Issue 171

October 2018

Despite a grueling, bruising, arm-breaking defeat in his welterweight debut, Paul Felder isn't finished with MMA. His future plans might include acting, but for now, the drama remains in the octagon where he will not take a backward step.

We often hear fighters use the line, "anytime, any place, anywhere," but these days very few talk the talk and walk the walk. One man who lives up to those words is Paul Felder.

Last month, after an 18-fight career in which he’d competed exclusively at lightweight, Felder stepped up to make his welterweight debut at just nine days’ notice, taking on knockout artist, Mike Perry at UFC 226.

The fight had barnburner written all over it and so it proved as the two went blow for blow, strike for strike and hit for hit as they tore into each other over a fascinating 15 minutes.

Felder, bloodied, battered and with a broken arm, gave everything he had on the night, but after three rounds, Perry clearly just had the edge over him and got his hand raised in a split decision.

To lose such a titanic contest and to leave the Octagon with only cuts, bruises, broken bones, and not even a Fight of the Night bonus to show for his troubles, would have played on the mind of any man and Felder doesn’t shy away from the fact that it left a lasting impression on him both mentally and physically.

The fight game can often be cruelest to those who sacrifice the most and following UFC 226, Felder was left picking up the pieces after arguably his bravest and most heroic performance inside the UFC Octagon.

“I’ll be honest, for a few days after, that was the most depressed I’d been in a very long time in my life,” recalls Felder.

“For a few days after, I was still a little rung up in my head; I just wasn’t all there for a day or two after the fight. It was a war. I wouldn’t say I was concussed or anything like that, I just wasn’t quite feeling myself.

"What made it worse was that when I got back home and I had the broken arm, I couldn’t play with my daughter and I couldn’t do all the things that I wanted to do because of the cast.

“Knowing I had to have surgery and all that just made me really bummed out for a few days,” he continues. “My mum and my coaches eventually snapped me out of it. They told me most people don’t have the ability to do what I did and fight through the adversity that I went through. Dana White and Sean Shelby both called me and just let me know that my stock hadn’t gone anywhere and that everybody loved the fight.”

Felder overcame a number of adversities before entering the Octagon at UFC 226 but nothing could have prepared him for the issues he would face during the fight. A clash of heads very early in the first round saw blood streaming from his hairline for the rest of the contest but that was the least of his troubles.

With the pair standing and trading at two paces from the get-go, something was going to have to give and unfortunately for Felder, it proved to be one of his deadliest weapons.

“I’ve watched this fight obsessively since it happened,” Felder says. “I’ve watched it maybe 10-15 times and I think it happened maybe two to two-and-a-half minutes into round one. I tried to throw a spinning backfist, but I tried to angle it and chop down with it. Instead of hitting him on the chin or landing the shot with my fist, I connected with the outside of my forearm on the top of his forehead and it broke right then.

"I knew something wasn’t right because my fist wasn’t closing all the way. I was trying to shake it out and I was throwing elbows and kicks, but when I went to shoot for a takedown at the end of the round I couldn’t connect my hands to complete it. That’s when I knew something was really wrong.

“In between the rounds I kept trying to clench my fist,” he continues. “And I could feel the bones in my arm just cracking against each other and shifting. I just pointed it out to Duke (Roufus) – I didn’t want to say anything too loud or shout it out because I didn’t want the fight stopped, but I knew right away that my arm was broken.”

A broken arm would be enough for most mere mortals to call it a night, but quitting never entered Felder’s mind.

Instead, he simply bit down on his gum shield and worked out a plan to work around the injury and continue to fight fire with fire. Grit, determination and courage pushed Felder through the three-round war in an effort that was purely fuelled by an instinct to stand his ground and fight.

“I don’t know what I was thinking man, I guess I’ve always just been a crazy son of a bitch and I’m just crazy as hell,” he grins. “I knew I could beat that dude and I knew that if I could just catch him right, that I could knock him out. That’s when I started switching to knees trying to do something different, but I’ll be honest with you I was freaking out a little bit.

“When I was fighting it didn’t hurt or anything,” he continues. “I was kinda numb to it all, I was just in cruise control, but watch the fight, even when Duke is trying to talk to me, all I’m doing is staring at my arm. I didn’t hear a single piece of advice from the corner because it was the only thing on my mind. All I was thinking about was how can I go fuck this dude up with one arm.”

Never backing down from any situation is something that Felder was taught from a very young age. Growing up in South Philadelphia presented no shortage of confrontations and with the tense social climate, he quickly learned that being a pushover wasn’t an option.

“Ever since I was a small kid man, some of my earliest memories of my early school days and kindergarten, I’d just flip out,” Felder recalls. “If someone just said something to me or about my mom or just teased me or something like that, I’d just get into a rage and I’d get straight into fist-fighting mode.

"It didn’t matter who they were or whether they were twice my age or twice my size. Coming from South Philly man, I just didn’t care. That was just the way I was.”

For a lot of people, it will be hard to understand how or why Felder chose to fight through the adversities he did at UFC 226 against Perry, but the nature of his upbringing explains a lot. Standing up for himself was something Felder learned at a very young age and somewhat surprisingly, it was his mother that taught him never to back down.

“I’ll tell you this story, but remember this was a different time, so I don’t want anyone judging my mom or thinking she’s a bad person,” he declares emphatically. “She’s the reason I am the man I am today. I came from a rough part of South Philly where there was a lot of racial tension. I loved that place, but black kids, white kids, shit would happen, on both sides.

"Anyway, one day when I was young I went to the store to buy a candy bar and this older kid basically decided to steal my candy bar, fuck me up and I ended up running home crying to my mom. I told her what happened and she just said ‘Come on. Let’s go. You’re going to go back and fight him fair and square with me right there.’

“He kinda jumped and messed me up so she walked me out the house and to the pharmacy around the corner where it all happened. She saw the kid and she said, ‘Hey, were you the kid that was just messing with my son?’ He was way older than me and he was like, ‘Yeah, what are you going to do about it?’ and was giving my mom all this attitude.

"She said, ‘You now have to fight him fair and square’ so I then fought the kid in the middle of the street and he beat me up again. After a while, my mom broke the fight up and basically said, ‘OK, that’s enough.’ When we got home she just said to me, ‘Don’t you ever back down from anyone and don’t you ever be afraid of anyone. No matter how big they are or what they look like.’ I was like 10 years old and I’ve not backed down from anyone ever since.”

Despite some down days after the fight, it didn’t take long for Felder’s fighting desire to return. The high he gets from standing in an Octagon in front of thousands of fans is something he says can never be surpassed by any other feeling in the world and one victorious night in Scotland back in July 2017 particularly stands out in his memory.

“Nothing can replace that feeling of being in the Octagon and it’s the reason why I’ve not stopped yet or tried to chase after TV or film work,” he says.

“Glasgow, that atmosphere, seriously, I’ve never been involved in anything like that during my life. Seeing it on TV wouldn’t have done it justice. When he walked out, when I fought Stevie (Ray) I remember looking at my corner and I was like, Holy shit!

“That one was just insane,” he continues. “My dad had passed just a few months before and I went right into training camp after his services. I had my brother in my corner with me just to be like a support system and he also got to experience that cage-side atmosphere. I’ll never forget that night. That’s the sort of night that all of us fighters dream of having.”

Having graduated in acting from Philadelphia’s University of the Arts in 2008, Felder has a number of options open to him in the future. For the minute though, fighting remains his number one priority and it will continue to be so until he hangs up the 4oz. gloves.

“I still want to make a run in this fight game whilst I’m still in my thirties,” Felder explains. “I want the belt and I want to make my way to the top, but when it’s all said and done I still want to be involved in the sport.

"I still want to be doing things like commentary for the UFC, but yeah I miss acting sometimes, I really do. It’s been such a whirlwind of a time being in the fight game and now doing color work for the Contender Series and desk for FOX.

“I forget sometimes that one of my passions is that I’m a performer,” he explains. “I spent four years in college studying this stuff. If you spoke to anybody who actually knew me in my twenties, they’d tell you how seriously I took this stuff; I took it so seriously man. As much as I take fighting seriously now, that’s how seriously I took my acting and one day I’m sure I’ll pile my passion back into it.”

While his arm heals, Felder will be on the road with the UFC fulfilling commentary and analyst duties across the US and Europe.

Sitting behind a desk has its perks, but he’s already thinking about when he can get back to fighting.

“You don’t ever really totally get over a loss, but you learn to move on and look at the positives,” he reasons. “I’m there now and I’m out of my funk. Now I’m going to put my feet up, do some commentary and then hope my arm heals up quickly and the way I want it to.

"There’s just something in me man and I can’t tear myself away from it. I’m hoping to be back in there December or January. I can’t wait.”