Iceman (2 page)

W
HAT'S IT LIKE TO WALK DOWN THE STREET AND
have no fear? What's it like to turn the corner and know I can handle anything that comes my way? What's it like to be the guy people are afraid to meet in a dark alley? People ask me those questions more than any others. That's what happens when you're six-two, 205 pounds, sport a low-and-tight Mohawk, and have a tattoo etched onto the side of your skull. That's what happens when you've got a rep as the hardest puncher in what is arguably the toughest sport since the 300 were doing battle. People want to know what it's like to be fearless more than they want to know how much money I make (enough), or how much it hurts to be an ultimate fighter (not much), or would I let my nine-year-old son step into the Octagon when he's older (sure, if he trained).

Well, here's the answer: I have no idea, because I've got nothing to compare it to. I've never been afraid of a fight. In fact, I like fighting, always have. Not that I'm looking for a brawl every time I hit the bars. I stopped doing reckless stuff like that when I was a teenager. Back then I'd walk into a room trying to figure which guys I was going to end up throwing down with at the end of the night. I didn't care if I was taking on five other people. I figured, no matter what happened to me, by the time it ended I'd have taken care of at least three or four of them. Ever since my grandpa taught me how to throw a punch, I've known how to handle myself in those situations. And having that kind of confidence frees me up to think about something other than “Wow, I can pretty much kick anyone's ass.” It just doesn't cross my mind. At least not when I'm walking down the street.

This is my “don't mess with me” stance.

But heading toward the cage, that's a different story. Then, I never doubt. When I walk out of the tunnel, I can see the lights, hear the music, feel the crowd, but it all begins to close off as I near the cage. By that point I'm thinking, I've been training hard, it's time to focus. I play to the crowd because that is part of the show, but I can't hear what anyone is saying. Good or bad. All the best MMA (mixed martial artist) fighters feel exactly the same way because most of us were competitive athletes long before joining the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). I played football and wrestled at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Randy Couture was an all-American wrestler at Oklahoma State and was an alternate on three Olympic wrestling teams. The UFC welterweight champ Matt Serra won a Brazilian jujitsu gold medal at the Pan American Games. What we're doing is sports in its most basic form. We don't have teammates. It's a one-on-one battle, with no place to hide. Every man is born with a fight-or-flight instinct, and mine is to fight. It always has been.

I've been in twenty-four professional MMA fights since turning pro in 1998. I've won twenty, seven of those by knockout, and lost four, three of those by knockout. That's a total of less than three matches a year, which usually equals fewer than forty minutes total of actual fight time. Yet for each of those fights I work out twice a day, five times a week, for three straight months (give or take a day here and there to blow off some steam). My trainer at The Pit in San Luis Obispo, John Hackleman, has me throw a 125-pound medicine ball against a wall. I run with a wheelbarrow full of rocks up hills. I do fight drills, fitness drills, and bag work. I spar. I wrestle. I take kicks to the head and knees to the stomach. And that is just for practice. After that kind of effort, if I walk into the cage and don't think I can whip anyone I'm facing, I'm in the wrong sport.

I'm pretty sure I made the right choice. And while you're reading this book, I think you'll agree. I wrote this because I wanted people to know the guy beneath the Mohawk, to understand why I love stepping into the cage and beating up on people. And while I begin the story with my days growing up in Santa Barbara and end it living the good life as a UFC star in San Luis Obispo, I'm hoping this serves as more than just a year-by-year record of my life story because that's not all it is to me. I didn't just wake up one day and decide I could be a UFC champion. I worked toward it every day of my life, even before there was such a thing as the UFC. All I ever wanted to do was make a living fighting. It didn't have to be professionally. Before becoming a UFC fighter I was working in a dojo and as a bartender. I could have done those two things forever. And if I had written a book about that kind of life, except for the fights themselves, most of it wouldn't be all that different. Every chapter in this book features a lesson that helped me become who I am in and out of the cage, from the time I learned to box when I was three years old to the days both of my kids were born to the night that Rampage knocked me on my butt. You may finish this book and not remember one detail of my life—although I'm sure you'll be telling your friends some stories. But at the least, if you rip out the table of contents and carry it with you (after you buy the book), you'll have the road map that helped me become the light heavyweight titleholder. And the lessons apply whether you're studying for the SATs, sitting in a cubicle hating your boss, or training to be a UFC fighter.

Hackleman likes to say that I was nothing but a 220-pound slab of clay who couldn't fight when he met me. He also tells reporters that before big fights I get really nervous, head to his house, sit on his couch, put my head on his shoulder, and ask him to rub the tattoo on the side of my head until I fall asleep. Only one of those things is true.

Read this book and you'll find out.

I
WAS BORN CRIPPLED. AT LEAST THAT'S HOW MY MOM
,
Charlene, likes to put it. You couldn't tell at first. I did all the things a baby was supposed to do: roll over, sit up, and crawl. By nine months I was walking—actually running—as fast as I could. I wanted to chase down my older sister, Laura. I fell, I bruised, I cried, then I got back up. But when I was around eighteen months old, my mom noticed that I was falling more than usual, and for no reason at all. Not just when I was running, but when I was standing in the kitchen drinking milk or pulling myself up onto a chair in the living room. My body would just crumple. I looked like a mannequin as my legs folded underneath me and I collapsed to the floor.

Don't be deceived by the Mickey Mouse ears. I may have looked harmless, but I wasn't afraid to take a kid out if I had to.

My mom wasn't the kind to coddle her kids. This was a woman who, as the shortest girl in her class, played right guard on the boys' football team when she was in sixth grade. When she got to high school, her mom made her stop playing sports so she could be more feminine. She grew to be five-eleven, got a job working in the social services office in our hometown of Santa Barbara, and was raising her kids on her own. She still has a sweet voice and a good heart. And she had the perfect attitude for bringing up four kids. No amount of crying seemed to unsettle her. She had her own ideas about parenting, especially single-parenting. Most of all, she wanted her children to be independent because she believed that was the only way they'd be happy. If I whined about being tired and wanting to be carried, she'd tell me how great my legs worked and how strong I was, and bottom line, she wasn't about to let me waste them by carrying me home. When we were hurt, unless the gash was big enough to see bone or someone took a hammer to one of our heads (which Laura pulled on me twice one afternoon), her response was to wipe it off with a towel and tell us to get up and get back outside. She was—and still is—strong and fierce and determined. And she wanted her kids to be more than that.

But my frequent spills surprised—and even concerned—her. One afternoon she took me to the doctor, who was concerned enough that he sent me to a specialist. He could tell right away what the problem was: My joints kept slipping out of my sockets. And every time it happened, I flopped to the ground. The doctor told my mom I wasn't going to grow out of it and suggested I get braces on both legs, which would then be connected at the knee by a steel rod, so the bottom half of my body was stable and the problem would be corrected. It meant I wouldn't be able to walk for a while and that I'd have to stop doing all the things a rambunctious eighteen-month-old kid likes to do. But when I got the braces off, I'd be fine. My mom hated that idea. She had grown up in the sixties, and while she hadn't ever lived on a commune, she did think of herself as a modified hippie. The image of my legs being locked up with braces stuck in her head, and she immediately worried about—her words not mine—my “psychological development.” If I couldn't walk for a long time, it wouldn't be long before my six-month-old brother, Sean, passed me by. She knew that wouldn't sit well.

So she asked the doctor what else we could do to fix the problem. He laid out a schedule of physical therapy that makes my twice-a-day-five-days-a-week-for-three-straight-months-before-a-fight workout sessions seem like a restless nap. It was even harder for my mom. I was eighteen months old, where did I have to be? But my mom, after nights spent trying to keep infant Sean happy, woke up with me extra early in the morning. Before getting Laura ready for school she contorted and twisted my legs into pretzels. I screamed in agony, and it broke her heart. Then she'd come home from work and do it all again. Basically, she was telling me to get the fuck up. For a year and a half we went through this routine nearly every day. But, by the time I was three, I was falling less and felt sturdier on my feet. I was putting plenty of distance between Sean and me and had no problem keeping up with Laura when we played on the school playground across from our town house.

However, my mom's grand plan not to stunt my development didn't work out exactly as she had planned. Years later I was trying out for the football team at San Marcos High School. I wanted to be a running back, and the coach put us through different drills to get a sense of how fast we were. I wasn't that fast. I couldn't get into a smooth stride because I had a hitch when I ran. It was an aftereffect of how my legs had developed. I still have it when I walk.

During those drills, the mile, especially, killed me. One day I came home and mentioned how frustrated I was that I couldn't make any progress. My mom reminded me of the joint problems I had had and the therapy I'd gone through. At one point she mentioned that if I had done the braces, I probably wouldn't have had the hitch. I kind of lost it.

“Mom,” I whined, “you should have put me in the braces.”

Always be prepared…for a fight.

“Sweetie,” she told me, “I didn't want you to feel different than the other kids and stop walking. I was worried about your psychological development.”

“You should have known I could handle it.”

“Hey, you were new to me, how was I supposed to know you were going to be such a determined young child?”

She was right. How could she know? I was an average kid, never that tall, kind of thin, not particularly outgoing. Some kids can't wait to jump into the sandbox and take other kids' toys. That wasn't me. I liked things to be in order, preferring to stand on the side, assessing the situation and taking my time. When I was really young, I used to line my trucks up in the same order every day. Before I ever took a karate class, I was in the chess club because I liked to study what my opponents were going to do for as long as possible before attacking. I'd go to skate parks and watch for thirty minutes before getting on my board, then perfectly mimic the moves I was watching. My youngest brother, Dan, who is five years younger than me (as well as three inches taller and seventy pounds heavier), likes to joke that I'm like a general: I like to figure everything out before I make a move.