Duane Ludwig will fight Sam Morgan in the main event at Strikeforce: Payback on Friday night, in a rematch of a fight that didn't go well for Ludwig the first time around.
In fact, it went about as badly as a fight can go: Ludwig was knocked out in 52 seconds. I asked Ludwig today what went wrong for him in that fight.
"What went wrong was he showed up for a fight and I showed up for a paycheck," Ludwig said. "I can't take away from Sam because it's every fighter's responsibility to show up for a fight. He showed up for that and I didn't."
But Ludwig told me today that he's showing up for a lot more than a paycheck this time around.
"I'm going to fight to the best of my abilities and do what I do," Ludwig said. "With a guy like him who changes things up, it's hard to formulate a specific game plan, so I'm going to let loose and have a good time."
Ludwig said that in the days leading up to the fight, he's a big believer in "visualization training."
"I visualize how I want the fight to shake out," Ludwig said. "It's my mental training. If I see it the right way in my mind hopefully I'll act the same way in the fight."
He says he's ready to do just that.
