Dan Ige avoids hearing commentary while studying fights as much as he can.
Ige will be back in action to take on former two-division Bellator champion Patricio “Pitbull” Freire at UFC 318 on Saturday. It’s a big fight for both men, as Ige wants to keep climbing the featherweight rankings, while “Pitbull” looks to prove he can still be a force despite losing his UFC debut.
Ahead of fight night, Ige did his best to ensure there was no extra voices during his tape study.
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Dan Ige Skips Commentary During Film Study
Dan Ige has long been a student of the fight game and he constantly makes improvements during his preparation. It’s clear that listening to commentary doesn’t factor into his pre-fight routine, and he explained why during an interview with MMAFighting.
“Even when I watch film and study film, I try to watch it without commentary,” Ige said. “Because again, they’ll say something and you’ll automatically almost believe what they say. It becomes part of your truth, which might not even be the truth. It’s someone else’s truth or what they see in the moment. I don’t know how to fix that. It just is what it is.”
Ige wasn’t exactly thrilled when he heard the commentary team talking about the referee’s decision to stop his last fight with Sean Woodson, rather than his own performance.
“As far as the moment goes, I feel like it didn’t rob my moment,” Ige said. “I was in there, the ref stopped the fight, the crowd erupted and I embraced it. When I went back to the press conference room, the media they brought it up, the controversy and this and that I’m like what controversy? Then I went online and you read the comments and you hear the commentary and they definitely play a big role into that.
“They’re just saying what they see right away. It kind of sucks because it does robs from me a little bit. But then again, at the end of the day, I still got a win on my record. I still got two checks. I can’t be mad about it.”
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