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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Former IFL fighter Mike Ciesnolevicz finally reached the UFC in early 2009, taking a last minute bout against Neil Grove. Jumping up to heavyweight for the first time after posting a 16-3 career record, Ciesnolevicz submitted Grove in just over a minute at UFC 95. Following his second bout, however, another late replacement fight that saw him lose to Tomasz Drwal in June, hewas unceremoniously cut. After undergoing surgery and rehabbing some injuries sustained before his fight with Drwal, he was preparing to take some fights in smaller shows to work back up, but now that two of those bouts have fallen through, the 30 year old is pondering retirement.
"Right now I don't even know if I'm going to keep fighting if I have to keep taking all these small fights again," Ciesnolevicz told MMATorch.com. "I don't want to think I'm too good for the small shows, because I know I'm not; and I don't think I'm above those guys or those shows, but it's almost like rewinding the clock and starting all over so I can get back to what the IFL was or the UFC."
Rewinding the clock isn't his only worry, it's the high risk, low reward world that is the local MMA scene. "I want to fight, but it has to be worth my while. I can't just risk blowing out my knee or breaking my hand for $1,000 or $1,500 for a local show."
A knee injury is partially responsible for getting him to this spot, as it was a tear suffered training for his fight with Neil Grove that ultimately ended up with him out of the UFC. "I fought the Neil Grove fight, and I popped my knee that week training," said Ciesnolevicz. "The fight was only a minute, but still my knee was twisted a little bit and I didn't really think anything of it. It ended up being like a 1/3rd tear of my ACL, which I guess isn't really that big of a deal if you rehab it, take the time and do stuff. I talked to a lot of Orthopedic [doctors] and they said a lot of guys play professional football and different stuff with no ACL so me having 70% left was not a big issue. But the UFC kind of called right away for me to face Eliot Marshall, and at the time my knee was still kind of unstable so I said, 'You know, I really don't think I can take this fight' because I started running and it was swelling up because I didn't give it enough time to rest."
It was after turning down that fight that he was approached once again, this time to step in to face Tomasz Drwal at The Ultimate Fighter 9 finale. While attempting to rehab his knee, his weight went up and this fight was set for 205 lbs. While he said he normally begins his cut at around 235 lbs., fight preparation for this event saw him begin his cut at 247 lbs. "I thought I could do it because I've always made weight, back to the IFL and everything," he said. "That last week in Vegas I was mentally already beaten because I didn't know if I was going to make weight and that became more important, making weight, than the fight itself."
"The fight ended up being a nightmare because I couldn't perform at all. I had no stand up, no grappling. I was kind of hoping in the fight that he would take me down, and that's exactly what he did, but I had no steam or no energy to try to fight, I just tried to survive."
So with the local scene not appealing to him for the money and excitement level, Ciesnolevicz already has his next career move in mind once he officially hangs up the gloves: teaching MMA. "Pat Miletich has his belt system, and he's only given out like ten black belts; and I just got my [Miletich Fighting Systems black belt as far as one of his certified instructors. So I've put a lot of time in starting under Pat in the teaching aspect. I teach jiu jitsu at our gym sometimes, I teach kickboxing and run the pro mma classes, I do a little bit of all that. I'm really a student of the game, you know? I'm not the best wrestler in the world, the best stand up guy or the best jiu jitsu guy, but I know Pat's system and I can teach the same stuff he teaches and get it out."
Cornering fighters is also a pasttime for CIesnolevicz, one he says is "a lot more fun than getting hit all the time, having to cut 30 pounds, eating broccoli and being on the treadmill all day."
Mike is still hoping for something exciting to come along, but until then he's set himself up well to continue the MFS legacy and to bring up tomorrow's generation of fighters.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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