David St. Martin of SB Nation caught up with Mike Pyle to follow up on his pre-UFC 120 interview with “Quicksand.” Of course, the conversation centered on Pyle’s domination of top UK prospect John Hathaway:
When you’re twisted up and getting pounded? That’s just the worst. It breaks people. I knew I had a long time to sit there and beat on him. If he were to slip out I would have gone for the submission, but I had him. There was no reason. I didn’t want to let go. I really wanted to make a statement and beat on him. I wanted him to remember that fight.
I never believed any of the hype whatsoever. The whole time the kid was coming up I could see holes in his game. I could see his inexperience. I’ve got an eye for this sport when it comes to preparing gameplans and I’ve helped a lot of people in a lot of big fights. Now it’s time to help myself out in these bigger fights. I just knew that this matchup would be the perfect scenario for me to just go in and dominate. I wasn’t surprised at all. I knew about the kid in my heart and that was the only thing I was focused on.
He just couldn’t get anything going. I shook him in the first round with a good right hand that seemed to get him off track. My style is just hard to deal with. It’s not exactly unorthodox but it’s something you just can’t bring a sparring partner in for. I just tried not to get hit. I don’t like to stand toe to toe and trade, coming out looking like a zombie afterwards. I don’t like to bleed in my fights. I just wanted to stay elusive and unpredictable. Make myself hard to find in there. I wanted to make sure he never took me down, which he didn’t. I took myself down once. He reversed me after I tried a lateral throw. I put my own self on my ass.
I just knew I was the better wrestler. I’ve been doing it a lot longer. I knew bringing my experience to the game was going to overwhelm him. A lot of people haven’t been able to see my wrestling because it hasn’t ever really been a part of my gameplan in my other fights. For this fight my wrestling was a big part of the plan. I train with some of the best in the game, guys like Gray Maynard. Getting that takedown off the third attempt after the other two is where it really counts.