Issue 074

April 2011

MMA stars don’t just put it all on the line in the Octagon. Some have shown genuine courage thwarting muggings, assaults and even house invasions.

FO presents their stories...

Hero’: it could mean historical icon, modern-day rock star, or an inspirational loved one. And for many of us, heroes are the sporting paragons that grace jumbotrons and inspire dreams the world over, mixed martial artists included. But the original meaning of ‘hero’, derived from the Greek word héros, was that of ‘protector’ or ‘defender.’ It’s a role that an increasing number of high-profile fighters have found themselves cast in away from the cage. None more so in recent times than Bellator Fighting Championships lightweight, Roger Huerta. 

Personifying the heroic undertones of his bullfighting moniker ‘El Matador,’ Huerta’s defense of a woman attacked outside a bar in Austin, Texas during August 2010 was caught on camera and subsequently posted on the Internet by celebrity news site TMZ.com. Spreading like wildfire, the footage quickly became one of the most talked-about video virals of last year. “It’s about 2.15am, maybe 2.30am, and we’re walking out of this nightclub,” Huerta recalled shortly after the incident. 

“By the time we get out of there a fight had broken out, there’s an altercation that had been going on, and these guys are getting beaten up... big fight. Obviously none of us were in it, but we were like, ‘Holy crap.’ Then what I ended up seeing was this big, large man come and knock out this chick.” An understatement to anyone familiar with the footage as the woman in question is shockingly cold-clocked from behind, crashing to the concrete. “At that point I had to do a double-take, like: ‘Am I seeing what I’m really seeing?’ And it’s like, ‘Yeah,’ sure enough it’s a girl.” Upon realizing what he had just witnessed, Huerta sought out the individual responsible. “I approach the man and I’m just telling him, ‘You don’t do that.’ Then he’s like, ‘F**k you, f**k that. I’m gonna knock you out b*tch, I’m gonna knock your b*tch-ass out.” What follows next is a brief, if unpleasant, melee that sees Huerta, outweighed by a good 50lb plus, hand the thug a harsh taste of his own medicine.

Whilst a minority of fans and commentators suggested that the incident was a dent to MMA’s continued inroads towards mainstream acceptance – a throwback to the time of Lee Murray and Tito Ortiz’s semi-mythical nightclub dust-up – the majority opinion concurred that Huerta’s actions were in fact a noble deed, especially when considering the brutality and cowardice of the original assault. UFC president Dana White even commented: “In no way do I condone street fighting, but when a guy puts his hands on a woman he deserves to be knocked the f**k out. Good for Roger.”

Being involved in a one-on-one scrap is no strange place for a professional fighter to find themselves in, even away from the comparative calm and order of a ring or cage. Yet former K-1 fighter and UFC heavyweight Antoni Hardonk found himself tackling not one, but three would-be-assailants in Los Angeles during the summer of 2009. “We [Hardonk and his attorney Nima Safapour] stepped out of the car and where talking when these three guys showed up. Before we knew what was happening they were threatening us, telling us to give up our money and wallets,” Hardonk tells Fighters Only. “Then they got a bit more aggressive and one of them pulled out a knife. That’s when I got a little bit more pissed. I was like, ‘OK, if you want my money you’re gonna have to come and get it.’ I work hard for my money. I have to fight for my money. So if he wants it, he has to fight for it too!” Clearly surprised by Hardonk’s refusal to give up his money, aided no doubt by an imposing 6’4, 250lb frame, the muggers opted to cut their losses and leave. “They saw that I was serious,” says Hardonk, “and that I wasn’t impressed by the three of them and the knife so they started to hesitate. None of them wanted to make the first move.” 

Yet only a short while later, as Hardonk and his manager drove off to get some dinner, they saw the three men attempting to rob somebody else. “When I knew for sure what was going on I jumped out of the car and knocked two over while running and then turned to face the third. When he recognized me he started running away. Then the other two started running.” Realizing that one of the men still had the wallet, Hardonk set of in pursuit before they eventually dropped it and made good their escape over a fence. “That fence stopped me. That’s the curse of being a heavyweight!” Hardonk laughs. 

“What was funny though was that whilst running I think he (the victim of the mugging) felt encouraged by my presence and he called his girlfriend! I could hear him behind me going, ‘Hey baby, you know what just happened? I got mugged. Yeah, yeah really. These three guys come up to me then suddenly this big guy showed up and knocks them over!’” Whilst Hardonk attributes his reaction in what was a very dangerous situation to a “stubborn nature,” he acknowledges it carried risks. “Looking back on it I’m not sure if it was the smartest thing to do,” he says. “Especially when there are weapons involved. But it was my first very, very primal reaction.” 

Adding weight to the premise that ‘crime doesn’t pay,’ especially in the close proximity of a professional fighter who‘ll likely use it an impromptu heavy bag drill, Strikeforce light-heavyweight, and ‘face-smashing fu’ practioner, Benji Radach once went so far as to stop an armed robbery in a restaurant. “This guy was like, ‘Give me the f**king money b*tch, give me the money,’ whilst we were sat in the far corner of the restaurant,” Radach recalled shortly after the 2006 incident. TapouT even made a special edition ’Stickup Man Smacked Down By Fighter’ walk-out T-shirt commemorating the incident. 

“I looked at him and I was like, ‘F**k,’ sure enough the dude’s got a gun to this chick’s [a waitress working in the restaurant] face, like inches from her face. I saw that he wasn’t looking around but it was a long way to walk. I didn’t want to sprint, so he’d hear me and shoot me in the guts, so I just crept up, you know? Out of his peripheral vision. I knew if I could get my hands on him he’d be f**ked. So I snuck up, grabbed his arm, and his wrist, and the gun went away from her face.” With the weapon no longer posing an immediate threat thanks to some quick thinking – and years of martial arts training – Radach made certain the situation was contained in his own inimitable style. “I had a free hand dropping a big bomb, ‘Boom!’” The result? A broken face and a trip to the slammer for the perp on charges of first-degree robbery. 

The gallant actions of Radach, Huerta, and Hardonk go a long way to countering the ill-notion still held in some quarters that MMA is no more than a sport of mindless thugs. Each man willingly putting themselves in harm’s way without a moment’s hesitation in order to help protect others from being seriously hurt or, even worse, killed. Yet it’s important not to lose sight that for each ‘have-a-go-hero,’ there still remains a victim, someone whose life could have been turned upside down but for the swift actions of their respective saviours. The woman callously attacked outside a nightclub, the man mugged at knifepoint, the waitress held-up at gunpoint. A reality made all the more real, and raw, when listening to the chilling 911 call made from the home of renowned martial arts coach Lloyd Irvin. 

“We’re being robbed; we’re being robbed at gunpoint!” the first terrifying words that can be heard from Irvin’s distressed wife following a home invasion by two men on October 4th 2008. As one gunman searched the house, the other held Irvin, his family, plus friend and former long-time UFC fighter Brandon ‘The Truth’ Vera, hostage at gunpoint in the master bedroom. Fearing for their lives as the gunman ordered them to lie on the floor, Irvin, who has trained police officers in the very art of disarming weapons, grabbed the gun, releasing the magazine clip in the process, and disarmed the invader. With Irvin in possession of the assailant’s weapon, the pair fled the house as Irvin and his family took refuge in the bathroom. The following 22 minutes of the 911 call play out agonisingly slow as Irvin and his group await the arrival of the police – unaware whether the gunmen had left the house or not.

Thankfully, not all incidents of MMA-related real-life bravery are as a result of a harrowing ordeal like a home invasion. Arguably the most ‘feel-good’ example is that of Croatian fighter Goran Reljic. Reljic, recovering from a severe lower back injury that had forced him to withdrawal from a 2008 fight against Thailes Leites at UFC 90: Silva vs Cote, was resting at his home in Zadar, Croatia, when he was awoken by the distinctive sound of a car crashing off the road and into the Adriatic Sea below. Ignoring freezing November temperatures, and still dressed in his underwear, Reljic ran to the scene of the accident and swam out to the car. Punching the windscreen free, he then proceeded to help pull both men to land. A phenomenal act of heroism that would have gone completely undocumented but for eyewitnesses recalling the amazing scenes to local newspapers, and word then quickly spreading through the power of the Internet. 

Reljic’s manager later confirmed that it wasn’t in fact the first time the former UFC fighter had performed such impromptu life guarding duties. “Actually this is second time that I know Goran saved a life in the water,” he recalled. “Two years ago, he jumped into a wild storm near the cliffs in the Adriatic Sea, where a person was swimming and trying to get out of the water, but the waves and current were so strong that they were pulling the person back in. I have no idea how Goran managed to pull that person out of the sea, but he did it.” 

MMA’s mixed bag of heroes though aren’t just confined to knights in shining armor riding – or swimming – to the rescue of damsels in distress and the like in scenes that wouldn’t be amiss in a Hollywood action blockbuster. Adopting a more subtle note, Houston Alexander, not only a single father to six kids and a motivational speaker at schools, colleges and community organisations in his area, once donated a kidney to his daughter in 2000. The scar on his stomach a reminder of, “When your kids need something like that, you don‘t think twice.” Dana White, too helped to save the life of young girl recently by donating $50,000 to fund an operation for the daughter of a trainer at Tiger Muay Thai gym, an act of generosity and kindness that’s made all the more poignant by the deliberate absence of any accompanying media release or fanfare. Whilst UFC middleweight, and former US marine captain Brian Stann reminded everyone watching UFC 125: Edgar vs Maynard of the sacrifices the men and woman of the armed forces make day in, day out – dedicating his impressive victory over Chris Leben to one of his marines who died only a week earlier in Afghanistan. “Me fighting is not just about me,” says Stann. “There’s a lot of people that wear the uniform [of our armed forces], that serve our country, who support me win, lose or draw. They always have my back, they write to me, they email me and they are my heroes.”

Even heroes, evidently, have heroes.

HERO OR ZERO?

How the ‘fight or fight reflex’ really works

Sporting cauliflower ears or a black-belt in Benji Radach’s ‘face-smashing fu’ invariably helps when it comes to chasing down muggers or tackling armed gunmen. Getting punched in the face for a living nurtures a degree of confidence and self-assurance. Yet evolution has shown that even the most docile of Earth’s creatures can perform feats of extraordinary heroism when their lives, or their families lives, are in danger. It’s what’s commonly known as the ‘fight or flight’ response. 

The fight or flight (sometimes ‘freeze’) response was a phrase first coined by American physiologist Walter Bradford Cannon in the early 1900s. Its premise simply being that a person, or animal, will instinctively seek to either defend itself (fight), or run (flight), when faced with extraordinary situations. Or, in the case of freeze, evacuate its bowels on the spot and do neither – the ‘deer caught in headlights’ syndrome. 

Publishing his findings in 1915, Cannon‘s academically respected Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage was revolutionary for its time, and meticulously documented the powerful effects that the title’s emotions have on the body. Whilst science has moved on immeasurably since Cannon’s findings of ‘cold sweats’ and ‘trembling and twitching of the muscles,’ his findings have only been enlightened by further research into one of evolution’s most remarkable examples of cell communication and behavior. It’s a near-instantaneous chemical reaction that bypasses all conscious thought and propels us to seek out safety, or defend ourselves, when faced with an immediate threat. But what exactly happens in that sub-conscious moment of truth?

Firstly, upon sensing danger, cells within the nervous system send a chemical signal to a part of the brain known as the hypothalamus. Triggering a chemical reaction by way of the pituitary and adrenal glands, a cocktail of chemicals – notably adrenalin, noradrenaline and cortical (think an AMP Energy Shot, Pro-Plus and glucose gel smoothie combo) – are released into the bloodstream as the body goes to DEFCON 1 in response to repelling the threat. Bodily functions deemed non-essential subsequently slow down as energy is diverted elsewhere. Our breathing quickens, increasing our respiration and oxygen intake. The heart rate accelerates, circulating energy and messenger molecules through the body faster. Muscles contract and tighten, primed in readiness for action, causing the hairs on the surface of the skin to ‘stand on end.’ All the while complex proteins and epinephrine (adrenaline), bind together like pythons on heat causing vasoconstriction (the narrowing of the blood vessels); resulting in increased sweating and the pale pallor commonly associated with being in fear. 

What prompts an individual’s reaction thereafter – to fight or flight – is one of physiological interpretation. Science can explain the body’s chemical reaction to danger, but it’s a lifetime’s exposure to environmental and social factors that ultimately determines our course of action in that split second. As heavyweight Antoni Hardonk reflected on his own encounter: “It was my first, very

primal reaction.”