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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Mark Hunt didn't waste any time accepting a fight with Fabricio Werdum once he got the call from UFC President Dana White this week. However, he's got some work to do to get himself ready with the fight just three weeks away.
"The thing is it's not exciting times if you're not into fight mode or fight camp mode," Hunt said in an interview with FoxSports.com. "I was taking my kids to school. But these opportunities don't come around very often so I want to grab it with both hands and I'm running with it. I might not be in the right shape at the moment, but of course I wanted to say yes."
"I'm feeling right now like I'm over weight. What's going to change for me is a hell of a lot of training and dieting. The opportunity is there for me and I'm happy about it. I'm going to focus on dropping the weight and knocking Fabricio's face off."
Despite being out of shape when he got the call, the 40-year-old Hunt said he's never one to turn down an opportunity.
"I've fought for 24 years now. I've fought on a day's notice. I'm not gun shy at all," Hunt said. "I've taken fights on short notice, four days and I took a fight against Wanderlei [Silva]. I'm not one to shy away. Whether I win or lose, and don't get me wrong I expect to win, but win or lose I'm glad I got the opportunity to step up and do it."
"... I lost six in a row and they said 'oh you're a bum, what are you still doing here?.' And I said to myself I'm one of the best fighters in the world. I'm not a quitter. I'm looking forward to going to battle with Fabricio in Mexico. This morning I was thinking about when I was going back to training. Now I'm fighting for the title in three weeks. Every fight might be my last so I'm going to give it my all. We're going to go to war. It will be good."
Penick's Analysis: It's such a massively unexpected spot for Hunt to be in at this point in his career. He went winless in MMA from 2006-2011, and yet here he is just three years later, and he may enter 2015 as the Interim UFC Heavyweight Champion. Out of shape or not when he got the call, it's not a fight he could turn down at all, and if he pulls off the victory, it will be one of the more improbable things to ever happen in the history of this sport.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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