God in the Octagon

Round 4

For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you. –Deuteronomy 20:4

When I got to the gym later that day, George St.-Pierre approached me with news that would change my life. He told me, with that French-Canadian class that he was so well known for "Jack," though he said it Jacques, which I always thought was funny considering I was the most English person I knew, and George addressing me with a French name was almost rubbing that in "I was just on the phone with Dana White, you know, the president of the UFC." A big grin came over George's face, as if he had the greatest news in the world.

"Oh yeah? What'd he have to say?" I said, trying to act as cool as possible, but knowing it wasn't really working.

"He said that he needs someone who can fill in for a fight in two months. I told him I knew a couple different fighters here at Tri-Star, yourself included, who would be willing to take up the offer. Its UFC fight night in Toronto, first fight on main card. Just by accepting the fight, you're guaranteed $6000, win and you'll get an extra $1000, and any other bonuses are in between $25000 to $50000. What do you think, are you ready for it? I know it's been a rough little while for you and you can say no, I will completely understand. There's plenty of other guys who you can help with that will take the fight" I didn't know what to say. Between losing a child to a miscarriage and slowly dipping into alcoholism, I hadn't really been thinking about a professional fight. But now, one had been set in my lap, and all I had to do was pick it up. It was a dream come true, to fight in the UFC, so after a quick 30 second consultation with myself, I knew there was only one thing I could say.

"George, I'll happily take the fight." I couldn't help but start grinning from ear to ear. When I got home that night and told Jenny that I was going to be fighting in the UFC in two months, she was overjoyed. Maybe because it was the first time in months I hadn't come home piss drunk, maybe it's because I would finally be getting some extra spending money to finally get her that set of earrings she wanted so badly. In the back of my head, I hoped it was a bit of both. Over the next two months, I trained harder than I ever had before. I had to get down from 155 pounds to 145 by the before the weigh ins, so there was a lot of time spent running in sweatpants and hoodies, punching mitts in full sweat gear and hours on end sitting in a sauna, sweating off water weight. I won't lie, I had put on weight since I had begun going to the bar, mostly all the carbs from the beer I had never cared to work off. Some of the guys at the gym, though they never said it to my face, thought I had been putting on a couple pounds. This was my way to prove that I could still train just as hard as them and fight just as well as them. I drilled my wrestling, doing hundreds single leg takedowns, double leg takedowns, sprawls and holds. I refined my judo, practicing my hip tosses, armbars and chokes. Most of all, I spent at least 65% of my time with Firas training on my stand up game. We both knew that when this fight came, I would have to stand and hope to brawl with my opponent from bell to bell, if he could last that long. As the fight date neared, I could feel the energy setting in all around me. This was the first time I was going to be fighting in the UFC, and everyone, even Jennifer, who had grown somewhat distant from MMA, was excited. Three weeks before the fight, Jenny told me she had front row seats to see me win, and that even if I lost, I was still her champion. I still didn't know why she was so good to me. I had stopped drinking because Firas said no alcohol during training camp, but that didn't erase the fact that I had come home drunker than John Wayne on his birthday and cussed her out multiple times. Still, at the weigh in the day before the fight, there she was, screaming her heart out when I came on stage and stepped on the scale. I weighed in at 143.5 pounds and my opponent, Alex Enlund, weighed in at 144. We stared down, shook hands and knew that the next day, only one of us was getting our hands raised.

Fight night in Toronto is something that you have to experience firsthand in order to really appreciate. There's a buzz in the air right before the first fighters come out that gets everyone amped up to see what that night has in store for them. It's unlike any other sporting event I've ever been to in my life, it's better than hockey, football, soccer and baseball combined. Now don't get me wrong, the undercard is an important part of the show. It keeps the crowd entertained while the main card fighters get ready to give the people what they came for. It's the first fight on the main card that everyone in the building wants to be there for. It's the fight that will either make or break the entire evening. You could have a title fight between two of the biggest stars in MMA as your main event, but if your first main card bout doesn't go over well, nobody's going to be interested in the rest of the fights. It's just human nature, we assume things about the future even before it happens. I think that's what happened to me that night. I assumed that I was ready to fight in the biggest company in the fastest growing sport in the world, with only 5 professional fights. I couldn't have been more wrong. I chose the song You can't stop me by the rapper Andy Mineo, Jenny loved that song so I played it for her, even though Mineo was a Christian rapper and me and God no longer saw eye to eye. The feeling I got when that song hit and I walked out to the roar of 75000 people in the Rogers centre was something I can't put into words. It was a combination of fear, excitement, joy and panic. I had finally made it to the big leagues, taking the same walk so many great fighters had taken before me, stepping into the ring few got the chance to set foot in. The adrenaline coursing through my veins was so high I felt like I could have run to the moon and back and still had enough energy to beat my opponent. Then, his music hit, and Alex Enlund walked towards the cage. He was 5'9, muscular, and a stellar grappler. When he stepped into the octagon, the crowd was cheering so loud, I couldn't hear myself think. He was a heavy favourite to win the fight, and this crowd showed me why. I was the Canadian boy in my home country, yet the British child standing across from me got the ring was getting a louder pop than me from the people attendance. The referee called us to the centre of the ring, went over how we had been given our rules in the dressing room, we needed to fight clean, fight hard fight fair and defend ourselves at all times. We touched gloves, went back to our corners, and got ready to go to war. And went to war is an understatement of what happened next. After a first round in which surprisingly neither one of us had decided to go to the ground, both of us standing and banging it out, we were both covered in lots of blood, and both of us had broken noses. It looked like lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter series had cloned himself, then got buckets of blood dumped on himself and the clone. By the end second round, both of us were exhausted and we both looked worse than we had in the first round, scars over our eyes that were bleeding into our eyes, our noses looking less like Voldemort and more like shapeless masses on our faces. Then, in the third and final round, Enlund went for the takedown. I wasn't ready for it, I was tired from two rounds from the standing and brawling. Once I was on my back, I didn't know what to do. My hips didn't want to work with me, and Alex easily. From there, I was getting ground and pounded, blood streaming down my face, and it was over quicker than Justin Bieber in bed. I had just lost my UFC debut, in a spectacularly bloody fashion. I ref ripped him off me, and medical staff rushed to my side. When I heard Bruce Buffer announce "And the winner by TKO one minute and 45 seconds into the third round, Alex Enlund!!" After the fight was over, Jenny ran to the medical tent. I was getting treated for the gash over my eye and had different bandages all over my face, including a small cast over my nose, since the doctor had tried to reassemble it, but it still looked like a potato. When Jenny saw me, she covered her mouth, which I'm sure was gaping wide open under her pretty little hands. She came over, waved away the doctor who was treating my head wound and wrapped me in her arms. She began to cry, and she sniffled, through her tears, "Baby, are you ok?"