Following two dominating rounds against Mike Russow at UFC 114, UFC heavyweight prospect Todd Duffee appeared on his way to back-to-back to UFC wins and a perfect 7-0 pro record.

Russow, though, scored a stunning comeback knockout at the May event, and Duffee is trying to move on.

But whatever you do, don't tell the 6-foot-3, 255-pound slugger that he's now a better fighter because of the lost.

After all, as Duffee recently told MMAjunkie Radio, he doesn't need a defeat to improve his understanding of the fight game.

"I could have learned all those lessons and won that fight," said Duffee, who dominated 13 minutes of the bout until Russow connected on a perfectly placed right hand that prompted the TKO stoppage. "My boxing coach, James Gifford – he's one of the best in town – he left, he walked out of the room, and he walked back in, and he goes, 'Damn it.' He said, 'I'd like to say we learned something, but we could have learned all that and still won."

Duffee, who made a grand UFC debut in 2009 after stopping Tim Hague in a UFC record seven seconds, said another aspect of the loss compounded his misery. While many fighters don't even remember the big shot that put them to sleep – after all, how many have jolted awake only to ask what happened – Duffee saw the whole upset unfold before his eyes.

"The worst part about that knockout was that I was awake the whole time," he said. "I flashed when I hit the ground, but I flashed so fast that I really didn't miss a beat. I missed maybe half a second. I could see him coming. I could see the ref coming. I could see everything. I actually put my hand and stopped the ref and said, 'I'm fine.' I was like, 'I can't believe that just happened.'"

Referee Josh Rosenthal, though, had seen enough and halted the action at the 2:35 mark of the final round.

Now with nearly two months to reflect on the loss, Duffee really hasn't seen any positives? There's not something he can take away from the defeat? Wasn't it a learning experience just to deal with a pro loss for the first time?

"Not, it's not," said Duffee, sounding like a guy who's already answered this question more times than he wanted to. "I'm so tired of hearing that. You know what a learning experience is? When you didn't get something you wanted. That's what a supposed learning experience is."

Duffee, though, has taken his lumps. He knows MMA fans can be a fickle bunch. And as a self-described fight fan in his own right, he was prepared for the inevitable criticism.

Early in his career, one of his peers warned him about the potential perils of being a fighter and a fan.

"Jorge Santiago, one time he saw me messing around on the Internet (looking at MMA websites)," Duffee joked. "He said, 'I wouldn't do that if I were you.' I was like, 'Why?' He was like, 'It's bad for you mind.'

"I think that's a reason a lot of guys say that (they aren't fans). I know most fighters pay attention to the fights. Maybe some of these guys aren't fans, though. They're fans of the lifestyle or something like that."

http://mmajunkie.com/news/19895/ufc-hea ... lesson.mma

I always thought Dooffee was all hype, even after his "record setting" win which should belong to Duane Ludwig. The guy was calling out Dana saying he "wanted to eat". Meanwhile, no offense to Hague, look who he got the record on!
Hague isn't exactly a top tier hw or was even good enough to be in the UFC. Before that Hague was 4-0 against no name guys, and the only name he fought was Assuerio Silva who isn't much competition either. The only tough guy he fought weathered his punches and just needed one to lay his ass OUT! To say he was able to fight, etc. making excuses for the loss, like it was the ref who stopped it too early. is PATHETIC!

I truly hated this guy when he was trashing the BEST heavyweight in MMA EVER and the best pound for pound mma fighter, Fedor, on Inside MMA. This was when he was still living high on his "record" win. Him and that pipsqueak Varner were talking all kinds of trash. Dooffee got KTFO and Varner got subbed FAST by Ben Henderson and I think should have lost to Shalorous, even with the point deduction. Dooffee and Varner have a lot in common, they can trash talk REAL fighters, and then go down in flames and show people how bad they really are, and then try to turn it around and have an excuse as to why they lost. With Varner, he said Henderson didn't want to stand (duh, it's MMA!), then with Shalorous he thought he won.

I always felt that one of the most important lessons of training martial arts now looking back many years, was defenitely to learn to take a punch, not be afraid of someone punching and kicking you and not be afraid of pain and getting beat. To rise up after a defeat and still have your pride and learn from it and get better. It has helped me in many aspects of life like work and relations to other people. Specially not to take shit from bullies or idiots. To say that he didnt learn anything from the loss is prtty weak and sounds stupid to me. Im not a fan of Varner either and I never liked fighters that try to explain why they actually didnt loose or how the ref judged bad or trying to defend losses instead of saying "yeah I lost and now Ill try to get better so it doesnt happen again".