Joe Riggs on new WEC

By Keith Mills

One of the fights on March 25th’s WEC card is Joe “Diesel” Riggs against Hiromitsu Miura at Middleweight. Riggs is well-known to UFC fans but recently has been fighting mostly at Welterweight with mixed results. Now Riggs goes back to the weight class that made him a star in the first place.

KM: How do you feel about returning to the WEC now that Zuffa owns it? JR: It is good. It’s a good organization that will be just as big if not bigger than the UFC in six months to a year. I’m happy to be a part of it, starting with it. The network they got has 75 million viewers and it is going to just keep growing. It all depends on the fighters how exciting the fights are. I’m going to go out there and put on a hell of a show and get the crowd electric.

KM: You fought in the old WEC and UFC. Is this basically UFC as opposed to WEC? JR: It is exactly like the UFC.

KM: What do you think of your opponent Hiromitsu Miura? JR: I know absolutely nothing about the guy. You’d think you’d be able to find video but I found nothing. Not one fight, not one clip.

KM: Does that matter to you at this level? JR: I like to know more about the guy like if he is a southpaw or if he is standup or a grappler but who knows.

KM: What is training like this time around? JR: I was down in California training with Tito (Ortiz), (Quinton) Rampage (Jackson), Tiki Ghosen, Rob McCullough, and all those guys (Team Punishment). It was good. We worked a lot on my wrestling. I came back and spent a couple days with the wife so everything is good.

KM: How is the family life? JR: Good. My wife is almost seven months pregnant. Fantastic. I can’t wait to have the baby.

KM: Are you working with Billy Rush for conditioning at all? JR: Billy might be coming out to corner me for the fight. I’m not too sure but we’ll see.

KM: How do you feel about returning to Middleweight? JR: Good. Everybody I train with says I feel strongest and most physically dominating at 185. I don’t get faster when I go down to 170, I just lose a lot of strength. 185 is a better cut for me. I’m still a big Middleweight, I walk around at 210.

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