Seth Petruzelli In-Depth On His Fight With Matt Hamill

CREDIT: WWW.MMANEWS.COM

Regular co-host of CFZ Radio at MMANews.com Seth Petruzelli made his non-Ultimate Fighter debut for the UFC this past Tuesday night on Spike TV in the first televised bout on the Ultimate Fight Night "The Final Chapter" special which garnered the best rating for a fight card in UFC TV history. Petruzelli had what almost is unanimously considered the televised fight of the night with the wrestling stand out from season three of The Ultimate Fighter – deaf Team Punishment rising star Matt Hamill.

Seth sat down with his co-host of CFZ Radio Luis Cruz for a very in-depth personal discussion about his fight with Hamill from Tuesday just two days after the grueling three-round bout.

Here's an excerpt of the transcript of the interview conducted on Thursday, October 12, 2006. To read the full interview, go to https://www.mmanews.com/ufc/Seth-Petruzelli-In-Depth-On-His-Fight-With-Matt-Hamill.html

MMANews.com: Now, the cut under your eye – do you remember at all what caused that?

Seth Petruzelli: Not really, I thought it was him just grazing his forearm across my face. All I remember is his fingers being in my eyes and stuff like that too, and [Big John] McCarthy warned him a couple of times but he obviously didn't hear him and he just kept doing it and then he never said anything. And that's why I was getting pretty frustrated because he kept jamming his hands in my eyes and I couldn't see a damn thing. But I don't know what caused it, I thought it was an elbow but I could be wrong.

MMANews.com: Well, I thought it was the glove. I watched the fight a couple times again and it looked like it pretty much opened up when he rubbed his glove against your eye in the one spot in the first round. Now you mentioned the fingers in the eyes, I was actually going to hit on that next. Do you feel he fought a real dirty fight?

Seth Petruzelli: Umm, when I was in there I didn't. But after reading everyone's posts and things like that – I need to watch the fight again because it sounds like he had his fingers in my eyes the whole damn time.

MMANews.com: I was out of my chair screaming at the TV. I was saying, "why's this guy got his fingers in his eyes, why isn't the ref saying anything?!" I couldn't hear from the TV, I couldn't hear John tell him or motion to him anything.

Seth Petruzelli: Well I remember him saying it once, he said it one time I remember and that was it. It's not like Matt looked at him when he said it, so who knows if he heard it.

MMANews.com: Now I don't want to dog Matt, I actually like the guy as a fighter and his personality. But to me, it looked like some of those fingers in the eyes were intentional. Now I don't want to accuse him of doing that, but that's just how it looked to me on TV.

Seth Petruzelli: Yeah, I got to watch it again. I'm not saying anything until I watch it but as far as all the posts and what everyone is saying – it looks like he was jamming his fingers in my eyes.

MMANews.com: Obviously the grinding of the elbow was intentional, that was pretty obvious.

Seth Petruzelli: Yeah, well I mean I guess that's part of the game. If someone had a cut open I'd try and punch the cut open too. I definitely wouldn't be taking my fingers and try to rip it open.

To read the full interview, visit www.MMANews.com.