Josh Koscheck Blogs About Georges St. Pierre, Injury, Matt Hughes

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2011/9/13/2423457/ufc-josh-koscheck-blogs-georges-st-pierre-injury-matt-hughes

UFC welterweight Josh Koscheck was brought on as a guest blogger for sportsnet.ca in advance of his September 24th bout with Matt Hughes at UFC 135. He had some interesting insight into his last bout, a decision loss to Georges St. Pierre at UFC 124 where he broke some bones in his face. He also discussed his possible return at 185, and the eventual choice to accept the 135 bout with Hughes. He starts with a description of the UFC 124 fight and his injury:

It was a rough night for me. Pretty much the first punch Georges landed, a hard jab, broke my orbital socket (the round bone in your skull that your eyes sit in) but also my orbital plate (the cheekbone).

I had no depth perception and was basically a one-eyed fighter for the next 23 minutes. I can man up but the pain was just horrible. It hurt worse than anything I've ever experienced. It hurt even more than when I cut my big toe off when I was six -- when I was playing with my grandfather's axe being a little sh*t.

Seriously -- the eye hurt way worse than chopping my big toe off.

I had major surgery after the fight. The doctors told me that I took the punch right in the eyeball, and what happens when the eye takes a direct impact is the bone explodes and drops down in order to stop the pressure to the eye resulting in an exploding eyeball.

So there I was, first or second minute into the biggest fight of my life, and I'm lucky my eyeball hadn't just exploded. Thing is, the fact I'd talked so much trash about Georges and I'd helped hype the fight so hard for so long, I couldn't let everyone down by pulling out with an injury after a couple of minutes. I feel bad the fight didn't live up to the hype, but I did my best to clip GSP with a punch somehow.

He is complimentary of GSP afterwards, saying he lost the fight to him fair and square. He then went on to talk about his time off, and his possible return at 185:

After the GSP fight, I needed to come back and remind everyone what I am all about and if I couldn't do that at 170 pounds I figured maybe as a one-off just to have a major fight to come back with, I'd take a fight at 185 pounds. Realistically, I asked to fight Wanderlei Silva, Chris Leben and even Rich Franklin at 185.

When that didn't happen the Hughes fight came about, which was perfect for him:

But then last week I got word Matt Hughes, who has avoided me for years, needed an opponent for UFC 135 in Denver on Sept. 24. I've called out Hughes for so long but he's always avoided me. When he was on top and one of the top in the division, he used his position to avoid fighting me and all the AKA guys.

But when Diego Sanchez pulled out hurt with three weeks to go, I knew the UFC would have no choice but to try to talk Hughes into fighting me. Like I knew he would, he tried to suggest fighting Jon Fitch instead, knowing full well Fitch is still recovering from shoulder surgery.

I tweeted that I'd accepted the fight and was ready, just to put pressure on Hughes to quit bitching and take the fight. I wanted to make it so that if he did turn the fight down, all the fans would know that he bitched out.

He had nowhere else to go and I've finally got my fight with Matt Hughes.

There is little doubt that Koscheck knows how to talk up a fight. Can he get under Hughes' skin with comments like these in the next 11 days? I guess we're gonna find out.