Issue 065

August 2010

His place in WEC history secure, Leonard Garcia wants a shot at the featherweight title.

As WEC fighter Leonard Garcia returned to his corner after the first round of his fight with Chan Sung Jung, there was no doubt in his mind that his hand was broken. Nevertheless, ‘Bad Boy’ couldn’t wait to get back in there for the second frame, and, though his coach, Greg Jackson, is widely considered among the most technically gifted tacticians in the game, the action that had played out in the previous five minutes left even him looking for a proper scrap. 

“After the first round, we knew my hand was broken,” Garcia recounts. “Coach Jackson was just like, ‘OK, start swinging more toward your palm because if you land anything straight you’re going to break it even worse. Keep throwing it, at least to make him conscious of it. Make sure he knows it’s there. Start using kicks and getting out of the way.’” 

It was less of the coaching wizardry we have come to expect from ‘Yoda’, and more of the ‘hit him with your groin’ advice Jackson became famous for after UFC 100. 

“After the fight, Coach Jackson told me, ‘90% of the time I tell you to clean everything up and try and be a little more technical and have some defense for a change; but this fight, when I realized your hand was broken, you were sitting down in the corner, and all you wanted to do was go out there and fight again. I knew all I had to do was keep your mind off the hand being broken and make you throw it. I didn’t care what kind of punches you threw. Any kind of punches you could throw, I wanted you to throw.’” 

The WEC’s Forrest Griffin vs. Stephan Bonnar

That exchange between coach and fighter was just one of the many highlights of Garcia’s April 24 fight with Chan Sung Jung at WEC 48: Aldo vs Faber. The contest was the final lead-in bout broadcast on cable TV in the US prior to the WEC taking a leap of faith with its first-ever pay-per-view event. 

It was matchmaking genius at its best. The WEC’s Sean Shelby pitted Garcia (a proven scrapper who had taken part in a memorable UFC brawl with Roger Huerta in 2007, as well as back-to-back-to-back wars in the WEC with George Roop, Manvel Gamburyan and Jameel Massouh) against promotional newcomer Jung, whose ability to absorb punishment had earned him the nickname ‘The Korean Zombie’ during his time fighting in Japan. 

The 15 minutes they shared in the cage was nothing short of spectacular, and at the evening’s post-event press conference, Dana White drew comparisons to his personal favorite fight, the original The Ultimate Fighter finale fight between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar. 

While some MMA observers have criticized the Garcia-Jung matchup for more closely resembling a sloppy kickboxing fight than a high-level mixed martial arts contest, Garcia argues that the Griffin-Bonnar comparison is appropriate. “I think you had two guys who went out there and didn’t care about what was going on; they just wanted to fight each other,” Garcia says. “That’s what it was. A lot of people are like, ‘Well, it was a crazy fight, and it wasn’t that technical – it wasn’t something you could give credit for as being technical fighting.’ But one thing we did go do for sure is we went after each other. We were trying to finish the fight with every single punch, every submission attempt – everything had a bad intention on it. 

“To have people who watch fights all the time say that it was one of the best fights they’ve ever seen, that just puts me and Chan in a different place together. We’re always going to have that one fight with each other that went every direction it could go. And then the bell rang, and we were both still standing and still could have probably kept fighting another two rounds.” 

In the WEC, you’re always one fight away from something

For the WEC, the fight was just what the doctor ordered. While White refuses to release pay-per-view figures for the Aldo vs Faber event, he always finds it difficult to keep a smile off of his face when referencing the figures. 

But for Garcia, the result was just as important. Garcia’s WEC 47 draw with Roop was salvaged only when his opponent was docked a point for an illegal blow. Prior to that, Gamburyan had defeated Garcia via unanimous decision, and many cageside observers felt Leonard’s split-decision win over Massouh had been a bit of a gift. 

In short, Garcia was in bad need of a positive result. Nevertheless, the Texan said the pressure of a win didn’t weigh any more heavily on his mind than usual. “Every fight, I always feel like I’m in a bad place and need a win,” Garcia said. “It doesn’t matter if I win or lose before. In the WEC, you’re always one fight away from something – either you’re a fight away from getting a title shot, or you’re a fight away from not having a job anymore. I just always go on with that mindset. Then, of course, I had done them a favor by taking this fight on three weeks’ notice, so I was like, ‘Man, if I go in there and gas, this is going to be real bad.’ That was my major fear: gassing.” 

Garcia and Jung both looked like they could have used a hit or two from an oxygen mask in their epic slugfest, but neither of them quit fighting until the final bell. Though Garcia was awarded a valuable split-decision result in the end, he said it was the fight more than the win that proved beneficial to his soul. “I needed a fight like this one. I needed a fight where somebody was going to come straight at me and fight and always be trying to look and do damage. As everybody knows, when people take me down, or try and hold me there and slow the pace of the fight down, is when I can’t really unleash or let go like the way I feel like I should be able to. Our fighting styles matched up perfectly and the stars were just right that day. 

“Everything just fell into place. I never felt like, ‘Oh, this is a boring fight,’ or that we weren’t fighting hard enough. Through the whole fight, I don’t think I even had time to think about what was going on. It was just an all-out fight, and that type of fight matches well with my style and works out perfectly.” 

While Garcia said he enjoyed every second of the 15-minute affair, the 11-year veteran said it wasn’t until afterward that he realized he had just been a part of a special moment in the history of the WEC – and likely in MMA, as well. “I definitely didn’t realize how great the fight was until the end,” Garcia said. “The cool thing was that I could hear the crowd going, but you didn’t have time to react to any of it. Every time they were going it was because we were trying to knock each other’s heads off, so there was just no time to think, ‘Oh, this is a really good fight’ or anything. 

“I seriously had to try and think after the fight, ‘What happened?’ You just remember little bits and pieces, and then when you watch the fight, it’s like, ‘I don’t even remember doing that.’ Everybody I was watching the replay with was just laughing at me because I didn’t remember most of it.” 

“The title is always, always going to be the goal”

But how do you follow such an iconic performance? Griffin topped off his win over Bonnar with victories over Bill Mahood and Elvis Sinosic – not exactly a murderers’ row of fresh opponents. Garcia has different ambitions as he eyes future contests with the featherweight division’s very best fighters. 

“The title is always, always going to be the goal,” Garcia says. “Right now, the champion is running out so far ahead of everybody that it does seem like, ‘Man, it’s going to be hard to get there.’ Then when you do get there, what are you going to do? But as I’ve showed in past fights, I think styles make fights and, stylistically, I think I could make an exciting fight with Jose Aldo. It would be a great fight – I feel like he hasn’t been tested standing up by anybody. He hasn’t fought anybody that can take abuse to the leg and keep coming forward. 

“I don’t care who the champion is, but if Aldo hangs on to the title that’s one of the people that I would jump at a pin drop to fight. They wouldn’t even have to say it loud. They could just barely say it and I’d be the first one up there to do it. I want to fight the best fighters out there, and the WEC has them. I’m just happy being a part of what’s going on, but definitely my dream and my goals are to become the champion.” 

In the meantime, he’ll have to settle for just being a part of history while he strives to deliver yet another memorable performance. “I just want to thank God; He makes everything possible for all of us,” Garcia says. “I’ve got a new TapouT shirt coming out soon that I’m real excited about, and I just want to thank the fans. Without them, we wouldn’t be anything, and I’ll keep putting on great shows for you guys. 

“To be able to have people view that night as a fight that will go down in history? As a person, everybody wants to be remembered for what they do, and to have people say that about you in a fight – that’s a real special thing for me.” 

Plans for $65,000 ‘Fight of the Night’ bonus 

Prior to the WEC’s historic Aldo vs Faber event, the organization’s largest ‘of the night’ bonuses had been issued in the form of $10,000 checks, but with the fight promotion putting on its first-ever pay-per-view event, Dana White decided to up the ante. 

Garcia and Chung’s epic clash was the evening’s obvious ‘Fight of the Night’, and they were both awarded a stunning $65,000 payday (in addition to their guaranteed contracts). For Garcia, who also received a $30,000 ‘Fight of the Night’ bonus in his April 2007 UFC tussle with Roger Huerta, it was the biggest payday of his life. 

But, unlike his first bonus check, a more mature Garcia said he’s hoping this payday will help make his future a little brighter. “I haven’t really gone crazy and bought anything big like I did when I fought Huerta. I got a $30,000 bonus when I fought him, and back then I didn’t know how to handle money, so that money was gone within the next three or four months. I’m being a lot smarter with this one and hoping that it does end up helping to set me up in the future and make it better for me.” 

One more time?

When Griffin and Bonnar engaged in their memorable 2005 battle, fans were immediately left clamoring for more. Unfortunately, the rematch wouldn’t come for another 16 months, and much of the hype behind the contest had fizzled. As perhaps was to be expected, the in-cage action of the second match paled greatly in comparison to the first.

To avoid such a pitfall, Garcia says he’d like to face Jung again, and he’d like to see it take place right away. “I think if we were to do a rematch immediately, it wouldn’t really allow us the time to learn things that might make a second fight boring,” Garcia says. “Of course, now we both know a little more about each other and some things that we might be able to exploit, but I still think it would be a really tough fight for both of us, and I think it wouldn’t be a letdown. 

“I think I would come in more confident knowing that I can’t be knocked out, and I think that he would come in more confident knowing that he can’t be knocked out, and we’d both be trying to prove a point. I think that it would still make for one of the best fights out there.” 

Of course, Jung has to agree too. Garcia said he believes ‘The Korean Zombie’ is open to the matchup as well, though there may be a small caveat. “We talked about rematching each other, and Chan said, ‘We’ll rematch for sure, but I’m changing the contract. I need to get paid more money next time.’”