When Tim Hague was recently asked by MMACanada.net his thoughts on Matt Mitrione, the big Canadian shied away from openly criticizing his opponent on Saturday night at Fight for the Troops 2."I don't want to criticize the guy because he's 3-0 in the UFC," he said, "but there's just a couple of things I've picked up on that I think I can exploit. I don't really want to put him out there too much, but I think I can get the victory."
Not the harshest pre-fight trash talk you've ever heard, right?
Well, when we played the clip for Mitrione on Wednesday's episode of The MMA Hour, it seemed to light a fire under the former NFL lineman.
"I think he's right. I've got a tremendous amount of holes in my game and someone's going to have to exploit them sooner or later," Mitrione said during his "Mitrione Minute" segment.
"I welcome anyone to come show me the holes in my game, and if they do, good for them because there's a really good chance when they try to show the holes in my game, I'm going to punch them right in the face and then their whole game plan will go right out the window because people don't punch like I do, people don't move like I do and people don't land hits like I do.
"So you take that all into consideration and on top of that I fight southie and on top of that I'm probably the most athletic person you've ever touched in your life, next to "Berry" [Pat Barry] then good luck. I wish him luck, bro. And I know he probably thinks he can get me down to the ground, probably thinks I'm not too active on the ground, probably thinks I fight with my chin up and my hands low, but if that comes about and he takes advantage of it, then good for him. But I think I'm going to punch him in his face and make him go to sleep."
Mitrione has defeated Marcus Jones, Kimbo Slice and Joey Beltran in the UFC. Hague (12-4) is getting a third crack in the UFC. He is 1-3 inside the Octagon.
(Editor's note: watch "The Mitrione Minute," featuring cameos by Barry, Hague and Melvin Guillard above.)
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