Todd Duffee Looks To The Future With New Promises And No Regrets

It’s been an interesting ride for former UFC star Todd Duffee, and many questions still surround the man. Was he all hype and no substance? Is he his own worst enemy? Was the UFC justified in releasing him? And perhaps the most important question in the here and now: where does Todd Duffee go from here, following a brutal KO loss to Alistair Overeem in under twenty seconds? Here’s the latest on Todd Duffee, straight from the man himself.

In a new interview with Fight Opinion, Duffee recently shared the following sentiments: “…Obviously, I’m extremely disappointed. I feel like I’m a much more talented fighter than I got the chance to show… I wasn’t prepared… I think I trained seven days for this fight and it definitely showed… It was a great opportunity to fight in Japan. It’s been a dream of mine… There’s no regrets, you know. It happened. You just got to move past it and I’ll definitely be back.”

I was one of the many that boldly predicted that Todd Duffee basically stood no chance against Alistair Overeem, who defended his Strikeforce Heavyweight Championship, won the K-1 World Grand Prix Championship, and with the win over Duffee, won the DREAM Interim Heavyweight Championship all within one calendar year. There seemed to be no stopping Overeem, who basically shrugged off Duffee’s blows as if they were nothing. I think Duffee is still very much a work-in-progress fighter, and to be perfectly honest, Overeem was so many leagues above him that it’s not even funny.

In regards to Duffee himself, I think he’s simply another victim of the persistent problem that plague all gigantic muscle-bound Heavyweight fighters: the dreaded cardio monster. Only the best Heavyweights know how to pack on the muscles while simultaneously not gassing horrendously once the fight gets out of the second round. And other than the three-round loss that got him kicked out of the UFC, Duffee’s only been past the first round one other time in his career, and that fight lasted only a minute into Round 2.

In a way, I’m actually a bit sympathetic to Todd Duffee. A lot of people are quick to point out that he’s a victim of his own hype. The cynics believe that he should have gotten right back into the Octagon after KO’ing Tim Hague in seven seconds rather than what he did do, which (if you believe the rumors) was stall out contract negotiations for almost a year in order to chase bigger paydays and more meaningful opponents, all while “hiding” under the guise of dealing with some injuries. Even the always-controversial UFC President Dana White stated that Duffee had an attitude problem.

Well, that all may be true, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that Duffee has an amazing amount of potential and can very well turn it all around given the right team and the right motivation. Duffee has only been fighting for three years, and he’s only twenty-five years old. He’s young and inexperienced, he may be a bit brash, he may even have let the hype and the fame get to his head… but the potential is there.

I think 2011 will prove once and for all what the future holds for Todd Duffee. Everyone knew Overeem would beat him, so I really can’t hold that loss against him. If Duffee excels in the underground circuit and gets back to his winning ways, we may see Duffee back in a major MMA promotion before the year is through. His future can still be quite bright, so long as he finally gets around to fully taking control of it.

And what about you, fans and friends? Are you hopeful or disinterested in Todd Duffee’s chances in 2011?