“It took a longer time for me to get over the Shields fight, honestly. It’s harder to forgive yourself than the judges,” Kampmann said. “The Diego fight, I think I won that. Everybody who saw it thought I won. I got a lot of support from people after that. But the Shields fight, I was mad at myself.”

Mad, Kampmann said, because in his view he “fought a terrible fight,” and at the worst possible time. When they met at UFC 121 in October of 2010, Shields was making his UFC debut after a 14-fight winning streak that saw him capture the Strikeforce middleweight title before defecting to the UFC. A victory over him then might have been the biggest of Kampmann’s career, and possibly vaulted him into a title shot against UFC welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre.

Instead, Shields got the nod from two of the three judges that night, and went on the face GSP for the belt the following spring. Kampmann, meanwhile, had plenty of time to beat himself up over what might have been.

“I didn’t fight smart at all,” he said. “I was more disappointed with myself than anything, even though you could make an argument for me winning the fight because he was just humping my leg.”

read entire article…