But here's a bit more of what Griffin had to say. But first off: warning... some of the comments are quite ... what's the word I'm looking for ... well... just read at your own risks.

You're pretty blunt throughout the book and the way you talk. Does that method of communicating ever get you in trouble?

It backfires every time a chick asks me about fashion or if a dress makes her look fat. I'm going to be honest. Besides, if you don't like what I say, what are you going to do? Fight me?

What advice do you have for anyone trying to get into MMA?

Think about it: How many guys go from working a 9-to-5 job to becoming an Olympic swimmer or baseball player? So if you're just starting out right now and you're not a teenager, get out. This sport is changing rapidly. The window of guys who come out of nowhere and can fight is almost shut.

The ones who are going to take this to a new level are those who grew up fighting, wrestled in school, boxed and took other lessons during their free time. Thankfully, I have only a few more years left because once those wave of fighters enter their prime, it's going to be brutal.

What about those guys who aren't that young anymore but fighting is really all they know and they want to get into MMA?

Male prostitution. In this economy, male prostitution. Besides, it's really tough to make a living in this sport. And if you're married or got kids it's even tougher. A good fighter can really only care for himself. And the money only follows the talent, not those willing to get beat.

What's going on with your next fight that's coming up Aug. 8 in Philadelphia against Anderson Silva?

I'm probably going to get hurt, if not die. This guy knows how to fight. The good news is, if I die, this book will sell a lot more copies and be worth more.

Now here's a few more of Griffin's comments below that didn't make print.

What's the weirdest things you've done lately?

A saved a hampster the other week, made it my pet. It's kind of funny how a $6 hampster will end up costing you about $100 with the equipment and food and the other things a hampster needs. But the way I see it, I've saved this hampster's life, kept it out of danger of some guy shoving it up ..... (use your imagination... or better yet, don't use your imagination because it could be disturbing).

A lot of people are moving these days, downsizing, upsizing, moving to another city. What's your take on changing addresses?

As a current home owner, the best advice I'd have is don't do it all at once. First you buy the house, then you start off with the lawn furniture. No need for the fancy stuff in the beginning. And don't buy little things. There's so much junk you'll end up collecting over time, stay away from in the beginning. Also, I'd try to find people are who splitting up or lost their jobs and are moving. There's usually some great deals there. That's how I've got a few of my firearms -- even kept the guns registered in their names so any shots can't be traced back to me. It's great.

What's the best advice you have on picking up women?

You've got be comfortable with yourself. Don't be afraid to crash and burn. You see it all the time with comedians when they're on stage. Their jokes aren't working and it's terrible. But sometimes, that's even funnier. That's you with the women. You're doing poorly but don't stop talking. If she doesn't seem interested, say something like "well, what are you interested in so I can lie about that?" It's the truth, right? It might get her to laugh.

Use humor or be really good looking. Or better yet, become famous. Heck, imfamous will do. Isn't Britney Spear's ex from around here? I bet he still gets a lot of action.

I'll start today's blog by saying I have not made up my mind. OK, I have, but my mind is open enough that it's waiting for further evidence to officially and publically declare an opinion. Until then, here is pretty much everything I know about the following story ...

EX-BULLDOG DONATES $10 MILLION TO FRESNO STATE

If you'd like an abridged version, or at least a slightly different take on the same version, here is my column that ran in Wednesday's Fresno Bee ...

BIG DONATION COMES WITH AMAZING TALE

Since we don't have to be abridged on the internet, here is the full version of the story, or at least everything I can substantiate to this point ...

But the wrestling issue started to feel not nearly as important when at the press conference* there were no great explanations to the following question: 1.) How does Bigelow's company, Nykel Bam International, LLC, a company no one had heard of, have the sort of earning power that would let it give away $10 million?

*By most any standard, this press conference was a doozy. Biggest I've been to at Fresno State. Everyone was there. The athletic director. Associate athletic directors. Everyone in media relations. Student-athlete representatives from four different sports, including basketball star Paul George. Bulldog Foundation members. John Welty, the president of the university, who definitely doesn't show up for just any old academic honorable mention announcement.

Everyone came out for this. Fresno State coach Pat Hill made an appearance in the back. Fresno State basketball coach Steve Cleveland was there. Boeh spoke. So did Welty. So did associate AD Paul Ladwig. Bigelow spoke briefly and started to tear up. He looked nervous. There was a digital presentation, a 3-D look at the building projects in the works at Fresno State, the ones $10 million will make happen. There was a presentation of jerseys with "Bigelow" on the back and the No. 1 on the front. Also, they gave the Bigelow family a framed poster of the 2008 Fresno State baseball team, signed by all the players. There was clapping by boosters. The Josephine Theater was practically full. The whole thing was nothing short of a love-fest, photo-op celebration.

Let me first say that I'm quite aware that there are probably dozens and dozens of millionaires in Fresno who I have never heard of. There are probably millionaires whose friends don't even know they are millionaires. There are companies that no one knows about who make big profits. I'm sure of it. All that said, $10 million is a lot of money. Especially for charity. That's the kind of money Save Mart and Chukchansi Casino have invested to have their names attached to massive structures: the Save Mart Center* (home of Bulldogs basketball) and Chukchansi Park (home of the Triple-A Fresno Grizzlies).

So to a lot of people, this seemed really suspicious. OK, to me it seemed really suspicious. Still does. It's just weird to think that a company that no one had heard of -- a company that was created barely a year ago -- already had that kind of earning capability. The company, Nykel Bam International, LLC, has no web site. If you Google it, you only find the stories about the $10 million donation. That's a little weird, even for a company that wants to be so private.

By the time everyone had filed out and Bigelow had left, I still felt uncomfortable. I needed to know more. So I asked someone in media relations if Bigelow would call me later. He did, from the cell phone of Jay Vickers, the associate director of development for Fresno State, the guy in charge of getting large donations for the athletic department. Vickers is a former Notre Dame running back who got a business degree and was the first contact with Bigelow. When Bigelow got on the phone, he answered every question about Nykel Bam.

A couple years ago, he said he was in Hong Kong doing a gold transaction that failed. While there, he went to a cocktail party where he befriended an elderly gentleman from England. Normally, I don't use many quotes in my writing, I like to tell stories in my own words, but from here on out I'll use as many of Bigelow's own words as possible.

"I had a mentor that I met while I was in Hong Kong and he actually brought me into the business and held my hand," Bigelow told me. "I don't know why me. I met him during a meeting. He just took a liking to me at a cocktail party."

This man, whose name he would not give me, is the key. He's the one Bigelow says introduced him to most of his contacts, including the people who became his "board of directors." I got the impression that the man from England is one of the board members, but I don't think he said that directly. I also got the impression that the man from England shared the kind of secrets and connections that could have made any relatively smart person a savvy international business trader.

"Obviously, I don't want anyone knowing what I do," Bigelow said. "I don't need more competition."

Bigelow said he then came back to the U.S. and eventually started Nykel Bam, using the advice from his mentor. "I started the company but gave it over to the board of directors to run," he said.

So you're probably asking, as I did, how does this company work? There are five employees, he said, and five board members. Bigelow also said he is the only one of the 11 people that is in the United States, and again, no names or phone numbers would be provided. In his words, "I facilitate private commodities transactions and we take commissions off of those transactions. We are also involved in private placement programs. Our main focus is not to be public*. We're an international company and we prefer not to be public. Not a chance. We're not even on the internet. We don't even have a web site."

*To clarify, he didn't mean the main focus of the company is to be on the downlow. Obviously, the main focus is to make money. He structured that sentence backwards, one of those you had to hear to understand. He just meant, they have no interest or motivation in being publicized or well-known. The business model has no need for it.

I have no idea what being "involved in private placement programs" means, but the rest of it he simplified even further later: "There's people that have large amounts of money who buy from people who own large amounts of commodities, privately. It's not on the exchange. It's not on anything. And I take a commission on that."

A guy in Europe has a bunch of diamonds for sale. A guy in India wants to buy a bunch of diamonds. Bigelow puts those two people together and gets a cut of the sale. That's would seem to be the easy explanation.

He said he and the five board members all have their own clients and do their own facilitating and each has an equal 16.6% share in the company. Bigelow explained the part about the six equal shares. I did the math. Later, he explained that the six individuals are free to take as much commission as they want out of the company, or leave as much profit in the company as they want. I asked if that would in fact change their percentage of ownership in the company and he said it would. That would seem to contradict the six-equal-shares statement from earlier, unless all six have, to this point, produced the same amount of revenue and taken out the exact same amount of profit.

I apologize for letting this blog post morph into some sort of business analysis, but obviously the legitimacy of Bigelow's $10 million pledge rests on whether the explanation of Nykel Bam International makes sense. Because he certainly isn't providing paperwork or tax returns or corroborating interviews. When asked how much the company makes, Bigelow said, "We don't make much money at all. We're looking at $12 million maybe, $13 million."

The next logical question is why a company that makes $12 or $13 million would pledge $2 million a year for the next five years. Even if the profit is the larger one, the $13 million, that's 15%. And what if Nykel Bam can only make $7 million next year? What then? Are he and the board of directors going to give 28% to Fresno State athletics. According to Bigelow, the answer to these questions is that the ultimate goal of Nykel Bam is to do charitable work. They want to give away most of their profits. I asked if all five of his board members want this? Yes. They all do.

Bigelow said this ... "I mean, we could have made $20 million and give half of it away. We're not in the business of profiting and becoming multi-billionaires or making hundreds of millions of dollars."

And this ... "I don't really know how to explain it. How much money do you really need to survive? How much is enough? And then you have another mindframe that's, 'If I can make $100 million, then I want to make $200 million, then $300 million, then $400 million.' It starts to become ridiculous. My mindframe is not like that. We make money to give back. We have the opportunity to be in this industry that allows us to make the type of money where we can give back. That's what we do."

And this ... "My experience is humanitarian based. I used to own group homes. It's not about the money."

And this ... "Our goal is to give away 80%. That's our ultimate goal. As long as we can still make a great living and survive, the goal is to give away 80%."

This is the part where your belief in humanity has to get really strong. Not only does Bigelow want to give away 80% of his profit, after working countless hours, setting up deals in the waking hours of the day, when business gets done in Hong Kong and the far reaches of the planet -- a couple times during Tuesday's press conference, he thanked family and friends for putting up with his late nights and early mornings -- but he found five board of directors who want the same thing. I asked if these five people had other businesses and projects that would allow them the financial freedom to give away 80% and he said they did.

Said Bigelow: "They came to me and said for tax purposes, we want to give away $10 million. We're affording you the opportunity to pick and choose who you would like to give this money to."

The tax angle is a bit of a divergence from the we-want-to-do-good angle, but it's not entirely implausible that you could simultaneously avoid a tax hit while helping charity. I'm kicking myself for not asking why five foreigners would be on board with giving $10 million of their money to Fresno State athletics. I mean, what about the United Way? Or the Red Cross? There are starving kids in Africa, I've heard. Earthquake victims in China. The people in Burma could probably use some help after last year's tsunami. Wouldn't five such dramatic philanthropists think the money could be used in a more humane way?

Bigelow said it was entirely his decision, that he got to choose first because he started the company, and in five years, another of the six will get to choose, and eventually another board member will get to choose, and so on. I just hope none of the board members are senior citizens, because at this rate, a couple of them might not get to choose for another 20 or 25 years.

That's about it. What can I say? Fresno State hasn't gotten any money yet. The first payment of $500,000 is supposed to be made July 1, and you can see why a lot of people are taking a Jerry McGuire stance on the subject. Show me the money. The story is hard to believe. No doubt about it. Of course there are never any guarantees with this sort of commitment. Fresno State can't take Bigelow to court if he only gives them $7 million or even $2 million. Every year there are donation pledges made to Fresno State that are never paid. This is different, though. This was the mega news conference. Photo-ops with the president of the university. Everyone making grand statements about the impact. This is department-changing money, a commitment that is supposed to put field turf in Bulldog Stadium and finish the sports medicine center and build the "student village" and complete the soccer/lacrosse stadium. Oh, and pay for a half-million in scholarships.

"I think it's an awesome deal," Pat Hill told me later. "He's just as excited about giving back as we are about receiving. These are the things we need.

"It gives us a new spark, a new energy. You gotta spend money to make money. And it might make more people say, 'Hey I can give to the university too."

To this point, I think it's made a lot of people intrigued and confused. It would be amazing for Fresno State if this thing is real, and it would be absolutely devastating for fundraising if it turns out Bigelow and Nykel Bam International, LLC, are some sort of fairy tale. One of the things we do know is that Bigelow lives modestly, an average house and a small office in the Cargo Bay building.

"I wanted to keep this whole thing a secret," Bigelow said. "I just wanted to donate the money and walk away. I don't want to make it a big deal. I wish that it wasn't a big deal. I'm excited for the university, being able to help student-athletes. I'm just not excited about all the press. I would like for it to happen, and for them to get $10 million without anyone knowing. That's what I would prefer."

So why didn't he just drop it off in an envelope? The university takes anonymous money all the time.

"[Fresno State officials] said that people would be calling me and it would be more of a mess," Bigelow said.

Oh, and one more thing: Bigelow and his family arrived at the press conference in a stretch Hummer limo. A school official told me Fresno State had nothing to do with the limo. The guy who doesn't care about money and didn't want it to be a big deal rolls up in a style.

Just another part of this story that doesn't make sense.