MMA fighter Leonard Garcia talks with South Texas newspaper ‘The Monitor’ in advance of Sunday’s WEC featherweight title matchup against Mike Brown. Excellent interview where Garcia candidly discusses, in addition to other things, his legal troubles stemming from his friends’ involvement in a drug distribution ring:

Q: Everyone talks about how you’re the nicest guy you will ever meet in MMA. Of course, last year you ran into some trouble with the law, was arrested and later cleared on alleged charges. What did you learn from that situation in 2008?

A: It was one of those situations where my friend was involved with (cocaine). I was that person, like anyone else would be, that thought there was no need to tell the police. I thought if I wasn’t selling the dope, wasn’t using the dope but my friend was, that I was OK. I just figured if I didn’t have anything to do with the dope, I was in the clear. Truth of the matter is that when you deal with dope, only two things are going to happen, and neither of them are good. You’re either going to end up in jail, like me friend did, or you are going to have people after you that you really don’t want to be after you.

It was a case where I was in the right place at the wrong time.

Q: If you had it to do over, what would you do?

A: My biggest regret is not telling my friend that what he was doing was wrong. I should have sat him down and had that talk with him. I didn’t. I thought that if he was doing it and I wasn’t, there was no problem. Now that biggest regret is that my friend is in jail. My biggest regret is that here I am now short one friend.

Q: Has that incident lit a spark in you leading up to this fight?

A: Yes it has. I know people say this all the time, but I really appreciate life and what I have a lot more. I don’t take anything for granted anymore. You know, everyone does wrong in life. It’s just going to happen. But we need to limit our wrongs.

Fortunately, Garcia’s legal troubles are behind him at this points as his involvement was pretty much as he says it was and charges were dropped. Don’t miss the Sunday WEC show as this could be an early contender for the MMA ‘fight of the year’ as the explosively powerful Garcia takes on the rugged veteran Mike Brown. We like both fighters–Brown is a Portland native (who now trains in Florida with American Top Team) and we typically like to prop up our Rose City homeboys but Garcia is a fighter that its just impossible not to be a fan of. We’ll have the round by round coverage of WEC: Brown vs. Garcia here at THE SAVAGE SCIENCE starting at 6 PM Pacific/9 PM Eastern on Sunday, March 1.

Garcia talks about fight, life lessons @ The Monitor (TX)

The SavSci round by round of WEC: Brown vs. Garcia at the link below:

WEC: BROWN VS. GARCIA LIVE ROUND BY ROUND @ THE SAVAGE SCIENCE