Issue 190

May 2020

As another generation of MMA fighters moves towards the end of their careers, how do they adjust to life outside the cage and leave behind their warrior past? 

There were tears streaming from the eyes of Mike Tyson. “I know the art of fighting. I know the art of war. That’s all I’ve ever studied. That’s why I’m so feared. That’s why they feared me when I was in the ring. I was an annihilator. That’s all I was born for. Now those days are gone. It’s empty. I’m nothing.” ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson, the one-time wrecking ball of a fighter who strode through and destroyed opponents, who stirred fear in rivals, and had many beaten before they stepped into the ring with him, with his bobbing, weaving, crouched attacks like a vicious tiger hellbent on destruction. He bit chunks out of Evander Holyfield’s ear, fought the best of the era, and was vilified, and adored in equal measure. Many still rank him as the greatest heavyweight of all time, their favorite fighter, and it comes down to the rawness and brutality, the embracing of oblivion, the art of pure fighting. 

Tyson’s outpouring raises fascinating issues for fighters. What do these fighters go through when the body ages and weakens? How do they look for new ways to define themselves when it has been their love and obsession, and career, for 20 or 30 years? How do they control the force that once took them there?

Every fighter, man and woman, appears to go through these stages, has to look at themselves, and find a way to come to terms that the warrior inside them has gone and their lives have changed forever. 

“Empty,” emphasized Tyson repeatedly during that podcast episode of Hotboxin’ With Mike Tyson. Sugar Ray Leonard, another all-time great, was also sitting there, utterly transfixed by Tyson’s outpouring. Tyson said he was working on “the art of humbleness.”

“That’s the reason why I’m crying, ‘cause I’m not that person no more. And I miss him... because sometimes I feel like a bitch...because I don’t want that person to come out, because if he comes out, hell is coming with him. And it’s not funny at all. It’s not cool, like, I’m a tough guy. It’s just that I hate that guy. I’m scared of him.”

Extraordinary words, and words we will hear more and more from fighters in mixed martial arts as a new generation comes and goes. Our very oldest athletes are now in their late ’50s. Look down the years and see the men – and women – in mixed martial arts who have been through the same process as Tyson. 

Mark Kerr and Mark Coleman, two of the originals, whose similar journeys led them to have to retire, to leave behind the warrior deep inside them. 

Coleman, ‘The Hammer’ as he was known, was a great man, a bruising ground and pound fighter and wrestler, a man’s man, and character it was easy to admire and love. Fighting, wrestling, defined him. Having the privilege of getting to know him at the end of his MMA career, with the last three fights he had in the UFC there was another side to him. It was a side which mellowed his spirit, his soul, the part that wanted to wreck other fighters when the bell rang. It was when it came to speaking about his daughters, on spending time around him towards the end of his second stint in the UFC in 2009-2010 – he had also fought in UFC 10, 11 and 12 – that he literally came across as the sweetest person on earth. 

In a way, Coleman was driven to fight by the love he had for his daughters, and clearly found it hard calling time on his career. Yet the knowledge of seeing his daughters grow up allowed him to draw on another side of himself. 

One of the intense, old-school MMA movies is The Smashing Machine, which depicts the life and times of extreme fighter, Mark Kerr, the documentary directed by John Hyams. Coleman is there too, and it relates the mixed martial arts career and personal life of Kerr. In so many ways, it speaks of the addictions of fighting, of how these warriors deal with their own issues.

Look into the modern era and Randy Couture (Coleman’s last opponent) carried on until the age of 46 in the UFC Octagon, even fighting for a championship and winning it over the age of 40. He is the only fighter to have achieved that feat. Couture, of course, now 56, recently had to check himself into hospital after a heart attack and had a procedure to put stents into an artery. Randy remains one of the great gentlemen and warriors of MMA, and he told me that his desire to fight on had always come from being an alternate at the Olympic Games with the US wrestling team. Three times he was on the team, without competing. 

“Winning an Olympic medal was certainly something I always wanted to do, but I think I came to terms with not getting to compete there and put it into its proper perspective a long time ago,” he explained. “But I’m sure a part of the function of me chasing that Olympic dream for over 16 years trying to get into the US team, and win a wrestling medal, was a big part of my developing life as an MMA athlete. Not competing at the Olympics was bitterly disappointing.”

Couture was a victim of the system, in some ways. 

“Obviously in wrestling it’s one of those sports where only the No 1 guy from each country gets to compete at the Olympics. It was a huge disappointment for me at both of those trials, but at the same time I think it’s what drove me, what motivated me and kept me hungry. When most guys were thinking about retiring at 34, I was still raring to go and setting off on Mixed Martial Arts, still unfulfilled as an athletic competitor.”

“When I look back over that Olympic period, rather than disappointment, it is like a blessing to see the hunger it created, and the skills in analyzing my opponents and working out strategies to beat my opponents.” 

But when Lyoto Machida knocked out Couture’s teeth with a Crane Kick in Toronto in 2011, Randy knew it was time. He had achieved all he could, and poured his knowledge into his gym in Las Vegas, and training others to go on and achieve in the sport that defined him.

Mark Hunt continued into his 40s, not being able to give up the ghost on his warrior soul, whereas Alex Gustafsson, Michael Bisping, one-eyed by the end, had to let go of the thing they loved about themselves, and how they redefined themselves. 

Leslie Smith, the women’s MMA fighter, now 37 but still competing, sees it thus: “It’s tempting to go on forever. Mortality and immortality, it’s a fine line that brings you closer to both in fighting. To exit fighting can be really depressing to think about the person you were, or who you were trying to be, because we are all trying to be something. They always say it is not about the destination, it’s about the journey and I feel like that is what the majority of people in MMA’s experience is – it’s about one long journey. My destination is the win in my next fight, yet people are already talking about the next fight. The journey is what defines the fighter, so as people get older just as human beings, it gets a little bit harder to fly, a little less exciting to go somewhere, to muster up the energy, to stay out later at night time, to do all those things. It’s the same thing for a fighter... there is the feeling that it is going to be a long training camp for the next fight... and I think that’s what it comes down to. I can’t speak for anyone else, and I haven’t made that decision myself yet, but I think from my spot right now the time to stop is when the training doesn’t feel great any more. Because the fight is always going to feel wonderful. The knowledge of that feeling of having your hand raised, the crowd cheering and that always feels great and there is never a time when that is not going to feel desirable.”

That’s what Mike Tyson most likely misses, that reckoning time, that moment in the flush of victory, of triumph.

Smith adds: “If I can feel that when I’m 90, walk out and get my hand raised and have a stadium cheering for me, that would be amazing, but it comes down to being able to do the training camp ahead of time.”

“Statistically there have been fewer women fighters, but it doesn’t mean they don’t have the same reasons for doing it. I fight because I like it, because I have an authority complex. Because I never found anything else that I wanted to try very hard at. Because I enjoy all those things. Because it’s physical and cerebral at the same time and I like the people I find myself around, or surrounded by. Sometimes I wonder if that’s what it is. I feel that women can be motivated by the same things that guys can.” 

Fighters like Michael Bisping, have managed to continue their time around the fight sports environment as a commentator and personality, and in the process, he has learmt to curb the excesses that once drove him. 

It is about a growing maturity, moreover, as a human being, passing through the natural things in life, that helps soften these warrior souls. That’s how Paul Daley, a vicious fighter, and a master at stoking up opponents, sees the transition. 

“I try to control the fuse,” he explained. “When I was younger, in my 20s, I just wasn’t thinking. There was no thought. It’s put to bed until there’s a trigger. I’m over a lot of it. At that stage you are that person. I’m not the same person I was when I was doing all the stupid stuff. But it is still there. 

“I’ve got two kids,” he continues. “I have to teach kids’ classes. I have an image, I have responsibilities. I can’t be acting all crazy. I think Mike Tyson is a little further out there than I have been from reading his autobiography, but I understand the mentality. Now, I don’t think about the past. But my time is not over yet. I’m still competing with the best guys. If I was being smashed like some guys – naming no names – who are still competing, I wouldn’t be doing this any more. You’ve got to think of your health, when you are not competing any more. But I’m feeling well, I’m still in great shape, and I still have my speed.” 

But once that goes, Daley will know. 

There are other fighters who are affected in so many different ways. Gegard Mousasi, now 34, who has been competing at the highest level for fifteen years, says he will know when it is time to throw away the gloves forever, and pursue a new time in his life. 

Georges St-Pierre walked away at the right time for him, but was tempted back after four years outside the Octagon by the opportunity to become a champion in a second weight division. He duly delivered in New York by winning the UFC middleweight crown by defeating Michael Bisping, and there is even talk of him returning once again. 

Anderson Silva, another legend from that same era, has found it nigh on impossible to give up completely, having lost six of his last eight fights since 2013. The great Brazilian fought twice last year, and is clearly no longer the force he was. Silva, like other great Brazilian fighters such as Royce Gracie, insists “once a fighter, always a fighter.” 

But that belief system is changing with modern science and research telling the world there damage that can be done if a fighter goes on for too long.

John Kavanagh has yet to experience these aspects with his fighters, the influential Irish coach told Fighters Only.  

“I haven’t had a generation who have gone through that yet. One of my guys, Cathal Pendred went through it. I think the real key is trying to find something to channel that into. I think that’s part of the story that I’m trying to talk to my guys about. It’s a natural process. I’m 43 and my first wave of fighters are still in their early 30s.”

The Dubliner explained: “I think it’s important to start having the conversation, even with James Gallagher [who is 23]. When you’re a young fighter it seems like it’ll go on forever, like this will never end. Then you blink and it’s over. They’re in their early 30s asking what’s next. You need to talk about it early. What do they want to do next? Do they want to do coaching? You’ve got to start probing them as soon as possible. Guide them towards using their free time to look ahead, whether it’s going back to school, or whatever. There has to be life after fighting. You see it time and time again when people are finishing up in their late 30s and because of a lack of direction that energy you once had for fighting has nowhere to go and you go off the rails.”

Famously, of course, when Chuck Liddell retired, UFC president Dana White gave ‘The Iceman’ an ambassadorial role with the fight league, but that did not stop Liddell coming back for another fight with Tito Ortiz seven years after he had retired. And true to form, Liddell was just a ghost of himself. The mind, the fighting warrior inside him would not give up, but his body no longer had what it once delivered with such ferocity. 

Scott Coker, the president of Bellator, believes the time to stop is self-evident, but the fighter so often cannot see it, or as Leslie Smith pointed out, the love of ‘that moment in the cage’ is such a powerful addiction, almost, giving up forever is the hardest pull of all.

 “We all recognise the time for a fighter to end by the deterioration of their physical ability to fight,” explained Coker. “Their motor skills and the like. They’re just not as explosive, but they want to keep going. I’ve seen it over and over. Even if we say it’s time, someone else might give them a gig and that’s tough to watch. It’s tough to tell your closest friends it’s time when they don’t know what to do next. I had a really tough conversation with a family friend, a heavyweight. I told him he was going to get hurt. Most of the time the response is they don’t know what to do next. I always say they need to start that journey immediately. To continue fighting, it’s not going to end well. How many times have we seen it? A fighter keeps fighting and when he fights he is broken. Go find what you’re going to do and start working towards that path. This path is a bad destination.”

“When a fighter comes to me and says he’s done, that means he’s done. I know he’s put a lot of thought into it and you can’t mess with that decision. Mirko CroCop had a health scare. Don’t play around with that. Don’t spar. It’s not healthy. The speech starts slurring a bit. The reactions are slower. The fighter usually doesn’t see it.

“We have a fighter saying that right now, that he has one fight left. I want to pay him out, he doesn’t have to fight. I don’t want to say his name. I’ve seen a very big decline of this fighter’s career. He wants to fight his last fight, but we want to pay him out so we will. It’s not worth the worry. That’s how I feel, it’s a dangerous sport. These fighters put everything on the line and I don’t ever want to be that promoter who took a risk with their fighter’s health. That’s our no.1 issue. They should not be fighting if they’re clear they are near the end.”

Kavanagh again. “The thing about being a professional fighter is that it has got to be all-consuming. If you want to be musician and it’s all-consuming, that’s fine because you can do that all your life. You get better as time goes on. But for fighters, the mind might get better but the body starts failing as time goes on. That’s just life; it’s a limited time frame. 

“To get to the top you have to have tunnel vision,” he continues, “but on the flip side we’ve got to find balance that eventually you’ll call it a day. And you’ll only be halfway through your life so what’s the second half going to look like? In my position, when fighters have had 15, 20 fights your role isn’t so much teaching fighting, they know all that. They know the strategy. Your role becomes more and more nudging them. You want them to feel like superheroes and feel like it’ll never end, but you must have balance in that as well.”