Flash player is required to view weather conditions. Download

site web  

WEST CHESTER — It's not easy being a Cincinnati native preparing to fight in the Queen City's premier mixed martial arts competition.

"That's why I'm leaving town," Rich Franklin said. "It's not going to be tough at all, because I won't be here."

Franklin, said native who will face middleweight champion Anderson Silva in the Ultimate Fighting Championship's UFC 77 event Oct. 20 at US Bank Arena, will leave Monday for three weeks of training at a western location his camp maintains is undisclosed.

But it's not easy picking up camp and moving across the country. Franklin's traveling party will include three coaches and three training companions, including Jorge Gurgel, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt who runs the West Chester training academy where Franklin met the media Thursday.

But such a move is necessary, Franklin said, with the excitement surrounding this event.

"It's the everyday hustle and bustle of life," Franklin said. "Getting up and checking my e-mail in the morning and having to worry about returning business calls and all that kind of stuff. Quite frankly, once I leave town Monday, when I wake up Tuesday morning for my first training day the only thing I'm going to worry about from that time to the fight is training. Everything else can fall by the wayside."

As mixed martial arts (most notably UFC, with Franklin as one of its poster boys) has mushroomed into the country's — if not the world's — fastest growing sport, the fighters have found extra responsibilities for appearing at events, such as granting interviews and meeting with fans while also training and maintaining a daily life.

"It takes away from your family and all that kind of stuff and builds distractions into your training," Franklin said. "Knowing that if I have some PR work to do this evening when I'm done training, I have to come into the gym, get my stuff done and I can't go home and rest for the remainder of the evening and plan for tomorrow's training. I have to worry about what PR is on the agenda."

There's still plenty of attention directed at Franklin, the former schoolteacher who lost his middleweight title to Silva last October and will attempt to regain the crown in front of a hometown crowd next month.

"I've obviously never had this kind of exposure locally," Franklin said from a folding table as he stared into six television cameras, two still photographers and nine more reporters Thursday at JG MMA Academy. "This is insane. As for the sport, I don't know. I think this is one of those fights that could possibly make me a hall of famer or not within the UFC."

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7389 or knagel@DaytonDailyNews.com.