Issue 069
December 2010
With his superhuman physique and dynamic game, Phil ‘Mr Wonderful’ Davis is a next-gen fighter straight from the comic books.
It took Phil Davis exactly 19 minutes and 55 seconds to make his way to the Ultimate Fighting Championship. In that inconsiderable span of time in the cage, the undefeated light heavyweight prospect racked up four wins in his first four fights on the regional circuit and was snatched up by the world’s largest and most prestigious mixed martial arts organization.
“You know, it’s kind of a daunting task to get pulled into the UFC off of four wins just because most of the guys usually get picked up from the small shows with ten wins, 12 wins, or something similar like that,” Davis says. Yet he relished the challenge of diving headfirst into one of the UFC’s deepest divisions. The former four-time All-American wrestler left his Pennsylvania home and relocated to California, where he immediately partnered up with some of the best fighters in the world. “To me, if I was going to do MMA, I needed to jump all the way in it,” Davis says. “I couldn’t be one foot in and one foot out. I needed to commit myself to it 100%, and for me that meant moving out to California where I had a good number of training partners all the time. Since then I’ve been training with guys like Brandon Vera, Cain Velasquez, Travis Browne… Between my camp at the Alliance Training Center and training at American Kickboxing Academy, I feel pretty comfortable.”
Davis made his Octagon debut in February with a dominating decision win over former World Extreme Cagefighting champion Brian Stann. Davis’ victory – highlighted by a near-unstoppable takedown attack and an active top game – was so one-sided that Stann promptly dropped to middleweight for his next outing. In April the former NCAA Divison I wrestling champion handed the previously undefeated Swedish slugger Alexander Gustafsson his first career loss with a perfectly executed anaconda choke. While currently just a blue belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Davis’ first two UFC contests demonstrated how quickly he’s been able to adapt his wrestling prowess into submission grappling success.
But Davis says he’s just getting started. “It’s the action of putting it all together – the striking into takedowns into jiu-jitsu and then into wrestling positions – the whole MMA game,” Davis says. “I want to get better at everything. I hate to use Georges St Pierre as an example, but he’s so clearly good at everything. You don’t get to see BJ Penn on the ground anymore because he’s so dangerous there. People know that, so you don’t get to see him on the ground as much. I wonder what BJ’s game would look like if he was a national champion in wrestling – the things that he would be able to do with his creativity. The sport is constantly changing. I’m trying to get better at everything. I don’t put limits on myself.”
Of course, two-straight impressive wins in the UFC would be remarkable enough, but when you carry the moniker ‘Mr Wonderful’, pretty good just isn’t appropriate. So Davis did what almost any other budding prospect would likely be advised against: he took a fight on just two weeks’ notice. While a clash with Rodney Wallace at August’s UFC 117 event without the benefit of a proper training camp seemed a touch risky, Davis said he never hesitated in accepting the matchup.
“Getting into the cage at any point is a risky move,” he says. “More than anything, I was confident in the training that I had put forth months and weeks prior to learning that I had a fight in a fortnight. When you know you really haven’t been in the gym prior to finding out you have a fight in two weeks, yeah, then there’s some things you might want to think about before you say yes. But I knew I was regularly in the gym. I knew I was in shape. No, I wasn’t training for him, but I was training and the timing worked out. I was feeling good, so the decision, it was a little risky. But risk versus reward, it worked out real well for me.”
It certainly did. Davis controlled Wallace throughout the 15-minute affair in what often appeared to be a glorified grappling match. Wallace simply had nothing to offer his longer opponent on the feet, and Davis again completely outclassed his opponent on the floor. Despite the impressive showing (one ringside judge even issued a 30-26 result), Davis says he was disappointed to let the preliminary card fight go to the scorecards. “Honestly, that UFC 117 card was stacked,” Davis says. “I knew it was going to be hard to get on the pay-per-view, and I needed to get a finish to make it onto that pay-per-view. I felt like if it was my jiu-jitsu versus his jiu-jitsu, I thought I won that game pretty sound. I didn’t lose it, but I didn’t get the finish, either.”
While fellow light heavyweight prospect Jon Jones is one of the fastest-rising stars in the sport, Davis’ 3-0 start to his UFC career has some MMA observers believing the 26-year-old Penn State graduate may be hot on the heels of ‘Bones’ in the run to a 205lb title. But, just seven fights into his professional career, Davis says he’s not trying to look too far ahead.
“I don’t worry about the title,” he says. “I worry about winning fights and getting good. There’s no reason to worry about the title until I feel like I’m the best in the world. At that point you’re going to be fighting the best in the world every fight. I don’t think I’m the best in the world yet. Then I can start thinking about a title shot. Right now, I’m just working on learning skills and refining all my techniques and becoming a complete MMA fighter.”
While it’s a humble approach, even Davis admits that just two years into his mixed martial arts career he’s being forced to re-evaluate his position in the sport. “I think I’m ahead of the game,” Davis says. “Every now and then I’ll write down my goals, and I’m ahead of where I thought I would be. Next year’s goals are going to be pretty steep. It’s going to be hard to get there but I think I can do it. I just want to get my car paid off, get my student loans taken care of and continue to make my fans happy whenever I’m in the Octagon. Everything else will take care of itself. I know how to stay on the grind in the gym. Good things will happen as long as I stay focused.”
Good things, for sure – perhaps even wonderful. After all, if Davis needed just 20 minutes to make it to the UFC, imagine where he’ll be after 20 fights.
“This past year has been like waking up to somebody else’s life,” Davis said. “It’s pretty cool. I enjoy it, and I’m real thankful that I’m fighting in the UFC and that I have the opportunity even to be healthy and compete as a professional athlete.”
WRESTLING PSYCHOLOGICALLY
How a childhood on the mat turns underdogs into winners
After compiling a career wrestling-record of 116-20 at Penn State, Davis entered mixed martial arts as a four-time All-American and one-time national champion. While the effectiveness of wrestling as a technique-base has long been valued in MMA, Davis said his background in the sport provides an edge in the mental game as well.
“As far as the attitude that wrestling gave me, when you’re up against somebody like [his UFC 117 opponent] Rodney Wallace, he’s put together,” Davis said. “Wrestling gave me the confidence to look at somebody like Rodney Wallace and say, ‘He should be stronger than me, but that doesn’t mean he’ll win.’
“When you’re up against somebody like him in wrestling week after week, you just get to a point where it doesn’t intimidate you to see a guy who’s really big or really strong and in shape, lean – none of that. That’s the competition I’m used to winning against. It helped me get through mental barriers. I think if you haven’t gone through that situation before, those barriers might still be there for you.”
Davis said wrestling also helps with making weight – an area in which some fighters with different backgrounds have struggled.
“With my wrestling background, I never have to worry about cutting weight,” Davis said. “Losing weight to me is a non-factor. I’m going to make the weight. I’m going to make it on time. That’s one thing I don’t have to worry about.”
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