The real life animosity between Ultimate Fighting Championship lightweights Rich “No Love” Clementi and Melvin Guillard came to a boiling point when the two finally met inside the Octagon last Saturday night at UFC 79.
The end result was Clementi pulling off a submission win forcing a tap out from Guillard by way of rear naked choke, and after the fight was over the two were still going at each other, which verified the dislike was mutual and very real.
“I think that was quite obvious to just about 100% of the viewers,” said Clementi about the obvious tension between the two fighters.
Before the fight ever started, the Internet was a buzz about the long rivalry between the two fighters, but Clementi insisted on staying quiet beforehand and letting the fight speak for itself.
“To be honest, it’s not me,” he said about his lack of trash talk before the fight. “I’m smart enough to know that anything can happen in this game and when you talk like that and it doesn’t come out your way it just makes you look like an idiot.”
Clementi implemented a very strong game plan, taking the fight to the ground early where he was able to dominate and lock on the fight ending submission.
“I’m a true MMA fighter,” he stated. “I can stand-up and bang with the best and my wrestling is complete and my jiu-jitsu’s there, so that’s what makes a guy like me a little bit dangerous. I’m going to take a fight where my opponent is the weakest no matter where it is.”
The emotions ran high between the two fighters prior to, during and after the fight when Clementi made a gesture towards Guillard after the referee stopped the bout and separated the fighters. Clementi says he didn’t let the emotion play into the fight and instead used that tactic against his opponent.
“Not really much at all,” he said about emotion playing into his mindset going into the bout. “If anything I was using it against him. I look at it as kind of setting him up for failure.
“I think I put that in one of my UFC interviews is that you’ll probably see maybe about just a few seconds of that come out and that will be at the end of the fight and surely enough that’s what happened with me. The whole crotch shot thing and stuff, that was just the last bit of ‘now my emotion’s here’ and I displayed what I wanted to do and that type of deal.”
In the past, many fighters have been able to settle their differences inside the Octagon and walk away satisfied with a rivalry settled, but Clementi doesn’t expect any friendly situations with Guillard to arise in the near future.
“I’m absolutely sure we’ll never like each other, that’s the case why we had to fight.”
With a big win over Guillard now behind him, Clementi is now looking forward to a very busy 2008 and a stacked lightweight division to compete in.
“I love fighting in the UFC,” he said. “The UFC’s really taking care of me and I appreciate that, giving me an opportunity. Really what I would like to see for me is just consistency. I want another year of putting guys away and I’d like to put my name up there when guys talk about the upper echelon in that division.”
