By Josh Koscheck

THE BEAUTIFUL STRUGGLE

I’ve been through hell to get to where I’m at today.

I’ve been through a war the last 12 weeks and you probably wouldn’t understand, and my opponent at UFC 113 - Paul Daley - wouldn’t understand, and nobody really cares. But I know that the things I’ve sacrificed over the last 12 weeks have made me a better and stronger person, and I’m in a good place right now. I’m very happy with where I’m at, and I try to just focus on being positive, going out and putting on a good show, and getting a victory on May 8th.

In the last few weeks, people have been telling me that Daley has been talking a lot of trash about me, but to be honest, I have not even heard too much of what he’s talking about because I don’t get on the internet and I don’t pay very much attention to that stuff. I’ve had guys talk trash all the time and it’s nothing new to me.

I’m a smart fighter – I’ve had a lot of people talk before and I know what my gameplan is – my coaches gave me a strict game plan for this fight and if he wants to continue to talk, we’ll let him talk. I think he’s the type of fighter that needs to talk because he’s a one-dimensional fighter, and nobody really even knows who Paul Daley is. So he’s got to build himself up, and that’s pretty much what he’s been doing. We’ll let him keep building himself and keep building me by running his mouth; that’s fine, because when it comes down to it, I fought the best of the best. I fought the champion; I fought everybody in our division. So he can keep hyping the fight and stay focused on those things. I’ll keep focusing on training and becoming a better fighter and whipping the best.

And when I talk trash – guess what? I show up and I fight. And that’s what this guy’s gonna have to do. He’s gonna have to realize that come May 8th, once we get into the cage, there is no more trash talking. He’s gotta shut his mouth and fight, and that’s the difference between me and this guy. He’s had a couple of good fights, but he hasn’t fought anybody like me, that’s for sure. I can guarantee that this fight won’t go past the second round. It will probably end in the first, but I may carry him to the second round.

The way I see it, Paul Daley is just a guy that just likes to talk trash and he’s a one-dimensional fighter. Those guys are from the old days – like the one-dimensional wrestler or the one-dimensional striker. Those days are over, and you’ve got to become a complete mixed martial artist. But I was at that point once. I was a one-dimensional wrestler, and coming from The Ultimate Fighter days, if you look at the evolution of Josh Koscheck, I’ve changed and I’m excited about the transition I made and the sacrifices I made to get here. I can submit guys, I can knock guys out, I can head kick guys, and I’m not gonna have a problem standing toe-to-toe with Paul Daley. He’s not gonna hit me with anything I haven’t been hit with.

So it’s gonna be an exciting fight, and the fans are gonna be tuning in because they just never know what Josh Koscheck’s gonna do. Is he gonna strike? Is he gonna throw Paul Daley on his head and choke him out? Is he gonna ground and pound him? Or is he gonna mix it up and head kick him? There are so many ways that I can finish a fight, and I’m a fighter. I love to fight and the only time I’m ever happy is when I’m in the cage, and that’s why you see me fight so often – it’s because I love to fight. I want to be happy, so put me in the cage and let me fight.

As for Daley, this guy has only one chance on May 8th and that’s a puncher’s chance.

By the time you read this, we’ll be less than two weeks away from the fight and I feel it right now. I’ve been in training camp for so long and it’s finally coming to an end – this is what you work for and what you dream about. All those nights thinking about the fight and the struggles to get here, I call it the beautiful struggle. It’s a struggle getting through training camp, getting up every day and pushing yourself and motivating yourself, and at the end of the day, the beautiful thing is that I get to go and beat somebody up for 15 minutes in front of a packed house in Canada and millions of people on Pay-Per-View. How much sweeter does it get than that? When you walk out of that tunnel and you look up, you think ‘Yeah, I made it.’

For more information on Josh Koscheck, visit www.kosmma.com or follow him on twitter @joshkoscheck.

Source: http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=news.detail&gid=80984