Issue 096

December 2012

Original TUF member and global brawling icon, Chris Leben has been locked in a battle with himself for the past 18 months. Now ‘The Crippler’ insists he’s happy, healthy and ready to return to the Octagon

To hear UFC middleweight Chris Leben tell it, hitting rock bottom was the best thing that ever happened to him. It was November 2011, and ‘The Crippler’ had just turned in one of the more forgettable performances of his career in a second-round TKO loss to Mark Munoz in the headlining bout of UFC 138. Things then quickly went from bad to worse when he failed his post-fight drug screen due to the presence of prescription painkillers.

It was the second such failed test of his career, and Leben was suspended by the UFC for 12 months. Some openly wondered if Leben would ever fight again. After all, two failed tests in a four-year span was clearly indicative of a real issue, and the promotion would have been well within its rights to issue Leben a pink slip. Instead, they stuck by the cast member of the original edition of The Ultimate Fighter, and Leben said he’s now a better man because of their support.

“If this past year was a roller coaster, it definitely started with the big drop at the end,” Leben tells Fighters Only. “Now we’re working our way back up. It’s been a huge year for me just for my life, in general. I came to some realizations about the choices I was making and the way I was living. I was forced to deal with some issues in my life.”

Leben admits his life was spinning out of control well before the failed drug screen. Battling dependence on alcohol and painkillers, Leben was not unfamiliar with the challenge of his demons. However, at the time he was unwilling to face them, and he says the effects of his addictions were painfully evident.

“I jokingly tell a lot of people that the only person that’s ever beat me is me, and truth be told, there is a lot of truth to that,” Leben admits. “I’m my own worst enemy a lot of times. 

“I definitely TKO’d myself this time. It reflected in the cage in my fighting, but it was my way of dealing with stress, with situations, with anxiety outside of the cage that reflected in the cage and actually had negative factors in every aspect of my life.”

Fortunately for Leben, his trip to rock bottom didn’t leave him without a few folks willing to reach down with a lending hand. UFC president Dana White, who has often praised Leben for his courage in the Octagon and fan-friendly fighting style, was among the first to offer support. The middleweight didn’t initially accept the assistance, but he quickly realized he was in need of help.

“They could have turned their back on me,” Leben says. “I don’t want to say that I’m surprised they didn’t, but the fact Dana called me personally and talked to me – the fact Joe Silva and everybody I talked to at the UFC was so supportive – and Dana offered to put me in rehab if I needed it. 

“At first, obviously, my first answer was, ‘No,’ but after I took some time, I realized I’m not hiding anything. I did need help. I called him back and said, ‘I do have a problem, and I do want to deal with it.’ They got me into one of the best rehabs on the planet, and that really helped jumpstart me on the road to sobriety.”

Leben withdrew from his life in Hawaii and enrolled in an in-patient rehab facility. It was there he began in earnest his efforts at sobriety. “I look at recovery kind of like when a tree blows over in the woods,” he says. “It’s not just a single gust of wind. It’s got to rock back and forth, and I’ve kind of been on both sides of the line for the past several years. I would say since I’ve moved to Hawaii, about six years ago, I’ve struggled with going back and forth between trying to be sober, trying to do the right thing, and then falling deeper into an abuse cycle. My disease progressively became worse. 

“I truly believe that if it wasn’t for the help I got, it would have been extremely, extremely difficult. I know that some people do it. But for me though, being able to be actually taken out of everyday life and put in a scenario where 24 hours a day I was focused on nothing but recovery was hugely beneficial. Honestly, I can’t say that I could have done it without that.”

Of course, recovering addicts must eventually leave the comforting confines of their rehab facility and face the real world. Once there, attitudes and behaviors must change should the addict hope to avoid relapse. At 32 years old, Leben said he finally realized what he wanted for his future, and one of the most important goals was making sure it didn’t resemble his past.

He states: “First, I’m not blaming anybody else anymore. I got real good at saying, ‘Well, of course I turned out this way. Look at my mom and look at my family.’ But there comes a certain point in your life when you go, ‘OK, I’m not going to be the person I am for the rest of my life and blame my mom for it. I need to step up and make these changes myself, for me.’ 

“Also hitting 30 and realizing that, ‘Hey, I’m still around,’ played a big part. I got married, and one of my number-one motivations is that I want to have a family. I want to have a house and a normal life, and that’s going to take goals, and that’s going to take a lot of changes. I can’t be spending all my money on this wasteful stuff and abusing my body and causing damage to all my personal relationships with my behavior. All those realizations were factors.”

While the past year has been a tumultuous one for Leben, it hasn’t been without its blessings. In addition to the successful stint in rehab, Leben also married his longtime girlfriend. ‘The Crippler’ says that relationship played a big role in his sobriety efforts.

“We kind of did things backwards. I’ve known my wife for several years. We’ve always had our ups and our downs, and we both struggled to keep together. We got married, and then shortly after that, I went to rehab,” he says. “It was one of those things where we had been talking about me getting sober, and I had made some half-hearted attempts, but with getting married and my life changing so much and realizing that this person deserves more than what I’m providing – and that I don’t want to be a parent like I had – those were really some of the straws that broke the camel’s back as far as me actually saying, ‘Goddamn it, it’s going to hurt, and it’s going to be a struggle, but I’m going to go for it.’”

Thus far, Leben’s reinvention has been a smashing success. He’ll now look to rebuild the momentum he had in the Octagon prior to his UFC 138 gaffe. He admits the pressures of training for a fight at the highest level of the sport will likely provide him with further tests of his recovery, but he believes he’s prepared to handle the inevitable hurdles that will stand between now and his December appearance at UFC 155.

“I absolutely love training, and I love competing and testing my skills and developing myself as a martial artist,” Leben adds. “Truly, besides family, my number-one love in life is this sport. However, there are a lot of feelings that are linked to fighting – dealing with the stress of having an upcoming fight, dealing with the aches and pains of the training camp, not to mention a lot of the social pressures. I’m dealing with all that stuff, so this is both a blessing and a challenge. 

“I do feel like the fight came at the right time for me. I’ve had enough time to focus 100% on myself. Now, with a fight on the horizon, it gives me a goal and it gives me a purpose. It gives me a chance to re-invent myself and to kind of – I don’t want to say ‘save face,’ but I want to go out and show the world the best that Chris Leben has to offer. After my last fight, I think my fans deserve that. 

“I’m just really, really excited and amped and stressed and nervous to be getting back in there. There’s all those emotions, and how I handle those emotions is huge right now. It’s so many things. It’s a test. It’s exciting, it’s scary. It’s everything.”

Since his days as the troubled but lovable misfit on The Ultimate Fighter to his 2006 loss to Anderson Silva to his legendary 2010 accomplishment of two UFC wins in just two weeks to his 2011 stoppage of MMA legend Wanderlei Silva, Leben has provided MMA fans with memorable moments throughout his decade as a fighter. But he’s also dealt with his demons every step of the way. This time, hopefully, it seems he may have finally turned a corner. 

“In hindsight, probably the best thing that ever happened to me was being forced to deal with some of those issues that people who are in the situation that I was in have a hard time getting to when there’s so much other stuff going on,” Leben concludes. “The big slow-down with the Munoz fight and everything that happened afterward really allowed me the time to step back and channel 100% of my energy towards getting well and working on becoming the person that I want to be.”