In the world of post-loss cliches, saying your mind wasn’t in the right place is right up at the top.

But hear veteran middleweight Kendall Grove’s story about the moments before he walked to the cage at Bellator 181, and try to reach another conclusion.

Grove, 35, tells the story like something you’d hear from a drinking buddy, but there’s still an undercurrent of emotion.

“Just at the beginning of this, I almost teared up when I was about to tell you the story,” Grove (23-17 MMA, 4-4 BMMA), who next faces A.J. Matthews (8-7 MMA, 4-5 BMMA) at Bellator 193, told MMAjunkie. “But I know I’m good, and I can do my thing the correct way.”

It’s hard to imagine a correct way to handle what Grove went through. A few months before a fight with John Salter this past July, his dad passed away. His dad had been one of his biggest supporters over a decade of professional fighting.

He went to the funeral and he grieved, but he didn’t really cry. He had a fight. He had to keep it together.

It was hard, though. Before his previous bout against former champ Alexander Shlemenko, he’d lost his grandfather and his brother. Three role models in his life were now gone. He stepped off the weigh-in scale for the Salter fight and burst into tears.

“I talked to my dad every fight,” said Grove, who meets Matthews on the Paramount-televised main card of Friday’s event at Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, Calif. “I can honestly tell you, I wasn’t mentally there.”

Grove had taken the booking because he wanted to be tough. He also needed to provide for his six kids. But he was cocky and thought he was better than Salter. Even with everything he’d been through up to that point, he’d persevere and take home a win for his dad.

He didn’t expect his dad to literally stop him in his tracks.

On fight night, Grove had brought to the event a necklace with special meaning. It contained a cylinder with his father’s ashes. They’d fight side-by-side.

Coming from a family of “degenerate gamblers” of Cherokee descent, Grove got a kick out of walking his dad through a casino to the arena.

Backstage, Grove had just gotten called to fight by the producers. As his time neared, he got into position behind the curtain. He watched Salter make the walk to the cage. He took off his shirt and necklace, and he noticed something.

The cylinder was missing.

“I give my chain to (my cornerman) ‘Big Pygmy’ (Justin Wren) … and my head’s not in the fight,” he said. “Where the (expletive) is my dad! Oh my God! I start looking around, running all the way down the hall. Salter’s music is going, and they’re like, ‘Kendall, what’s going on, bro?’ I was like, nothing. Let’s go.”

The next thing Grove remembers is Salter walking around the cage and referee John McCarthy’s face.

“I was like, (expletive), what happened?” Grove said. “(McCarthy) looked at me and gave me a nudge. I was like, ‘(Expletive) it, I know what happened.’”

Grove wasn’t overly bent out of shape about the competitive result. Salter had caught him in a rear-naked choke just prior to the bell in the first round. But looking over to his teammates, which included decorated jiu-jitsu practitioners Rafael Lovato and Saulo Ribeiro, he felt ashamed.

That feeling could only last so long, though, because he had to find his dad.

“I called my wife, and I was crying on the phone,” Grove said. “She’s like, ‘That’s alright, baby.’ I was like, ‘I lost my dad! I lost Papa E!’ She was like, ‘What?’

“I ended up finding him. His ashes are gone, though. I found the cylinder.”

A small army of casino workers saw to that. Grove has a good sense of humor about the whole thing now. He jokes that with all the gambling and nightlife around, his dad popped out of the tiny urn and had some fun.

“I like to believe it was him that unscrewed himself and was like, ‘I’m good, son. I’ve got booze, I’ve got gambling, and every once and a while, I’ve got hookers,’” he said.

The grieving process is over for the longtime MMA vet, even though the memory of it still tugs at him. He still talks to his dad.

They also share a rebellious streak. Grove has two middle fingers for people who think he should retire, even while he admits his walk to the cage on Friday night could be his last. He’s about going out his own way in a sport he loves. He’s back at a casino, fighting in front of people who have no idea what he’s been through.

And he’s still bringing his dad into the cage, even if not in the same form.

For more on Bellator 193, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.