With an ill father and a newborn, Grispi puts MMA on the backburner

What's wrong with Josh Grispi? That was the question on plenty of lips around the MMA community.

It turns out that life got in the way ... for now.

The fast-rising prospect saw his career derailed a bit by some trouble in the Octagon, but now all it has gone on hold as the 23-year-old is dealing with a situation that folks 20 and 30 years older would have trouble juggling.

In mid-August, Grispi's wife got through a difficult child birth when the UFC featherweight found out that his father had a brain tumor. On Aug. 14, just two days after Josh Jr. was born, Grispi's father, Richard, found out that the earache he was suffering from was a lot more serious.

"He's one to not go to the hospital. He'll just tough it out," Grispi told the Boston Herald at the beginning of October. "But I called and made an appointment for him and when he went in they rushed him right from the CT scan in Plymouth to Tufts in Boston. He didn't know what the heck what was going on."

It was a real wake-up call for the younger Grispi.

"I was a mess as soon as I knew he needed brain surgery," Grispi said. "I was just thinking it was his first grandson and he was just born and now with all this stuff, I want my dad to be there with his grandson. There was just a lot of stuff going through my head."

With training camp for UFC 136 about to take off, the -native had no choice but to drop out of his fight against Matt Grice.

"All I can think about is I don't want my dad to see my last two fights be losses," Grispi said. "I want to get back in there. But I don't think I should have even fought those two fights (2010 losses against Dustin Poirier and ). I should have just taken care of myself when I needed to, but I needed money. I was having a kid so I needed to save up more money. I was fighting for the wrong reasons."

Grispi has a bright future in front of him. Now it's time to take of the real important things in his life. MMA can wait, hopefully he comes back with the kind of focus that got him very close to landing a 2010 title shot against Jose Aldo Jr.

"Now I want to get back into it and love it again and not look at it like a job anymore," Grispi said. "My other (pre-UFC) fights, it wasn't like a job. I was just having fun, going in there and doing my thing. Then I put all this pressure on myself and (the losses) happened. I'm looking to get back in there as quickly as possible, but not to the point where I can't go in there and have a blast like I usually do."

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/With-an-ill-father-and-a-newborn-Grispi-puts-MM?urn=mma-wp8515

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