The redemption of Forrest Griffin

Forrest Griffin’s stock dropped faster than his ass hit the mat following his loss to Anderson Silva at UFC 101 and it had nothing to do with getting clowned.

It started falling as he was running out of the octagon and continued its descent through weeks of media silence. In his eventual post-fight interviews he came across as a bit of an ass. As I wrote on 09.27, “The chucklehead factor is turned to eleven. He doesn’t get into the loss to Anderson Silva at all, claiming he doesn’t know how it ended because he hasn’t watched it yet and that the one thing he learned from it was to not fight while on quaaludes.” In a subsequent interview he explained his hasty octagon exit as a need to get a backstage blowjob from a reporter’s mother, a comment which “rates pretty high on the drunken fratboy douchebag meter,” as I wrote on 10.03.

Now, a pair of new interviews have surfaced, ostensibly to promote Griffin’s rematch with Tito Ortiz at UFC 106 on November 21. But they also serve another purpose – to redeem Griffin by showing people he’s still the likable jug-headed hick he’s always been. And they are somewhat successful.

The first is a well-prepped promotional interview in which the Silva fight is addressed and dismissed in just 19 words: “Obviously people want to know what happened with the Anderson Silva fight. I don’t know. It was pretty bad.” That’s the sum total of his insight into fighting Silva. Personally, I preferred his “I don’t remember because I was on quaaludes” response but I understand that he wants to put the fight firmly in his rearview.

As for him fleeing the octagon, he was a bit more forthcoming, saying, “It’s easy to criticize. It’s easy to kind of stand on the sideline and criticize a person’s blood, sweat, and toil. Anyone who says that, I feel bad for them because they’ve never given of themselves so much and cared about something so much that not getting it broke them. You know, those people have never truly lived, you know.” Still, not very illuminating (it was pretty obvious Griffin was devastated by the loss but a little more introspection would’ve been appreciated).

The interview wraps up with him talking about Ortiz, how the fire has been rekindled inside him and that he really wants to punch somebody in the face. Pretty standard – rehearsed – stuff.

As for the second interview, it’s basically the goofy dick-joke-loving Griffin we all remember. Nothing too douchey. Although I am beginning to wonder about his obsession with his own penis.