Issue 052
July 2009
A principal member of the UFC’s team of cutmen, Don House isn’t as flamboyant as Leon Tabbs or as well known as Stitch Duran. A modest, unassuming gentleman who puts the safety of the fighters over anything else, House’s personal journey through the professional fight game reads like that of a movie script.
A rough and tough youth who grew up fighting on the streets of Chicago, House found himself kicked out of schools due to his love of fist-fights. “Growing up in the streets of Chicago, fighting was kind of like a math class,” he said with a laugh. “It was what you did. I was probably 10 or 11 years old and someone said ‘If you wanna fight, then go to a boxing gym!’”
Surprisingly, the soft-spoken and polite House grew up angry and took his frustrations out on the world around him. The boxing gym wasn’t just a sanctuary from the troubled streets; it was a chance for him to get rid of the aggression inside of him. “I don’t know why I was an angry kid. I don’t know why I wanted to fight but fighting was something I just loved doing. When I was introduced to a boxing gym, they were giving me trophies and hurrahs and pats on the back. I thought ‘I love this! I could do this for the rest of my life!’”
Finding himself in Grand Rapids, Michigan, House shared a gym with two boxing greats, the Mayweather brothers Roger and Floyd (Sr). House joined the US Army and fought on the boxing team under the legendary trainer Kenny Adams, but narrowly missed out on a shot at the 1984 Olympics due to an unfortunate accident. At the age of only 22, an explosion in an army truck that House was riding in destroyed his knee, which required five surgeries to repair. House’s aspirations of becoming a professional boxer were over. “Unfortunately the accident stopped everything.”
In the mid-eighties House went back to school and got himself a degree in engineering. Working for a nuclear testing company, he found himself sat at his desk in work when a realization hit him. “I remember thinking, ‘This is not it. This is not it’. And when I quit, my family thought I was crazy. It was a government job, a good job, but it wasn’t what I loved doing.” House returned to the sport he loved and began training kids for amateur boxing. “After a couple of years of that I picked up a couple of pros. Before long I had so many I didn’t know what to do with them!”
Coaching was something that came naturally to House. Whereas some fighters never make it as a coach, House counts his time in the army as the best education he could have wanted in order to become a coach. “The military taught me how not to teach. They screamed every order at you like you were a dog, they never talked to you like you were people. When I started treating fighters like they were human beings I got the results.”
House’s entry into the world of mixed martial arts was due to a chance meeting with Dana White. “I was in the Zuffa gym in Vegas, I was training a boxer to get ready for Roy Jones Jr, and Dana asked me if I would be interested in training Tito. I said, ‘Wow? You have a connection with Tito?’ Of course, I thought he meant Tito Trinidad, not Tito Ortiz! I said, ‘Who the hell is Tito Ortiz?’ And that’s how it started.”
House was one of the first professional boxing trainers to work with a high-profile MMA fighter, although he says things were very different in those days. “The problem I had working with a mixed martial artist was sometimes those guys have four or five different coaches. Grappling, kickboxing, everything. And when we started out they all thought their discipline was better. In boxing you have one coach: a decision maker. I got rid of all the coaches. I humbled myself to the coaches, said ‘Your game is great; let’s add this in.’”
By streamlining the coaching process, no longer were fighters getting information from one coach then different instructions from another. The coaches started talking to each other, while the fighter listened to the head coach.
Becoming a cutman was another of those fortuitous accidental moments. House could be found backstage wrapping Tito’s hands, and before long all the fighters wanted him to wrap their hands too. “The game was changing, they were trying to make it safe. I would wrap Tito’s hands, and his opponent would say, ‘Wait a minute, someone needs to wrap my hands too!’ Then someone else would say, ‘What about me?’ I was wrapping everybody’s hands!
“Back then they only had one cutman, Leon Tabbs, so I helped him out. I didn’t know anything about being a cutman but I knew about the medicines and what they do, so after one show of that I told Dana I know a cutman who can work for you. About a show or two later, he brought in Jacob ‘Stitch’ Duran.”
House is still involved as a trainer, and was responsible for sharpening Frank Mir’s hands up before the December 2008 fight with Minotauro. As the game continues to evolve, House helps it along its way, and his most recent contribution is an update to the design of the gloves the UFC use. “The lawyers are talking right now to get the patents taken care of so we can introduce the gloves to the fighters. I’m always looking to help improve the sport and make it better. Every day we’re trying to make things safe.”
Don House spoke with Hywel Teague
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