“I feel like we ask for certain things and you have to be ready for it,” Pogues admits. “A lot of people just think, ‘Oh, he just goes in there and he fights.’ But there’s a lot that goes into a fight. It’s more than just the physical part of it. It’s your mental, too, and that’s one of the biggest things. For someone like me, I’m not afraid to admit it. A part of me, from where I grew up in and my environment, it was hard to believe that someone like me could be in the UFC, even though that’s something I dreamed of my whole life. And then you get signed to the UFC and it’s like, ‘Hey, let’s put all these cameras in your face. Hey man, let’s talk about your life. Hey man, let’s do this. Hey, let’s go fight here.’ And the popularity came and it was like everyone’s in your face now, everyone’s smiling and the whole time you’re like, ‘Yo, I just want to be alone so I can deal with my mentals and I just want to be a better man.’”
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Eventually, Pogues figured it all out. He changed his team, put folks around him that were focused on him, and with friends and family on board as well, he found the light at the end of the tunnel, and it wasn’t a train. Well, it was a train, but this one – Thomas “The Train” Petersen – was one he could handle.
