The new Underworld movie is coming out; this is the third one in the series. Of course there is the Gina Carano movie coming out and I am excited about seeing that. For those of you who haven't had a chance check out the MMA movie Warrior, you'll enjoy the action in that one.

That's it for this week to keep up with what I am doing follow me on twitter @wonderboymma. You can check out my gym at pitchblackmma.com and upstatekarate.com, they are both family owned.

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