Steve Lopez’s left arm felt like a piece of saltwater taffy. Sitting backstage at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, the UFC’s newest lightweight silently suffered while doctors worked to find the best angle for repairing his dislocated shoulder. The first try didn’t take, so they gave it another shot, stretching and pulling the limb in every direction. A few more twists and it finally clicked back into place.

But then, pop! It freed itself from the socket all over again.

“They had to do it a few times before it finally stuck,” says Lopez, who can still recount the incident as if it happened yesterday.

Anyone who witnessed the accident – the result of a seemingly standard left jab – might not have realized the extent of the damage. Lopez immediately conceded in the opening of the second round, but it couldn’t have been that bad. He’d been down this path before; the shoulder was a recurring problem. He even eschewed immediate medical attention to watch opponent Jim Miller have his hand raised in victory.

In truth, the pain was agonizing. “It took everything I had to suck it up and tell myself to deal with things later in the back room,” he says. “I had to keep my game face on – what am I going to do, cry in front of the cameras?”

Tough as nails, he survived the physical pain. More distressing was the mental anguish of dropping his first big fight. An Indiana native who quickly built a 12-1 record in local shows, the 26-year-old had higher hopes for his Octagon debut. He would have even settled for a loss if it had come in any other form.

“Taking the fight on short notice, all I wanted to do was put on a great show,” says Lopez. “I look at it as the Chris Lytle approach – if I could treat it like a brawl and walk away with a Fight of the Night bonus, a win doesn’t necessarily matter. But when a fight ends because of a fluke, it’s another kind of disappointment. I don’t even know what I can take away from it because it’s not like someone grabbed my arm and caused the damage – it happened because I threw a punch. It was my own unintentional undoing.”

Before you assume that his shoulder is now the Achilles’ heel in his game, Lopez warns that surgery and a one-year hiatus have pretty much rendered it a non-issue.

“If I learned one thing about training, it’s to take your injuries seriously,” says Lopez. “The reason things went the way they did in my last fight is probably because I didn’t do the proper rehab on it the first time around. This time I worked with some of the best surgeons and now everything is great.”

With that, Lopez is looking redeem himself on September 25 when he faces Waylon Lowe at UFC 119.

Lowe (also 0-1 in the UFC) will also look to bounce back from a loss – his to The Ultimate Fighter 2 veteran Melvin Guillard at UFC 114. Despite being knocked out with a knee in the first round, the Philly-based fighter still brings eight previous wins in his overall career. The most recent was a first-round KO only five months old.

Lopez isn’t impressed. “He’s a really tough wrestler but I think he’s a little one-dimensional,” he says. “One of the big reasons this is a good match is because we’re both just starting out and coming off of a loss. Otherwise I think I know what type of fighter he is. And even if I’m wrong, I’m ready for anything.”

That level of confidence is largely due to his new training camp, Xtreme Couture. Lopez made the move to Las Vegas in June and says that the opportunity to train with such high-caliber lightweights (the list includes UFC stalwarts Gray Maynard and Tyson Griffin, as well as newcomer Evan Dunham) has helped his game tremendously.

He’s quick to add that he parted ways with his old gym, Midwest Martial Arts, on amicable terms. “We had tough guys at 135 and 185, but that left no one for me to work out with,” he says. “It was all about finding the toughest guys in my weight class, and Couture’s got ‘em.”

Even if his new crew has helped bring him up a level, Lopez knows that he’ll have a hard time proving this to fans. His biggest regret at UFC 103 was not making more of an effort to showcase what was in his arsenal.

“Because of what happened, I didn’t have a chance to go for takedowns or show off any formal technique,” he says. “And I’m not sure if I even wanted to because I wanted to brawl. I don’t really talk about my plan of attack in advance, but I will say that this time you can expect to see some real skill and strategy being executed.”

With the fight being hosted at the Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana, Lopez will also have the home advantage on his side. He’ll have come a long way from time he first tuned into UFC 1 in his living room in South Bend, and he says, “It will mean a lot to have my friends and family see me at a live event there.”

Healthy, happy, and fighting in front of a home crowd, the stage is set for Lopez to do things right this time. An impressive win can potentially excuse his last loss – a chance that many fighters aren’t afforded. But even if it doesn’t, he hopes that you share the same positive take that he does.

If anyone shapes his or her opinion of Lopez based on the Miller fight, he says, “the impression shouldn’t be that I lost, but that I have a high pain tolerance and am always game for any opponent.”

Kind of like his shoulder, just give him another chance to stick.

On his motorcycle accident

“Because it was a clean break, I was told that I could come back and still play ‘full contact sports’ – as the doctor said it. I don’t think he realized the extent of it. (Laughs) But he got the point that I needed to be able to take a really hard shot from really crazy and stupid angles. That was what I asked him. ‘It’s not really normal angles that I’m gonna be getting hit at – it’s really crazy, tweaky angles, something really weird.’ He said, ‘well, as long as it wouldn’t have broken under normal conditions, it should be fine now.’ Basically, what the muscle side saved me from is that my leg would have shattered, broke in several pieces, and then they would have to piece it back together. There would be no chance in hell that I’d ever be able to take a shot there again. The fact that it was a clean break and they were able to put a rod right in between the bone saved it.”

On his motorcycle accident II

“It made me an old man. It gave me a taste of what it’s like to be older. You go back and forth, and some days are better than others. I think anybody who’s had a major accident or major injury realizes that one day you’re full of hope and the next day you’re like ‘this sucks, this is too long of a road, I’m depressed.’ But you have to sit there and go, ‘people have got it a lot worse than you do and they don’t snivel half as bad. Chill out.’ Everybody does that - they feel sorry for themselves at one moment or another and then you just have to catch yourself. I was watching the Science Channel and they were talking about a guy who got his arm blown off. He’s got a mechanical arm now and he’s just happy that he can lift up his baby and hold her. I’m sitting there looking at this guy and going ‘wow, and I’m depressed that I’ve got a metal rod in my leg? What the hell is my problem? I’d be embarrassed if this guy ever heard me talking.’”

Skill is everything

“When I got hit by the car and I realized how frail my body really is – and I’m a strong human being – it just reaffirmed the fact that skill is everything. I’m not always going to be able to jump this high or run this fast – how am I going to be able to beat people if I don’t have this? If I’m weaker, if I’m tinier? Let’s say I go into a fight and I only have one hand – now what am I gonna do? So all it did was show me a glimpse of the future – you’re 25 now, but you’re not always gonna be, so what are you gonna do when we take this away from you? And it was taken away from me. ”

The power of the mind

“I see guys push their strength and push the physical side of their bodies and I look at them and say, ‘that’s not why we’re on top of the food chain.’ They’re like ‘what do you mean?’ An orangutan can rip your head off. You can get (noted strongman) Bill Kazmaier, and a 150-pound orangutan is gonna throw him around the gym. So all that strength and all that training, what good did it do? So why not accentuate what makes humans so dangerous? Your mind. I actually just pushed my mind a step further where it kinda shot my skill level through the ceiling. I was like, ‘you know what? It’s all about skill.’ I don’t care what anybody wants to tell me about being bigger, stronger, faster. You could have cardio that can last three days – if I choke you out in 30 seconds it doesn’t matter how long your cardio lasts.”

The Return

“Everybody asks, ‘can you make it back?’” After a while, I realized that as long as I can pass what the doctors consider physically enough to compete, that’s all I need my body to be to perform and to beat people, because the thing that they’re all missing is that they’re just trying to be bigger, stronger, faster. And that’s not a good thing to have in your confidence because when you walk in the ring and you’re about to fight a human being - I’ve done it, so I know what they’re thinking and what I’m thinking - you have to have something you have pure confidence in. I don’t think size, strength, and power can do that. What if you’re fighting a guy who’s bigger than you, stronger than you? What if you don’t feel that strong that day? What’s your confidence gonna derive from now? I know that my mind gives me the ability to go ‘well, I’ll figure it out.’ So when I walk into the ring, I don’t care what you put in front of me because I know that I’m gonna figure it out.”

On Winning Fights

“I don’t care how I win the fight. I think sometimes a lot of young fighters get stuck in that thing where they say ‘I want to be considered a stand-up guy, so I’ll knock you out,’ or ‘I want to be considered a submission artist so I have to get the armbar or the choke,’ or ‘I have to get the ground and pound and show that I’m a superior takedown artist.’ I don’t care. I’ve heard fighters go, ‘well, I got knocked out, but I stood here and I took it.’ I would look over at my wife, look at the ring and I’m like ‘did that guy just say that he lost, but he lost like a man?’ What the hell does that mean? I don’t understand that because it’s all warfare, and I just want to win. I’m not gonna go outside the rules; I’m still gonna be an honorable human being and say ‘these are the ground rules we settled upon. Anything within those ground rules, I’m gonna use.’ I’m not gonna go ahead and prove a point in the face of defeat, because all people remember a week later is, ‘man, did you get knocked out heroically.’ I remember when I knocked out Wes Sims, everybody was like ‘well, you couldn’t submit him.’ I really didn’t care. I was more like, ‘damn, I can’t submit this guy.’ I went after him with whatever I thought was best; I was in the middle of the ring, I looked up at the clock and said, ‘I’d better adapt. I can’t beat this guy this way.’”

Getting Subs like Tyson got Knockouts

“Guys line up, they want to feel each other out. They get their range, they get their distance. I don’t really understand that. It’s still fighting. How are we gonna feel each other out? You’d better be doing that when you’re looking me in the eyes and we’re walking towards each other. As the battle engages you have to think and move on your feet. As an example, in boxing, guys go out there and they start throwing the jab and move around, and in the first two minutes, nothing’s really happening. I think that’s ridiculous. And the minute I engage and we’re within hand distance, I’m thinking about finishing you because the only way I can secure my own safety is if you’re unconscious on the ground. That’s just my mentality about it. The reason I think that I end up thrashing a lot of guys so soon is that most guys, when they start a fight off, they’re still getting over their fear. They want to almost feel you to feel that it’s okay that they’re in the fight. Once they get past that, now they can fight and they get rid of their jitters. I don’t have those jitters when I first start out. I go in there and boom, I’m trying to rip your head off. It’s not an anger thing, I’m just more of a surgeon. I’m not going to sit here and tap at the cancer, look around at it and feel it, talk to the nurse and get a cup of coffee. I’m here to do something, so let’s get it done. They haven’t conquered their fear. They’re physical fighters and not mental fighters, so they have to get in there and you have to put them in a fight before they react. You have to almost fight them to get them into a fight zone. But if you let me get the first move off on you, action beats reaction. If you let me start on you, and you’re waiting to get into that zone, that killer freak mode, the fight’s over with and they’ve raised my hand before you’ve realized it.”

Comparing his fight against Tank Abbott to the first bout against Brock Lesnar

“Yeah, I see a lot of parallels. It’s a new guy coming in who’s hyped up and who is expected to do well for the UFC, and I’m put in front of him as a test. But it doesn’t seem to work out that well for the newcomer.”

Getting back to championship level

“I guess like anything else, there are highs and lows. But your family and friends get you through the low points, and you just ride it out. You keep pushing forward no matter how discouraging it can be.”

On being the underdog

“I think it’s easier to be an underdog because whenever you’re already expected to win even before you go in there, that puts undue pressure on yourself, whereas when no one is expecting anything of you, you can kinda just relax and perform.”

Changing his game

“I think the difference is now that I’ve accomplished enough to know that I have other tools. If you survive that first submission attempt that’s not all there is. I think in the past, once that was stopped, it was like ‘well, that was my Sunday punch; I’m still here, you’re still here – now what do we do?’ (Laughs) Now I work on having a lot more tools, so I can say ‘Plan A didn’t work, Plan B is working, Plan C may work, let’s go back to Plan A if he’s loosened up enough to try that maneuver again,’ and I’m looking for the finish the whole time.”

On the first Lesnar bout

“Constant motion was key to not having the fight stopped. I was not winning that fight in the first minute and 20 seconds. I thought he was gonna stand up with me,” said Mir. “I figured as big and strong as he was, he wasn’t gonna take me down and that he gonna try to land bombs. When he took me down, his shots were strong from inside the guard, but after he hit me with a couple of shots, I didn’t want to tie him up and wear myself out too much because he was so strong. So something just clicked in my head – let him swing and I’m gonna move my head around and let him miss shots. A couple of shots landed – he has some strong ground and pound.”

On finishing Lesnar

“The kneebar wasn’t the greatest and he started to slip out of it, but if you’re a black belt in jiu-jitsu and a good athlete, you could make up for things. It wasn’t a textbook finish, I wish it was, but I ended up doing things 80 percent right, and it was me just saying ‘I don’t want to get elbowed again.’”

His return to the title picture

“I feel like I’ve earned it more. In the fights in the past I didn’t train well for them, so even in victory, sometimes you’d see me and I wasn’t elated. I didn’t deserve to win. I caught somebody like Tim Sylvia, and you could see in my face after the fight that I knew I hadn’t earned it. And it’s not because of what I did in the ring, but it’s what I did outside the ring. Now after this fight, whether I win or lose, you’ll see me smile because I know that I earned the right to be there because of all the time and effort I put into it. That’s what I’m proud about. Anybody can go and win a fight. One lucky punch and it’s your night - that doesn’t mean you deserved it. That doesn’t mean you put in the hard work and earned it. Win or lose, you earn it outside the ring.”

Coaching on The Ultimate Fighter

“I learned more from them than they probably learned from me. They have so many different approaches to the game that I learned about the human mind. I can only dissect myself so many different times. I have eight different points of view now, so how could it not multiply immensely?”

On bulking up post-Lesnar II

“We all have our opinions and pre-conceived notions of how something should work based on past success or through learning from other individuals. And then when you walk into it, if you fail, you have to be intelligent enough to sit there and say ‘why did I fail?’ I think that any time you sit there and stick to your guns, going ‘well, on that night, this is what happened and it had nothing to do with something else,” that’s silly. I had to acknowledge that Brock’s size gave him an advantage that really nullified a lot of my technique. He didn’t have to have my level of technique, just a moderate amount, and then having good basics, along with his size, led him to be successful. So I have to learn from that and improve. There’s nothing shameful about it, it’s just one of those things where that’s part of being a scientist – you have a hypothesis, a theory, and you go out there and try it out. You stop being a scientist when you just start doing the same things over and over again and just try to find different ways of justifying why it’s not working. You can’t just keep being in denial.”

On his fighting philosophy

“I’m more of a ‘get you out fast’ fighter. I like a quick sprint and I don’t like to stretch things out stylistically. I’ve always been bored with the take you down, ground and pound and wrestle you to death and win a decision on points type of matchup. And secondly, I think if I was to go in there, hesitate, and try to purposely see if the fight went longer, I think that only leaves him opportunities to catch me making a mistake. I have the mindset to go out there and the first mistake he makes I will try to take him out of there. But in the back of my mind, I’m not gonna be as worried with the fight going the distance as I would be with other fighters who have been there quite a few more times.”

On his career

“I think my career’s been a pretty interesting one as far as some really good highs and some really good lows, and it really hasn’t been a consistent increase in any one direction. I’ve been at it long enough that on a long enough time curve, anything in life will have its ups and downs. But as long as you keep bouncing back and going forward, you’ll have those high moments in contrast to the low ones. The reason why my life is different than someone’s in the same situation is that I never stopped trying to move forward. It’s not that I’ve got anything different going for me than anybody else. I think we all have our strengths and weaknesses, and I’m not inhuman. I obviously have my shortcomings like anybody else; I just don’t give up. I just keep looking for a way to succeed, regardless of whether I do or not. That’s not a guarantee for success, but the only way you guarantee failure is by giving up.”

Chatsworth, Calif. – Some of the greatest fights in the history of World Extreme Cagefighting® will be available on one, action-packed DVD and Blu-Ray®. Image Entertainment, Inc. (OTCQB: DISK), one of the largest independent home entertainment distributors in North America and acknowledged pioneer of the multi-billion dollar optical disc industry, announced today that it will release the “BEST OF WEC” on Tuesday, Sept. 7.

The latest offering from World Extreme Cagefighting® will feature six of the greatest fights in the history of the lighter weight classes, as well as never-before-seen bonus footage. “BEST OF WEC” features over three hours of tremendous action and will be available in DVD and Blu-Ray® format at Best Buy and select retailers across the United States.

“The ‘BEST OF WEC’ release is a superb collection of WEC’s most thrilling fights and features some of the top fighters in the world,” Bill Bromiley, Chief Acquisitions Officer of Image Entertainment, said. “Image Entertainment is very excited to offer fans a front row seat to the best, most memorable fights the MMA world has ever seen.”

Included on the “BEST OF WEC” DVD are the following fights: Miguel Angel Torres vs. Takeya Mizugaki in a bantamweight title clash from April 2009; A lightweight war between Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone and “Razor” Rob McCullough from Nov. 2008; Miguel Angel Torres vs. Yoshiro Maeda for the 135-pound title from June 2008; The epic featherweight title bout between “The California Kid” Urijah Faber and Jens “Lil Evil” Pulver from June 2008; The 2009 Fight of the Year featuring Ben “Smooth” Henderson vs. Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone for the interim lightweight championship; the five-round featherweight title battle between Mike Brown and “The California Kid” Urijah Faber.

“After the success of our first release, Aldo vs. Faber, we are excited to offer ‘BEST OF WEC’ to our loyal fans,” WEC Vice President Peter Dropick said. “Our goal is to give our following the opportunity to build a library of some of the greatest fights in WEC history. ‘BEST OF WEC’ continues that trend and is an absolute must-have for any mixed martial arts fan.”

For more information on World Extreme Cagefighting®, visit www.wec.tv.

UFC 118 In the Books
“Looking like Skeletor but I feel like "Master of the Universe" -Kenny Florian

“@Kenny_Florian it's ok bro! U r still 1 of the best. Just gotta look @ what happened n learn. U r the better fighter, just lost points. “ -Nate Marquardt

"THANK YOU TO EVERYONE FOR THEIR SUPPORT! I HAVE THE VERY BEST FANS, FRIENDS, AND FAMILY!" - Gray Maynard

“Soz guys,I tried but was hugged to death” -André Winner

"Won my fight, should have opened up a little more, but he was very tough. Thanks so much for all the support, you guys are awesome!!!" -Nik Lentz

"Thanks everybody for your support! Had to teach Nicky boy a lesson in manners. Don't be disrespectful it'll only get you beat up" -Greg Soto

"Yep, I'm just another American wrestler LoL. USA bitches!!!" -Mike Pierce

"IM SORRY MY FRIENDS... IT S VERY HARD TO ME BUT I LL BE BETTER ON THE NEXT TIME!!!! YOU LL WATCH OTHER GUT INSIDE THE OCTOGON.." -Amilcar Alves

"Thanks everybody! I' m back!!" -Demian Maia

And STILL the UFC LW Champ…
“Leaving Boston now, the show was great and Edgar proved a lot of people wrong.” -Gerald Harris

“Once Again thank you all for your support!! I have the best fans in MMA!” -Frankie Edgar

“Edgar was sooo impressive” -Kyle Kingsbury

“wow @frankieedgar performance tonight complete domination !!!” -CB Dollaway

“Frankie Edgar is awesome!” -Aaron Simpson

“5 rounds to Edgar. Even after being up by 4 he still kept attacking. Congrats to Frankie Edgar.” -Shane Carwin

“Wow Edgar vs Penn 2 is way better than the first! Great job guys!” -Phil Davis

“Edgar is like a 155lb Hummingbird! Great fight!” -Gerald Harris

“Frankie just put his mark on the 155 pound divsion. Snookie is going to party her ass off tonight.” -Miguel Torres (guest tweeting for @UFC)

"The Belt is just an Accessory ;-) " -BJ Penn

Team Meathead! Nice!
“Team Meathead here. We are officially in countdown mode. Let us know who is coming to Indy to UFC119” -Matt Mitrione

Godzilla VS J-Lau
“I gave joe a cake that said "sorry for your loss" at the weigh ins. Looked like his corner was happy.”
“And joe was 156, I was 155. Just saying”
“Off to bed. Talk is cheap, tomorrow means everything” -Gabe Ruediger

“Thanks for all the support! I love all of the #boston #ufc118 fans! Tell @danawhite I should get submission of the night!” -Joe Lauzon
Welcome to the dark side.
“Hey everyone. Just getting into tweeting so hope to be in touch with all you over coming months. Thanks for following” -John Hathaway

Twitter thinks Shane is a bored housewife!
“Why would twitter suggest I follow the Ellen Degeneris show and Jessica Alba? What does twitter think of me?” -Shane Carwin

Don’t Call it a Comeback
“thanks for the support guys im back on the BARONI diet and just trying to put my body back together. ill be back dont worry. big and strong” -Phil Baroni

Mr. Bones Doomsday Rumble Wonderful
“See what u started @ufc i dont know who i am RT @thecodyk Phil so are you Jonny Bones.or just play him on @ustream” -Phil Davis

“@PhilMrWonderful No idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Howard.” -UFC

FREE MARK! FREE MARK! FREE… Oh, Done.
“Just got put in handcuffs, fit the description I guess, lol! The manager of the store ran out and told the cops they had the wrong guy. Wow!” -Mark Hominick

If Batman gets Gold for 18k, what does Dana get?
“I feel like I should have a gold metal for reaching 18,000 followers. New goals coming soon” -Kurt Pellegrino

Send Alan Belcher good vibes… and cards!
“This is alans wife @Ashleebelcher Yesterday his vision was blurry again today heading into another surgery on same eye please keep praying” -Alan Belcher

“Several people have sent me @'s asking where they can send Alan a get well soon card to. gym address is 10322 gorenflo rd diberville ms 39340” -Alan Belcher

MMA VS Boxing?
“MMA! MMA! MMA! :-)” -Jon Bones Jones

“FULL MOUNT within 20 seconds!!! Aaaaaahahahahahahhahahahaah” -Kyle Kingsbury

“Princess won haha” -Brian Bowles

“Don't boo the guy. Props to Toney for getting in the octagon” -Shane Carwin

“James Toney does not speak English, he speaks the truth. We just cant understand what he is saying.” -Miguel Torres (guest tweeting for @UFC)

Fight of the Night!
“I loved the first fight, Diaz looks great at 170” -Shane Carwin

“I like marcus davis but nate diaz is gangsta” -Duane Ludwig

“Nate Diaz is tough as a raptor claw! Big shot out my namesake Marcus Davis for being a beast!” - Phil Davis

"Thanks @jakeshieldsajj @gilbertmelendez Cesar Gracie Nick Diaz Dave Terell David Mitchell Joe soto and @ninjaroberts the whole gracie team" -Nate Diaz

UFC Fan Expo Boston Edition
“Great day at the UFC fan expo. Signing again tomorrow at @headrushbrand 11-1 with @Brad_Tavares and @KrisMccray “ -Kyle Noke

“I want to thanks all of you that came to my booth today you guys are awesome I want to see every body there tomorrow love you guys God bless” -Vitor Belfort

“Just got done being at the UFC expo for 9hrs. Will be back tomorrow at 10am for round two. Thanks for all the fans coming out! Punishment!” -Tito Ortiz

“1st day of BostonExpo was crazy hectic, all the fans were g8, going to train a bit with @effyescudero n Ryan Bader then rest up 4 2morrow...” -Benson Henderson

We’ve heard the tale time and again. A fresh face joins the UFC ranks touting serious wrestling credentials – All-American! D1 champion! Team captain! – and buzz immediately ensues. Be it Cain and Kos, or Jon Fitch and Jon Jones, one’s performance on the mats almost always clues us into his potential in the cage.

Rich Attonito is the anomaly.

Despite being a former Division I wrestler at Hofstra University, the 33-year-old New Jersey native is something of a late bloomer in the world of competitive sports.

“I have to admit that during my athletic career in high school and college, I never had a chance to achieve the goals I’d set for myself,” he says. “I would always be one win short of a tournament, or one more match away from state quarterfinals. There was always a sense of never quite making it.”

It’s not as if Attonito takes pride in these non-accomplishments, but he also doesn’t shy away from them. He’s a silver lining type of guy. Disappointments in his youth – and learning to cope with them – have only served him well as an adult. He says they were especially helpful in maintaining mental clarity during his time on The Ultimate Fighter.

“I was the oldest one in the house, and while I’m not by any means the most mature person, I think my age was one of the reasons I was able to stay focused rather than get caught up in how much some stuff sucked,” he says. “Having a little more life experience in general allowed me to keep my wits about me in a situation where there are so many unknown factors.”

The worst unknown factor was a broken hand that halted his run to the quarterfinals. Even in victory (opponent Kyacey Uscola was DQed for illegal knees), the Team Liddell member had once again come up short and was sidelined for the remainder of the show. It was a twist that could have tested anyone’s sanity.

“At one point during college I was injured and needed elbow surgery,” he recalls. “It put an end to wrestling during my senior year and my entire athletic career was basically over. It felt like the end of the world. But because I survived it, this time I was able to say to myself, ‘Okay, this is just a bump in the road. You’ve been down it before. Now you have to just pull over to the side and get it fixed.’ A younger or less experienced version of me might have harder time managing those emotions.”

Staying positive paid off. After the show wrapped and the hand healed, Attonito was given a chance to face the much-maligned Jamie Yager at June’s Ultimate Finale. His official UFC debut may not have ended with the coveted prize (that honor that went to Court McGee), but a second-round TKO was reward enough.

“I was a little surprised at how difficult it was to get his timing and take him down,” he says. “I thought I’d put him on the ground, grind him out, and either TKO him there or submit him, but I ended up using my boxing. I think it goes to show why I’m not the type to have any predetermined expectations for a fight – except for winning.”

With the victory, Attonito will never again have to long for the missed opportunities of his past.

“Being depressed or bothered by that feeling of always being one step away… this changes all of that. Ever since I started training, my long-term ultimate goal was to fight five times in smaller shows – you know, give myself a chance to compete – and then win a single fight in the UFC. Now I’ve experienced the feeling of accomplishing something. It’s incredible to reach a point where I get to re-evaluate everything and come up with a whole new set of short and long-term goals.”

With those new objectives in mind, Attonito, 8-3 (1-0 in the UFC), will push toward the next yard line on September 15 when he faces Rafael Natal at UFC Fight Night in Austin, Texas.

Natal, who’ll be making his Octagon debut, will bring a 12-2 record that his opponent has studied well.

“This is going to be a classic wrestler versus BJJ practitioner matchup,” says Attonito. “And yet it can still go anywhere. Sometimes you get two guys who can cancel each other out in grappling, and that leaves no choice but to see who’s better at the other things. Natal’s got a lot to offer – he’s got the jiu-jitsu skills, he likes to strike, he’s got a judo base – and I’m one hundred percent confident in my boxing, so it’s going to be exciting because we can go at it in every aspect.”

Although it’s been less than three months since his last appearance, Attonito – who trains out of Florida’s American Top Team – says fans should expect to see a marked improvement in his game.

“I’ve brought myself up a couple of levels in terms of certain skills,” he says. “When you take your next fight right away it’s great because everyone is here to help fine tune little details you may not have been paying attention to during the last one. For instance, I feel like in six weeks I’ve made more improvements to my jiu-jitsu game than I have in six months.”

With the middleweight prospect finally hitting his stride, he expects that the future will bring true justice to his nickname, the Raging Bull.

“I’m 33 and not 23,” says Attonito. “Even though I’m in my prime, I don’t want to wait too long. It’s time to roll with this – I’ve got a path to blaze.”

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Talk about a cool gig - working as a college rep gives you access to the inside world of UFC, plus it can't hurt your resume to have experience with one of the fastest-growing brands in the world.

As a part of the UFC College Rep Program, you'll help introduce your peers to the UFC magazine, promote the UFC name, features, products, lifestyle and -- of course -- encourage readers and viewers. As a UFC College Rep, you are expected to be a true brand ambassador. By building your own network of fans on campus, you’ll become the “campus gateway” to the UFC. You will be the first to know of upcoming UFC features, while also occasionally receiving merchandise and invitations to exclusive events. Utilizing word of mouth marketing and social media tools, you’ll share the wealth with your peers.

You will also have the opportunity to:
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Ready to apply? Shoot us an email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Tell us in 250 words or less why you'd be the best rep for your campus. Remember to include your name, school, age, year of graduation, and links to facebook or twitter accounts with your response.

When Julio Paulino went down a couple of weeks prior to UFC 116, Forrest Petz got the kind of phone call blue-collar Clevelanders aren’t normally accustomed to—how’d you like to go to Las Vegas and take on a Ninja on very short notice?

For a cage veteran like Petz though, a former forklift operator who’s been around the block a few times and still works in purchasing part-time for a Northern Ohio industrial supplies seller, the answer was automatic: Sure, that’d be fun.

“My manager Monte Cox called me and asked, ‘how’s your weight? Are you in good enough shape to fight?’” Petz says, recalling how news of his fight with Daniel Roberts came to pass. “I had fought three weeks before that call against Ralph Johnson, so I was in relatively good shape. I just had to really do a crash course for a week or so to get my heart rate back up, but I was in good shape for the fight—better than my opponent, I think, and he had a full training camp.”

Good enough to go the distance against Roberts, who eked out a split decision victory over Petz in his first bout in the Octagon since UFC 77 in 2007. But for the “Meat Cleaver”—a name given to him by a roommate back in the day for no reason other than it sounded a little ominous—there were plenty of positives to come out of it. For starters, the fight was entertaining, which is always a point of emphasis for Petz.

“I’d seen like two of his fights on YouTube before, and I knew he was a good wrestler who didn’t like to strike a whole lot,” he says. “That and he was a southpaw, but that’s about it. You know, I wish it would have worked out better for me, but I don’t think I gave a bad showing. But that’s the past, and you can’t go back and fix it.”

Petz is no-nonsense enough to leave his triumphs in the past as well, such as the four straight victories he strung together before Roberts in other shows. Or his decision victory over Dan Hardy back in 2006, which he shrugs off by saying “we’ve both come a long way since then, and I’m not living in the past.” Or his last victory in the UFC some three (very long) years ago against Luigi Fioravanti at UFC Fight Night 10 in 2007.

Nice little resume boosters, those wins, but Petz (24-8) knows you’re as good as your last fight, and his next scrap against a game Brian Foster at UFC Fight Night 20 in Austin on September 15 is thrice circled on his calendar. Foster (15-5) is coming off a loss of his own to Chris Lytle at UFC 110 in Australia, making him a dangerous wounded animal. The best thing about a clash between desperate, hungry fighters looking to keep their foot in the door in the UFC’s welterweight division is they will fight like desperate, hungry fighters.

And that’s exactly what Petz digs about this match-up. It has out-and-out dogfight written all over it.

“What’s great about Foster is he’s not the kind of guy you have to chase around,” he says. “He’s right there in front of you—you don’t have to look for him. He’s got heavy hands, and you’ve got to be careful with a guy like that. Plus, he’s strong and he can wrestle.

“But he’s the kind of guy I really like to fight because I know it’s going to be a brawl. It’s the kind of fight that’s going to look good. Maybe there’ll be an opportunity to get paid in there, too, with Fight of the Night.”

Petz trains out of Strong Style Fight Team, one of the most accomplished gyms along the Rust Belt, with standouts like Chris Lozano, Jeff Cox and Brian Rogers among his cast of partners. With the luxury of a full training camp behind him and a free-dealing striker on the docket, there’s renewed excitement in the Meat Cleaver’s voice.

And yet, even as a 35-year-old veteran who has fought everyone from Josh Neer to Marcus Davis, when he steps in to mix things up with Foster there’s still that familiar gut-wrenching nervousness that comes on just before the intro music hits the speakers.

“That never goes away man,” he says. “The only thing that changes as you gain experience is your ability to deal with it. Your ability to handle it becomes better, no matter how much anxiety or pressure you might feel. You become more professional at it; you behave better. The day you don’t have those butterflies, that might be time to hang it up.”

Now in his second stint in the UFC, the kickboxer Petz says he’s more than thankful for the chance to prove he belongs fighting at the top level, against the most elite welterweights in the game.

“Any fight you go into you want to win that fight, it’s important to you,” he says. “[Foster]’s the type of guy that, even when he’s on top, he’s not looking to lay on you. He’s looking to really press the action. It’s definitely the kind of fight I want to be involved with.

“But yeah, I’ve definitely got a chip on my shoulder because when this is all over I want to have something I can point to. I want to have accomplishments that are mine, and I want to have a winning record in the UFC.”