Issue 092

September 2012

Sitting on the precipice of MMA gold, 14-1 Bellator lightweight tournament winner, and 2004 US Judo Olympian, Rick Hawn recalls a life spent pursuing athletic excellence

NEED TO KNOW

NAME RICK HAWN

AGE 35

STARTED 2009

TEAM Tristar

DIVISION LIghtweight

STYLE Judo (NINTH - 2004)

RECORD 14-1

Competing in MMA wasn’t really a ‘plan B’ for 2004 Olympic judo competitor Rick Hawn. It was more of an eventuality. 

“It was always something I had planned to do. If my body was healthy and I was young enough still, I was going to try MMA. I grew up watching the sport and early UFCs with my dad. I saw Royce Gracie pull off moves that no one else he was fighting against knew what he was doing – armbars and chokes and stuff. Sitting at home, we knew what it was because we did all of that in judo. First and foremost, my dream was to make the Olympic team, so that’s what I pursued.”

Having begun training at age 12 in his childhood hometown of Eugene, Oregon, Hawn became obsessed with judo because “there wasn’t much to do” in the rainy Pacific Northwest college town. The sport was a family passion passed on from Hawn’s father down through him and eventually to his three younger brothers and two younger sisters, who all tied a belt around a judo gi at one point. 

Rick was the only one who stuck with the sport, though, earning his black belt and a berth in the 2004 Olympics in Athens alongside then teammate and now fellow MMA standout Ronda Rousey. He finished in ninth place with a respectable 2-2 record on the five-ringed world stage. Describing the experience of being an Olympian, Hawn says there aren’t words that would do it justice.

“It was an overwhelming feeling just being in the Olympics and taking part in the opening ceremonies,” he recalls. “You come out of that tunnel and there are like a hundred thousand people screaming for you. It’s pretty amazing. It’s almost indescribable. It was just a really cool experience from start to finish. It was an awesome feeling.”

Falling short of making the 2008 Olympics due to politics slammed the door shut on Hawn’s judo career and left him with a bitter taste in his mouth. And, as he explains, made him want to walk away from the sport and never look back. After the ’04 Games he left the Olympic Training Center in Colorado and moved back home and contemplated retirement before coming to a realization.

“I had to move to Boston to train with Jimmy Pedro. He’s a great fighter and a four-time Olympian. So I moved to Boston in 2005 to train with him and I made a run at the ’08 team. I improved so much and learned so much from him in those two years. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the team. But I learned so much it was still worth my while,” Hawn explains. “To not make the team the way I did didn’t sit well. There was a lot of politics involved in the selection process, which is never fun. If it was because of a straight up loss, that’s something I can accept, but when you get screwed because of politics, it doesn’t sit well. I left the sport very bitter. I didn’t want anything to do with judo anymore. It’s sad, but politics do that to a lot of athletes in a lot of sports.”

Soon after his disappointing Olympic trial run, Hawn dusted himself off and found an MMA gym to train at. Mark Dellagrotte’s Sityodtong in Somerset was close to his apartment in Massachusetts and was then the home base of UFC standouts like Kenny Florian, Marcus Davis and Patrick Cote. He started training with the same fervor as he had when he was preparing for the Olympics and the hard work soon paid off.

In spite of an impressive 11-fight undefeated run, that ended last May with a highly contested split-decision loss to Jay Hieron in the Bellator welterweight tournament, Hawn felt he wasn’t getting the training he required in Boston and looked to spread his wings once again. Due to movie and work commitments with the UFC, Dellagrotte was seldom at the gym. 

Hawn would find his new home north of the border at Canada’s marquee training facility: Tristar in Montreal. Working with acclaimed MMA coach Firas Zahabi and preeminent strength and conditioning trainer Jonathan Chaimberg, Hawn dropped to 155lb and bull-rushed through Bellator’s lightweight tournament, taking home the $100,000 check and a shot at the promotion’s current lightweight kingpin, Michael Chandler. 

“When you’re younger you can get away with overtraining, but as you get older you have to train harder and smarter. Firas and Jonathan are always telling me I’m overdoing it and are kicking me out of the gym or off the mats. It’s good to have them in my corner to keep an eye out for me. I’m getting more comfortable there and I’m getting very close with Firas and Jon. It’s awesome. We’ve become great friends.” Hawn says. 

Championing the tournament and the prospect of winning the Bellator strap, although they are huge accomplishments in their own rights, Hawn says comparing them to competing at the Olympics is like comparing apples to oranges.

“Winning the Bellator tournament and being in the Olympics are two separate things. Obviously, the Olympics were a dream come true. That is the highest you can achieve in athletics without getting a medal. You’re one of a small group of the best in your country. All together, on the American team there were only about 500 athletes that represented the whole country’s athletes in all sports.

“I look at MMA as more of a job. I love doing it. But there is nothing like representing your country in the oldest and most prestigious sporting event in the world. That was definitely the highlight of my athletic career.” For Hawn, the extra padding his tournament winnings furnished his bank account with, for the first time in his adult life, will provide a cushion that will allow him to take some much needed time off to recover from lingering injuries he incurred training and fighting for three consecutive months.

Hawn admits: “Money was definitely a motivator for me to do MMA. You basically go bankrupt trying to get good at judo. You have to travel the world to get better, but you need money to travel, so it’s kind of a catch-22. I invested so much money and time into my judo career that I was really hopeful I could use my skills to make a go of it in MMA.” So far, so perfect.

OLYMPIC ISSUE

RICK HAWN