I was hanging out at Tim Sylvia and Tony Fryklund’s place, watching TV and talking to Tim about Chute Boxe, in Brazil. “I wouldn’t get in there with those guys,” I said, and Tim snorted and said, “Why not? You’re a tough kid.” He didn’t really mean anything by it, just that if I could hang with any of the Miletich guys, I could hang with anybody. That is, he wasn’t trying to compliment me, he was saying, Don’t be a *, you can do it. And because he wasn’t trying to compliment me, it was a huge compliment.
I talked to Pat about not fighting, and he laughingly asked me, “Are you faking injury to get out of a fight?” and I wasn’t, but there was a door, a way out. Always a door. Always a way out, with some honor intact. I wished it was just in my head, but it wasn’t. It was outside of my control. Was it worth fighting hurt?
Tony and I met Brandon at Barnes and Noble, and Brandon was full of enthusiasm for my fight, despite the injury. He was all fired up to be my cornerman; he said that he’d get me crazy before the fight. “You gotta fight, man. It’s the warrior way.”
I would still go to the gym. It was murder to have to sit there at night and not be able to work out, not be able to get in there and hit and be hit. Everyone agrees that coming to practice and not being able to work out, which is what you are supposed to do if you’re injured so at least you can learn through osmosis, is the worst part of getting hurt.
Tony was moving into the final stages of his fight psychosis. He had a big fight coming up on the same night as mine, in Hawaii, possibly the biggest fight of his career, against Matt Lindland, the number one 185-pound guy in the world. Tony talked to his sparring partners as if they were Lindland; he gave the imaginary Lindland the finger after knocking him out, walking away sneering, leaving his fantasy enemy crumpled in the dust. He’d dyed the tiny stubble he had left on his head blond. He looked ripped, his stamina was up, and he was kicking ass. He was talking to himself all the time.
There is something that reeks slightly of madness in this approach to violence, the premeditation of a scheduled fight. You watch the days and hours shrink toward a guarantee of violence, and it does something to you. Your contract with society becomes slightly more tenuous.
It tortured me, watching everyone else train and knowing I couldn’t. I could feel myself slipping out of tip-top shape (which I was never really in), wondering if I was too old and slow and weak.
Pat tried to take me in hand those last days, working fundamentals such as footwork, but we were both frustrated by my injury. It’s a fact of life, and these guys fought hurt all the time. When you train this hard, there will always be something.
Tony and I went to the sauna, trying to cut a little water weight. I weighed in at 194 (having just downed a lot of water) and Tony kept referring to me as being “a little portly.” We put Vicks VapoRub on our chests and poured water laced with eucalyptus oil on the hot rocks.
Just eight days until the fight, and I woke up at three forty-five and couldn’t fall back asleep. My mind was twisted up like a pretzel. All I could think about was dashing elbows in my opponent’s face, scoring hits, putting together combinations, knockouts.
Another day, Brandon came down to hit mitts with me. In a kind of boxing workout, Brandon held focus mitts and I chased him around punching them, a strict hands-only workout but about all my ribs would allow.
With four days left I decided to fight, despite the rib. I was depressed and yelling at inaminate objects in my apartment again. But I fell back on those immortal words at the base of all good decision making: Fuck it.
I ate just one real meal a day. I had been running and my cardio was pretty good (I actually ran the Hill ten times), but I hadn’t been able to roll with anyone for weeks. I was going to have to stay off the ground above all things. I sat on the edge of my bed and thought for a long time while I watched the cars across the river shimmering like droplets in an IV tube.
I couldn’t have walked away anymore—I would never have felt right about it, partly because I’d worked too hard. I was going to learn what it’s like to fight hurt. That’s something everyone should know.
All I had left was to make weight.
On my last workout day, I went in and hit mitts with Pat, something invaluable, as his close personal attention was extremely helpful. Pat’s style was the short, strong man’s game—slip and hard shots on the inside. He had about fifteen fighters he was training and a gym he was starting up, so he was busy as hell. (And he was going to Hawaii to corner for Tony. Matt Lindland had beat Pat when Pat tried to move up in weight; there was history there.)
I even “sparred” that night, worked on my offense with Rory Markham while he worked on his defense. He didn’t throw anything at me; I chased him around for three rounds. I felt pretty good, able to find angles, which is what Pat had me working on.
I had thrown some kicks the day before, and when I woke, my rib was twitching but felt okay, and I’d done nearly everything I could do. I’d run the Hill, trained hard, I had taken my licks—So I’m going to go out there and do my best, I thought. If he’s good, or he takes me down, I lose. If he’s just decent, I have a chance.
I weighed myself that morning and I came in at 186, which was wonderful, and I could relax. My legs were still a little sore, and I just wanted them to be fresh, so coming in at 186 with two days left was a godsend.
I did some hand fighting that night and I felt good, not great. My sprawl wasn’t instantaneous like it should have been, because of my ribs, but it was as good as possible.
Tony and I went to the sauna and cranked it up to ten and made our medicinal steam. It descended on my shoulders, scorching my ears, burning my nostrils if I breathed through my nose.
That Thursday, at five a.m., the day before the fight, I woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep, so I went over to the gym as it opened and checked my weight. I was starving. I carefully pulled off my clothes and weighed in at 188. Fuck.
The weigh-in was going to be the same night as the fight, so I would need to be walking around at close to the right weight. Professional fighters have the weigh-in the day before, so they can dehydrate and “cut” the six or seven pounds of water that all athletes carry, weigh in, and still have twenty-four hours or more to put the fluids back in. I didn’t have that option, I was weighing in just a few hours before the fight.
I got my “sauna suit,” a cheap, disposable track suit made of trash bag–type material, and put my sweatshirt on over it and went back to the gym. I rode the bike for about ten minutes, sweating heavily, and then I went into the fight room and blasted my music and shadowboxed for three rounds, feeling a little bit like Rocky. Then I skipped rope for three rounds. I didn’t really want to be working like that the day before a fight, but I had to know if I could make weight.
I showered and went and weighed in at 184 and laughed with relief. I had a dream in which my opponent kicked me in the nuts and broke my cup. I dreamt of tearing my ribs to shreds and still trying to fight, with my left arm pasted low to my body, shielding them.
The next day, I drove the five hours down to Cincinnati with Ben Lowy, a freelance photographer Men’s Journal had hired, and watched him eat Subway sandwiches. I was never a high school wrestler, and I’d never had to “make weight” before, so I wasn’t that experienced with my own body. I didn’t know for sure how much I would have to sweat off before I weighed in. That night, at the hotel, I shadowboxed for another three rounds in the sauna suit and felt pretty crisp, although my legs were hot again.
Basically, I made a trade-off. I gave away being totally rested and fresh for what I hoped would be a decisive advantage in reach. I’m six foot three, so anybody I fight at 185 will almost certainly be shorter than me. I was going to jab, stay outside, and throw punches in bunches. I had no ground game, so I was counting on my stand-up to carry me.
I planned on weighing in at five p.m. and then eating (PowerBars and stuff like that) and rehydrating until the fights started, at around eight. At that point I felt like maybe it was a mistake to fight at 185, but I had told Monte Cox, the promoter, that that was what I wanted to fight at, so I was going to show up weighing 185. I wasn’t going to “cheat” and come in over and just say, “Whoops, sorry, you still gotta fight me.”
The day of the fight, Friday, I sat around the hotel all day, after a light breakfast of cereal and some fruit, and I didn’t drink any water at all. I watched TV, husbanding my resources. Around three-thirty, I got in the sauna suit and went down and rode the hotel