IFL veteran Chad “the Gravedigger” Griggs was virtually unheard of in the world of MMA until he handed Bobby Lashley his first loss while making his debut for Strikeforce: Houston on August 21st. Griggs, a full-time firefighter/paramedic for the Tucson Fire Department, defeated Lashley by 2nd round TKO. MMA HQ recently spoke with Griggs about the fight and his current training.

How do you have time to train while working full-time as a firefighter and having a family? What does your schedule look like?

It’s a balancing act. You have to definitely manage your time. Usually I am able to get at least one good workout at work; we work 24 hour shifts and so somewhere in that 24 hour shift, I can usually get a good workout in. It might take 2-3 times in between calls but I’ll get it in. On my days off I usually train in the morning and in the evening time. When it gets closer to a fight, when we get 8 weeks out I have to put a lot more time into training. The family understands obviously because it’s another means of providing for them.

A lot of people are saying it was controversial when the referee stopped the bout to have Lashley’s cut checked out, when he was in mount, and then repositioned the fight from standing. Your thoughts on that decision?

I honestly thought that they were standing us back up to restart us because there was nothing happening. You’re right, he had the mount, but he was exhausted. Every time he’d post up he might throw one or two but then he’d miss, I’d throw something up at him and he’d drop right back down. I mean there’s no question that he was exhausted. He wasn’t working from there so when they stood us up I was under the impression that we were just getting stood up to restart the fight.

I saw obviously they had to check the cut out but I was eager to get back and it never crossed my mind that they would put us back in that position and I don’t know that his corner or anybody else thought that either. I never heard any complaints until after the fight. Everyone can backseat quarterback, but I thought it was a fair call, and when they started us back on our feet that’s what I was expecting. Looking at him and his corner I think they were expecting the same thing whether or not they’ll say that now. I didn’t hear them yelling anything about restarting from mount or anything of the sort. That’s my viewpoint.

And then I heard people say I was hitting him in the back of the head, well we went through the rules meeting the day before and the ref told us there’s no hitting in the back of the head obviously but your opponent can maneuver and if he chooses to turn his head away and get hit in the back of the head rather than moving and choosing to defend himself that’s his fault, and I don’t feel like I was trying to hit him in the back of the head with my hammerfists. Now, his face was buried in my ankle just holding on and we’re finishing the fight; he could’ve turned; he could’ve done anything. I didn’t know that was going to be a question. I didn’t hear anybody complaining about that at the time either, everybody’s just kind of looking for a reason I think, what happened to Bobby.

Let’s talk about your relentless ground and pound from bottom.

I think that’s something that I’ve always done. I did it with Moore, I closed up Marsh’s eye from being on the ground and catching him with something, I think a lot of people forget to do that, they want to find submissions and they want to get up but I think it makes your opponent when you’re on the bottom when you’re catching them. Turn the hips, catch him with a good hook but that definitely effects your opponent when you’re catching them. He’s more cautious and it hurts him you’re still in a fight, I think that’s a huge thing in a fight use all your tools, reposition your head and if you try you can get some pretty good angles.

You usually end up on top in your fights though, don’t you?

Yeah that’s usually how it’s been turning out, catch ‘em with something and end up on top and so far I’ve been real good if I smell blood I can usually find the way to finish it. Give me the opportunity and that’s what I’m going to go for, try and finish it. There’s been quite a few fights where I found a little chink in their armor and was able to finish them, just like Bobby. Bobby was tired and I was able to stuff his shot and get around and take advantage of it before he could get back up, give him a flurry before he could recover from it.

Are you usually a stand-up fighter?

I’m usually what the other opponent isn’t. I study the other opponent; find their weaknesses. I’d say I’m more well-rounded, I am not just a stand-up guy I’m not just a ground guy, I’m definitely not a wrestler but it depends on what the opponent is as to what my game plan is.

We wanted to try to stand as much as we could get with Bobby, stand up and make him work and get him tired. We knew he was a wrestler who wanted to take me down and ground and pound me, so I worked a lot off of my back and worked on avoiding punishment, tried to make him work to get him tired. I capitalized on that towards the end of the fight. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it at the end of the 2nd round, but in the 3rd round I was a lot fresher than he was and I felt that it would have been my round to really shine.

You seemed pretty confident going into the fight but nobody really expected much from you. Do you feel like you were underestimated?

I do, yeah. I mean I would like to think that all the people now say, “yeah I underestimated him.” I think the people that I trained with were confident in me and I felt confident and I did lots and lots of radio interviews and different press conferences and it was obvious they were wanting me to be a feeder for Bobby but that was never in my mind. And I was surrounded by a good team, we got good training, they were confident in me and I felt confident. We went in there to win not to fall down or get beat up or to make Bobby look good. There was no question that most of the people watching the fight or putting it together were planning on me losing but my thought process was a little different

Do you think being the underdog gave you a mental edge?

Absolutely. In my mind it’s a catch-22 and I had nothing to lose. I was going in, I was expected to lose, yeah it gave me a mental edge in that aspect. But at the same you play that mind game everyone is telling you that you’re gonna lose so you gotta push that out and not focus on that or listen to that. There was definitely a lot of that, just reading the paper the morning before the fight talking about the fight touched a little bit on me and Bobby and how he’s expected to finish me quickly in the 1st round and it’s like, okay, there’s not a lot of confidence in me from everyone else. But it’s a mental game, not to let that stuff get to you. He definitely had much more pressure on him than me, though. I wasn’t well known, they were just bringing me in to be a feeder for him to get some more highlights and build him up. So he had a lot of pressure on him to perform and I think that was part of his problem; he spent so much energy wanting and trying to finish me in that first round.

If you could just tell us a bit about your background?

I would say more just freestyle, I kind of got thrown into it right in the mix as to everything. I started training and my first night at practice it was supposed to be judo and Don Frye was there getting ready for a fight, I got thrown into the mix right at the beginning and working on standup and ground and wrestling. So I don’t have a particular thing that is my core; I kind of got throw into everything all at once

How did you move from training with Frye to Apex?

We were at Rincon and when the IFL happened we opened our own gym up, the Scorpions gym. From there Apex opened up and I’ve kind of been bounced around Boxing Inc., Undisputed. I bounced around and then when Apex opened up and been there ever since it. That’ll be my home.

Anyone you want to fight next?

Yeah. I’m crossing my fingers for Brett Rogers.

That’s exactly what I’m going to ask you. How about Brett Rogers?

Been hearing that a lot. He’s another huge man. It’d be a great fight for me. We’re going to take probably the opposite approach of what we did with Bobby, it’d be a standup fight rather than a ground. But I would love that fight. I hope that does happen.

Any sponsors you want to thank?

Full Tilt Poker’s been great to us. I’m definitely looking for sponsors; they can always hit us up at Fight Legion.