Issue 132
September 2015
Team Alpha Male’s newest star Cody Garbrandt tells FO how he turned his life around and made his dreams of competing in the UFC come true.
Need2 know
Age: 24
Pro debut: 2012
Nickname: No Love
Team: Alpha Male
Division: Bantamweight
Height: Five-foot-seven
Style: Wrestling, boxing
From as far back as he could remember, Cody Garbrandt knew he was different from the other kids he grew up with. While most wanted to play football, baseball or basketball when their education was done, Garbrandt’s ambitions were focused on a more violent venture. He always wanted to fight.
‘No Love’s fascination with pugilism began when he watched his uncle – Olympic boxing alternate Robert Meese – train and spar at his local gym. Despite spending the majority of his life on the wrestling mats, even winning a state championship as a high school freshman, the Ohio native couldn’t help but be captivated by fight sports.
And while he loved boxing, he realized what his true calling in life was after he witnessed mixed martial arts for the first time. “When I first started watching the UFC, I fell in love with it. I saw Stephan Bonnar and Forrest Griffin fight when I was probably in fifth or sixth grade,” the 24-year-old tells FO.
“I remember being in a hotel in Chicago. We had a wrestling tournament and we were at nationals. I remember it coming on and saying to my teammates in the room, ‘I want to be a UFC fighter one day.’ We were 12 or 13 at the time and ended up fighting each other and pulling the mattresses off the beds. It’s crazy to think I said at 12 or 13 years old I was going to be a UFC fighter.”
Despite his eagerness to follow in the footsteps of Griffin and Bonnar, there were some obstacles blocking his path. His mother Jessica, now one of his biggest supporters, refused to let her son take up any combat sports. With little to no outlet for his aggression, he began to fulfill his thirst for fighting at school instead.
“I was always being suspended from school because I’d get into fights. Not that I was a bully or anything, I just didn’t take anyone’s s**t. A lot of the times I was suspended because a bully was picking on someone else. I remember this guy tripped this super nice kid up with his tray. So I went up to the kid who tripped him, slammed him on the table and kicked the living s**t out of him,” he says.
“My mom was against fighting. She didn’t want us to fight because she didn’t want us to be punch-drunk like our uncle, but I was on her for a while and kept on asking her if I could get in the gym. Finally, a police officer spoke to her and said that maybe I should fight. So I had my first boxing match at 14, knocked the guy out in 49 seconds, and I’ve loved it ever since.”
Garbrandt’s natural talent for fisticuffs helped him earn an impressive 32-1 amateur boxing record, yet he still yearned to compete inside the Octagon. In fact, so eager was he to begin his MMA journey that he booked his first amateur bout a week after his 18th birthday.
After going 4-2 as an amateur and admittedly not taking the sport as seriously he should have, Garbrandt decided to make a drastic change in his life. After winning his first professional bout he made the move to Sacramento, California, to train at Team Alpha Male and work with some of the best lighter weight fighters in the world.
“I went out there at 1-0 and I wanted to see where I was at. I knew I had skills, was a good fighter and a tough kid, so I wanted to go out there and test myself and my mettle with the best in the world. I went for a week but I knew straight away that was where I needed to be. I’ve been fighting out of there ever since.”
After going on a vicious streak of knockout victories on the regional circuit, Garbrandt was snapped up by the UFC to face Marcus Brimage at UFC 182 in January. Despite the pressure of making his debut on one of the most highly-anticipated cards of the year, he battered ‘The Bama Beast’ before finally finishing him with a flurry of punches in the third. After waiting for more than a decade for this moment, Garbrandt believes it was the perfect beginning to his UFC career.
“The bigger the fight or the bigger the show, that’s where I really show up,” he says. “It’s where I really let my skills show. I’ve always been a fighter. I was born a fighter and this is what I was destined to do – put on scraps and entertain people. Finally getting to that stage and going out there and fighting a tough veteran in Marcus Brimage is what I’d dreamed of.”
With more and more fans starting to take notice of him due to his exciting fight style and humble attitude, great things are expected of Garbrandt. Just ask Urijah Faber. The Alpha Male leader can’t stop singing his praises. But Garbrandt doesn’t plan on letting the pressure affect his performances. From here on out, he still plans on continuing to improve and bringing the same intensity and killer instinct to the Octagon whenever he fights.
“For me, when I fight, I really am showing no love… I don’t want to have to depend on a judge to write my future, I want to write my own future. I have the pen and I have the ink on fight day.”
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