The fight where Rich Franklin mentally broke
Rich Franklin: “I ended up in the worst situation I could have been in and I mentally broke. I just said, ‘I’m gonna lose this fight.'”
Former UFC middleweight champion and current ONE FC VP Rich Franklin recently spoke with The Philippines’ Sports Desk, and related the time he broke in a fight. It is not what you think – it wasn’t vs. Anderson Silva.
“I always talk about a fight that most people don’t bring up, it’s when I fought Travis Lutter in Montreal,” said Franklin as transcribed by Jesse Holland for MMAMania. “Basically in the fight I had all the answers I needed (to win) but it was just failed execution at every point. I ended up in the worst possible scenario that I could have been in. This fight was probably my worst winning performance.
“I ended up in the worst situation I could have been in and I mentally broke. I just said, ‘I’m gonna lose this fight.’ I found a way out of the situation and I ended up winning the fight, but it’s one of those fights that showed me who I really was as a fighter, that I had the mentality of a champion. When you’re really tested, that’s what shows you who you are as a person.”