Issue 077
July 2011
After a decade of action Brian Ebersole was on the proverbial MMA trash heap, but a UFC debut sparked the ultimate revival of a comic crusader.
NEED TO KNOW
Name: Brian Ebersole
Age: 30
Started: 2000
Team: Kimek SAI/ESS
Division: Welterweight
Style: Freestyle
Record: 47-14-1-1
When a mixed martial artist has 63 professional fights to his name, yet neither a single knockout nor a TKO against him, you might suspect he has something. So it is with Brian Ebersole, who showed on his debut in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (aged 30) in Sydney in February that he can both fight and entertain.
With such a chin, the veteran Ebersole can enter combat arenas almost goading his opponents to take a pot shot at him and break his remarkable anti-knockout campaign. So Chris Lytle found to his chagrin in the daytime UFC 127 event Down Under. Ebersole has competed in a variety of promotions, including Strikeforce, the International Fight League and latterly, the UFC. He holds a record of 47–14–1 (1 NC), but it was high time this fighting entertainer was given an opportunity to shine in the most elite fighting championship on the planet.
When Ebersole’s contest was over against Lytle I shared a beer with him in the Star City Casino, where UFC 127 took place. I suspected Ebersole would be a lively, jokey character. Not at all, just the quiet, hard man in the bar with a buckled nose and an engaging manner. His personality definitely changes inside the Octagon. He admits he is not really aware of it, but having watched many fights, I would surmise his humorous mocking of opponents, his chest hair shaved into an arrow making a beeline for his chin and some of the funniest walks, facial gestures and mimes you have ever seen during a fight must have an unsettling effect on his foes.
He certainly had the thousands of spectators in the Acer Arena guffawing and mesmerized by his physical erudition and novel moves. “I’m pretty well the same guy, I’m pretty honest in there. I don’t want to get hit in the face too hard, if I’m honest,” he admits, after being asked if he is aware his personality changes when he steps into combat. So shaving an arrow towards his chin with his chest hair would suggest something entirely different then? He laughs: “Yeah, maybe just that little clue puts them off.”
It was hard not to compliment Ebersole on his style, that he made the three-round contest with Lytle a spectacle, as much in a sense of humor as a brutal battle. “I can’t always expect to finish some of these real tough, aggressive guys unless I catch them on the chin. With me, I like to make it different, make them change their gameplan which means they’re going to have to change their mentality. That shift can be stressful and not everyone deals with that so well, but that’s the game.”
He actually started the fight with Lytle with a cartwheel kick . . . “Oh, that’s just freestyle, it’s just a free attempt. They’re gonna take me down after it so there’s no reason not to throw it. There’s a YouTube video out there, the best KO in MMA video. It’s me doing a cartwheel and I smashed a kid’s orbital bone and got a TKO because obviously he didn’t want to continue fighting after that. I didn’t knock him out but it was one lucky landing with that – out of about 25 attempts in fights. It’s my way of throwing a spinning heel kick; I’m not flexible enough to do it standing.”
The former graduate of history, from Illinois, is clearly an entertainer. “I like to make it fun – and cheeky – and an adventure.” An adventure?
His desire to be involved in MMA fights, he explained, can be traced back to a desire from a young age to want to wrestle. “The wrestling thing always seems primal and natural. I never really sat and thought about it but fighting seemed like the next challenge after wrestling. It became a big thing, didn’t it, boxer versus wrestler? I became curious about whether I could handle it, or do it successfully. Everyone has their art in there. I have something in the way I fight and I want to honor that. I want to express myself. I think Lyoto Machida, with his unusual style, would say the same thing; you want to see if you can take your skills and techniques and do battle against the best of them.”
In 1995 Ebersole switched to martial arts from wrestling. “I had mates who went into the martial arts and then of course the UFC had come out, so we were trying the guard and all of the wrestling positions. That kind of fighting started to become a bit of a hobby for folks. I was able to jump into that and have a different perspective being the only grappler. The other guys [he was training with at the time] were just kickboxers and kung fu guys trying to adopt armbars and triangles. It was good fun.
“I got to play a lot with that stuff early on and then I got a chance to fight, when I was only 18 years old, and after the first fight I really enjoyed it, I was hooked. I was actually going to be a teacher when I went to college. That was the plan. Mostly so I could be a wrestling coach. In the end I think it’s something that we all have a responsibility for, to keep the machine healthy and running.”
It has taken Ebersole ten years to become an overnight sensation. Things have changed a little since his success in the UFC. It is the Holy Grail for mixed martial artists, after all. “There’s been a lot of media since Sydney and I hope I can make it pay off be it in sponsorships or other things like that. Being in small shows you don’t really get that. It’s usually like 100 bucks a month to help with the bills or supplements or physio or massage or something like that. But then you succeed and get into the UFC and it all changes and people are willing to give you a $1,000 just to put a t-shirt on. As far as any other changes, I make a living as a coach and I’ll continue to do that, but I might be able to forego a month or two of work. Now I can train a lot more with black belts.
“I signed a four-fight contract as part of accepting the Chris Lytle fight. Precedence has shown that the UFC can cut your contract but winning that fight I should be able to fight again in the late summer, maybe August or September. I’m happy to fight anywhere but I’ll do my training out of America, I’ll come back to Australia to coach but my lifestyle is not tied to one city. Hopefully, American Kickboxing Academy will be where I house my next training camp.”
Ebersole will be working with ‘Crazy’ Bob Cook and Dave Camarillo, Javier Mendez, and Jerome Turcan. Then there are the high-profile welterweights to train one-on-one with in Jon Fitch, Josh Koscheck and Mike Swick. “Talented, talented guys so it will be really good to get into a room with those strong wrestlers and get my level of cardio back up. Now I get the chance to live the dream. It’s up to me now to live up to that and finish writing my story. I don’t have to depend on other factors now for my success or happiness, my profile has just been lifted now as a coach so there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to go into gyms across the world or partner up and open my own gym in the long term. But for now I’ll have more notice for my fights, they’ll get tougher but there’s no reason why I can’t now train with the best guys rather than average training to just get by. I get to be a bit more selfish. I like that.”
It’s difficult not to feel a great admiration for Ebersole, who has put in the hard yards to reach at least a taste of success. No quick fix profile-booster in The Ultimate Fighter. No. Here, rightfully, by blood, sweat and in his case, few tears.
So, what about a title shot? Is he capable of claiming the UFC’s top honors? “Not tomorrow, no. I need to train with the best people in the world before I can say I can do 25 minutes in the cage and more often than not be OK. I don’t want the one-in-a-million chance. I want to go in there 50-50, that’s always the goal. I have some work to do before I can do that. But that is not to say I haven’t thought about it. Not so much recently, but I’ve watched these top guys fight for the belt – Fitch, Koscheck and it makes you think it could be you one day.” One day. Keep the faith Mr Ebersole.
