Bryce Teager Fight Week Blog

This week of training went really well for me.  I had a lot of good guys to roll and spar with and I was on my days off, so I got into the gym quite a bit.  I am starting to taper off just a bit so I can peak for my fight.  My body felt pretty beat up at the beginning of the week and towards the end it was still beat up, but starting to feel a little fresher.  Most guys at this time are feeling like absolute dog crap because they eat like Kobayashi (hotdog eating champ) for a few weeks after a fight and then are struggling to cut weight the last couple of weeks.  I really never go more than 15 lbs over my weight class and right now I am weighing about 166.   I haven’t even had to restrict my calories at all yet either.  I feel like as a fighter you should never be hungry unless you are a day or two out.  When you are hungry your body goes into starvation mode and tries to conserve energy (metabolism slows).  Your body may also have to feed on muscle for energy and you will end up looking like TUF vet Corey Hill.  That doesn’t mean you eat as much as you want and whatever you want, but too many guys will starve themselves too far away from fight time.  I even see guys cutting water weight a week out.  Why would you want to be dehydrated for a full week when you could just cut the water the day of weigh-ins?  You won’t see me putting on plastics, trying to sweat buckets unless it is right before the weigh-ins.  The new UFC champ Frankie Edgar walks around just a few pounds over his weight class, so I think that speaks enough for why guys should stay close to their weight class.  Enough with that I will stop ranting about weight cutting now.  However, if you plan on competing against me in the future I hope you don’t listen to me…I really just made all of that up.  You should get in the sauna now and start cutting as much weight as humanly possible.  
 
It has been a long time since I fought for the MCC and I am really excited to fight for one of the best promotions in the Midwest again.  The fans put off a lot of energy and it is always very professional.  The MCC does look out for the fighters too and makes sure that the event is safe, but not so many rules that it isn’t exciting for the fans.  I am going to make the most out of fighting for the MCC too because this could be the last time I fight for a while, win or lose against Cory Simpson.  I have three awesome kids and a wife that need more of my time at home.  I also have a demanding job that I would like to put more of my focus into.  Shit, I could get badly hurt or die at my job if I am not competent enough.  I am just too damn competitive and when I have a fight coming up it consumes me and I lose focus on what really matters.  As I said before, this sport is more of a hobby to me, and even though I take it very seriously when I am getting ready for a fight, it is not my whole life.  My kids are growing up way too damn fast for me to be spending a bunch of time away from them.  So my advice to anybody out there that thinks they want to be a professional fighter is to know coming in that it is going to take a lot of your time and effort if you want to be the best.  A lot of people out there think you can just go into the ring with a couple weeks of prep time and start throwing punches to their opponents grill and get the win.  You can’t go in there as just a street fighter and be successful anymore.  It is like a second job for a lot of us and a full time job for the even more serious guys.  It takes a ton of time to learn all the components of MMA…. Wrestling, kickboxing, BJJ, strength and conditioning, nutrition…etc.  It has to be one of the most time consuming sports just because of all the different things you have to learn.  I don’t want to “Brett Farve” it and say I am retiring, but I am going to wait until my kids get a little older before I step into the cage again.  So expect that I come out strong because I don’t want to go out with a loss.  Whatever the outcome I want it to be fight of the night and want to give the fans their money’s worth.  There are so many great fighters in the MCC that me stepping out for awhile won’t even matter.  There will still be great fights and the sport will keep growing and eventually will be the most popular sport in the world (As long as we as fighters keep fighting to win and don’t fight to not to lose…like Anderson Silva).  So if you are reading this Cory Simpson…I hope your training is going well and I hope you are ready to give the fans what they want to see on April 16th because I don’t want my last fight to be a boring one.  Good luck to you and we will see you in a few days.