Let's jump right back into the middle of Rickson's extraordinary account of his 2000 fight against the very experienced Masakatsu Funaki. (Part 1 is here.)
"So, as I have this kind of problem, and nobody knew, and I fell back, Royler tells me, 'Rickson, stand up. What are you doing?' I could not even argue with him and say 'Oh, I have a bad eye.' So nobody knew what the problem was. My eye was not swollen yet. And I knew I had a problem there, but I was still thinking the fight was not over—it was far from over.
"I could not let my opponent know I was damaged, so I was doing a poker face all the time, not even putting my hand too much on my eye, so I just tried to keep my posture. And as he kicked me on the legs, seventy thousand people at the same time [grunting].
"So I was there in a very bad shape. But after forty-five seconds in that kind of situation, my eye... This one was not good, but the other one starts to get the perspective again. And then I, immediately, as I start to see it, different than what my opponent's thinking (I was in retreat, I was afraid, I was in doubt)...
"I was just blind.
"So I start to see well; I immediately went to his knee and stood up, and confronted the guy; he expected me to do what I was doing before, but I instead pulled him down; he lost his balance; I mounted, and then went for his back and choked him out."
Comments
So cool to hear this from the Master’s perspective
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