Tales From Beyond The Cage: Mike Ricci's burpee nightmare

Making one's coach proud is an accomplishment best achieved by winning a scheduled fight. It lets them know that all their time and tutelage was realized via that victory. Sometimes though, a win can come with a dark cloud attached to it, and can be viewed almost as bad as a loss. In this week's Tales From Beyond The Cage, Mike Ricci talks about the time that he made his coach, Firas Zahabi so angry, that he was ordered to do 100 burpees in a busy hotel hallway immediately following a fight that he had won. Here's the story in Mike's words:

So I had this fight with Jordan Mein in Drummondville (Quebec). I had moved up in weight, so it was my first fight at welter. I ended up beating him in a unanimous decision, but I was so exhausted that after the second round, when the bell rang, I was on top of him and I just rolled over onto my back and was like a starfish right there in the middle of the cage. I still had the third round to go [laughs]. I was really, really tired, but somehow I ended up pulling out the victory.

We were at this Holiday Inn in Drummondville; that's where the show was. When the fight was over, my coach, Firas (Zahabi) was just so livid; he as so mad that I gassed out, that when I was walking into the hallway of the hotel--we had literally just left from the cage--he forced me to do 100 burpees. People were walking by, looking at me, and here I am with a broken foot, no shirt on, still in the tights that I fought in, and I was just doing burpees in public.

The reason I gassed so bad is because I didn't take the fight too seriously. I only had to cut about three pounds, so after I made weight, I was watching movies all night, and there was a vending machine on the floor that my room was on. I was buying all kinds of mini cakes and chocolates and gummi bears. One of the guys that came down with us, he said that in the morning, he was able to follow the chocolate trail from the vending machine to my room because I was eating as I was walking, leaving a trail of crumbs. I really didn't eat too well before that fight [laughs]. That will stick with me forever.

You can follow Mike via his Twitter account, @mikeyricci