Tomorrow night’s CES MMA 35 in Beverly, Massachusetts will feature a rematch between middleweights Mike Rodriguez and Buck Pineau. The first meeting between the fighters took place in their amateur careers and Pineau scored a submission victory in the third round of their initial meeting.
Since that meeting, both fighters have made the transition to the pro ranks and Rodriguez (2-1) enters this fight following a decision defeat against Pat McCrohan at CES MMA 32 in January. On yesterday’s edition of “The MMA Report Podcast,” Rodriguez talked about how he still thinks about their first meeting since it’s a fight he feels that was going his way until he got caught.
“All the time. Before this fight was even announced,” Rodriguez said. “I played this in my mind. I always thought, this could never happen to me. I could never be one of those guys up on the scorecards and then all of sudden lose. Like getting caught with something silly and sure enough, it happened.”
“I moved on from it,” he continued. “I knew that I was winning that fight and I just simply got caught. I don’t even look at this more of a rematch due to the fact that I had already moved on from it. This is like I am fighting someone entirely new person. Essentially, he is so good now that he would blew the person who he used to be out of the water. He is a good fighter now. Not saying that he wasn’t before. He definitely improved.”
Check out Rodriguez’s complete interview from Thursday’s episode of “The MMA Report Podcast” below and be sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes and Stitcher.