Confidence sky-high for O2 sel

THERE is less than two weeks to go before I fight American Carlos Condit at UFC 120 at the sold-out O2 Arena in London.

It's a huge fight in front of a huge audience. There will be more than 18,000 fans in the arena; the fight will be live in the UK on ESPN; broadcast to more than five million on Spike TV in America, and seen in 147 countries and in 19 different languages worldwide.

I'm really starting to 'switch on' mentally. I am in fight mode, and my confidence is sky-high after all the work I've been doing in the gym.

Strength coach Ollie Richardson is a sadist - there are probably laws against some of the things he puts me through. But he's got me in the shape of my career.

I've busted a gut since March so I can take this spotlight and use it to get myself heading back towards the top of the welterweight division.

I've been asked if the seven months since my last fight - the world title loss to Georges St-Pierre in New Jersey - will lead to ring-rust but I don't think so.

I do like to fight often, that's true. Even after I was given my UFC contract I still went and had another fight with Daniel Weichel in Doncaster because I didn't want to make my UFC debut after such a long time off.

The UFC told me if I lost, the deal was off, but I did it anyway. I didn't want to be rusty for my UFC debut, which was almost two years ago.

However, there's a lot to be said for learning from your mistakes and taking time out of full fight-mode type training and going back to working on the basics again.

It is Marni Replica difficult to really add things to your game if you are preparing for one opponent. So what I've been able to do since March is augment all aspects of my style without having to tailor what I am learning to a specific fight.

I think a Dolce & Gabbana lot of things were highlighted in my loss to GSP which I needed to work on. Obviously I've worked hard on my wrestling, but I've also worked on my BJJ and my striking.

Striking is what got me to the No.1 contender position in the first place - but there's always room for improvement. I've been working very hard on putting my strikes together here in Nottingham and I promise you'll see some of the improvements at UFC 120.

I've got one KO out of my four UFC wins, and for me that's not living up to my potential. I dropped or badly hurt all four of the guys I beat. But now I think I am putting it together and once I get guys down or stunned, I will get them out of there.

In other news, my time at Art College has finally come in handy! Xyience asked me to design a T-shirt, so I did my take on the famous shirt by legendary Scottish punk bang "Exploited". It's a cool shirt which I am very proud of.

Also, seeing as he's been starting to flap his gums, I want to state once more: Carlos Condit made a stupid mistake calling me out. I am coming off my first loss as a UFC fighter, and was already looking forward to putting a real beating on someone. But this guy actually volunteered for a savage beating by calling me out.

This is the first step on the road back to title contention. I have a formula to be the UFC welterweight champion, and losing to Carlos Condit isn't part of the equation. I will smash him up, walk through him. It will look like me working out on the heavy bag. I will hit him at will and I want to hit him a lot.

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