Roy Nelson, Shonie Carter -- they're all clearly interested in pursuing a career in World Wrestling Entertainment.Matt Mitrione, on the other hand, is not. And quite frankly, he isn't sure why you think he is.
A rumor began circulating around the MMA world following Mitrione's win over Joey Beltran at UFC 119 that the former NFL player turned MMA fighter was going to cut short his promising fighting career to pursue a life as pro wrestler.
Not so, says Mitrione.
"That's such a weird situation that my name got thrown in the mix, and then after that, that Pat Barry's name got thrown in the mix," Mitirone said on Monday's episode of The MMA Hour. "Like, why is my training camp getting assaulted by the WWF people, man?"
When reminded that the current name of the wrestling promotion is WWE, not WWF, Mitrione said:
"I would much rather be leaving the UFC to go to the [World] Wildlife Foundation (ed. note: it's actually called the World Wildlife Fund) than I would be to pseudo-fighters."
Mitrione said he had no idea who started the rumor of his career change.
"It might be all the dramatics I put on the show, plus I am kind of a weird cat," he hypothesized. "I don't know, man.
" ... But I will tell you this much: I think Pat Barry and I would make one hell of a tag team wherever we're going," Mitrione said jokingly.
Mitrione (3-0) is scheduled to face a returning Tim Hague (12-4) at UFC Fight for the Troops 2 on January 22. After ending his first UFC run on a three-fight losing streak, the Canadian Hague is returning to the Octagon following two wins outside the organization.
Mitrione and Hague are friendly, and they weren't on each other's radars, but "Meathead" isn't ready to start picking and choosing his fights at this point in his career.
"I'm not in a situation or place where I can tell or ask for anyone in any kind of ranking. The fact that they are even giving me another fight is something I'm so flattered by. So I haven't really thought about asking for people. I think I could have been putting the cart a little bit ahead of my horse last time when I said, you know, There's some people that I would really like to fight, but I don't know if I was really ready for them at that time."
Check out Mitrione's appearance on The MMA Hour below, along with the rest of the two-hour show.
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