Jul-17-2008

O’Brien Eager to Impress the Second Time Around

By Thomas Gerbasi

He’s only 23 years old with a little over three years in the pro MMA game, but Jake O’Brien has probably experienced more in that time than a lot of fighters 10 years older than him. And it hasn’t always been good.

Sure, there have been good times, like his seven first round knockout wins, his three UFC victories, or his stunning upset over perennial contender Heath Herring in January of 2007. But it seems that each high has been tempered by lows, such as the debilitating nerve injury that sidelined him for over a year, his comeback loss to Andrei Arlovski, and a subsequent release from his UFC contract after the March bout. The release may have been the blow that hurt the most.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said O’Brien, 10-1. “When they told me why I could understand it a little bit, but I still wasn’t happy about it.”

Arlovski, a former heavyweight champ who dwarfed O’Brien in experience, stopped the up and comer in the second round of what had been a competitive, if not scintillating, bout.

“I fell right into his mount after the takedown,” recalled O’Brien of the closing sequence of the fight. “I had relaxed for a second, and he tripped me at the right time. Confidence-wise though, it was good for me. I knew I could beat him going in, but I also knew I had to be perfect and not make any little mistakes like I did at the end of the second round. If I fought perfectly I think I could have pulled off the third round, but I made a dumb mistake and relaxed at the wrong time. That fight showed me that I could fight with anyone, and after being in the cage with him, being in there with anybody else would be easy.”

And though O’Brien lost for the first time as a pro that night in Ohio, the bout and the finish were so ho-hum that it barely registered on the radar. Maybe that was the problem for the Indiana native, who was criticized for a lack of action in his bouts with Herring and Josh Schockman as well. So now he had to deal with a loss on his record and life without a UFC contract. It wasn’t a good time.

“I was still training hard, but I was kinda down about it,” he admitted. “The UFC’s where I always wanted to fight, so I wasn’t happy, but then they called and said they were gonna put me on TV and show the fight live on Spike TV, and it got me excited again. I was already training hard, but it kinda motivated me a little more.”

The call O’Brien got ended perhaps the shortest hiatus anyone has had from the big show, but he wasn’t going to get any easy marks as a welcome back gift either. ‘Irish’ Jake’s assignment? Take on unbeaten and highly touted Cain Velasquez, who, like O’Brien, is a former Division I wrestler, and also the owner of a wrestling victory over the Purdue product.

“He’s very aggressive and he has probably the best conditioning I’ve ever seen on a big guy, so I know it’s gonna be a long, tough fight,” said O’Brien of Velasquez, who he will face this Saturday at The Palms in Las Vegas (Spike TV 9pm ET / 6pm PT). “But I’m in great shape and ready to fight hard for three rounds because he fights like a lightweight and keeps a high pace the whole time. I think with Cain, we both have great wrestling, so both of us are used to fighting people who don’t put up much of a fight against our wrestling. I think this time it’s going to be interesting because we’re both going to have to use our other skills to win the fight, because we’re going to stop each other’s wrestling.”

That probably equates into a standup fight, something Velasquez would undoubtedly love to engage in, as would O’Brien, who, as mentioned earlier, has seven first round knockouts, and who won his first eight bouts by the second round. So don’t be so quick to dismiss him after a couple of less than explosive performances. But O’Brien does admit that while the pressure may be off him when it comes to maintaining a perfect record, putting on a good show while chasing victory on Saturday is a must.

“I do need to put on a good fight,” he said. “I know that’s what they want and it was the biggest thing behind why they released me. But while I want to put on a good show, I’m competitive and I’m gonna do what I’ve got to do to win. I do need to be a little more active though.”

It’s a fine line to walk for anyone, especially in a sport where the difference between fighting for a title in a year and fighting for one in two years or more may come down to how you do on one particular night. As the legendary boxing trainer George Benton used to say, “win this fight, look good in the next one,” and O’Brien has done what it’s taken to win all but one time. And when you look at it, in the Herring fight for example, straying from his gameplan to appease the crowd may have left him staring up at the lights instead of with his hand raised.

“Put me in with Arlovski and Heath Herring and I’m gonna do what I can to win,” he said. “I’ve got pretty good hands, but I don’t know if trading with Arlovski would have been the smartest move.”

With those small gloves, who knows, but what’s done is done. On Saturday, O’Brien gets a chance to start again, and if he beats Velasquez in style, that’s four UFC wins and the possibility of moving ever closer to a shot at the heavyweight crown.

“With the way the division is, you win one big exciting fight and you’re right at the top of the list, especially since I’ve already won three,” he said. “If I put on a good show and beat him (Velasquez) in a dominant way, I’m gonna be right at the top because the division’s wide open right now. You’ve got (Fabricio) Werdum who’s probably gonna get the next shot after (Frank) Mir, but besides that there’s nobody really in line.

As far as Jake O’Brien is concerned, that makes it the perfect time for a return, and though all the pre-fight hype has centered on his opponent, don’t expect him to show up simply to be the foil for the next big thing in the division.

“It takes a little bit of the pressure off, but you don’t want to lose two in a row in the UFC,” he said.