Issue 033
January 2008
Hywel Teague meets the man with 'OG' status.
The first time I met Houston Alexander, he was comfortably having his photograph taken by various members of the media, shortly after a UFC press conference. Wanting to get in on the action, I introduced myself to this somewhat intimidating-looking guy, and found him to be an extremely personable gentleman.
Far from the brash, explosive fighter he is inside the cage, Alexander radiates calm and has been known to walk up to fans and start conversations. After a few minutes of chatting with him (and discovering there was more to this guy than meets the eye) I committed myself to telling his story, if anything simply because of the sheer uniqueness of it all.
Since that meeting earlier this year, Houston became quite the celebrity. Two big wins in under a minute and a half has a habit of raising your profile, and the stories started to come out about his personal life – stories that he was a single parent, that he had six children, that he donated one of his kidneys to save his daughter, and more.
And then at UFC 78, following his first round TKO loss to Thiago Silva, the hype train was derailed. ‘Fans’ on the internet suddenly considered him as ‘exposed’, describing him as over-rated and claiming he was untested, over-hyped and had been due a shock. With his characteristic matter-of-fact attitude, he plainly put it: “I'm a regular guy, I train hard and I work hard. I make no excuses and I feel sorry for whoever's going to be next. I'm going to get off the plane, and the next day I'm going to go to the gym.”
It is this everyman-quality that makes Houston so damn likeable. Ignore for one minute the fact he is a brutal power-puncher with ridiculously heavy hands (and who quite literally threw Silva to the floor in their fight). His abilities inside the Octagon are only one small facet of this multi-talented multi-tasker.
Houston Alexander is many things: He is a radio DJ, a graffiti artist, a fighter, a father, a lecturer, “and a B-Boy. That’s being 35 years old, I’ve experienced a lot,” he says.
As testament to this, Houston has the letters ‘OG’ tattooed on his shoulders. In popular culture, OG means ‘Original Gangster’, but I asked him what he considered it to mean. “To me ‘OG status’ means you’ve been around for a while and you understand the game. You understand life, even though you’re still learning as life progresses. I’ve been through enough to know how to deal with different situations. It just means that I’ve got a lot of experience.”
A veteran of dozens of underground ‘toughman’ and amateur MMA fights, Alexander is a fighter through and though. The evidence of a life on the streets is there, with scars all over his body and eyes that burn with the intensity of a man who has fought his way through life, but at this time Alexander is all about positivity.
Having been immersed in the hip hop culture his entire life, Houston has many strings to his bow. He is one of Omaha’s best-known graffiti artists (known as Scrib 1972, he’s been doing walls since age 12 and still does them today, most recently doing a bridge for Red Bull). His radio show, where he plays new independent hop hip and R’n B from around the world, is flourishing (“I break a lot of artists that don’t get mainstream play. I’m very proud of that fact”). To top it all off, he is also involved in a project called the Culture Shocks School Tour, visiting kids of all ages and giving lectures and demonstrations on what hip hop culture is about, namely music, dance and art.
“What we do is we go in and teach them about the hip hop culture, about the pioneers. Because you’ve got a lot of kids growing up and all they know is rap music from videos and radio stations. They don’t know anything about the guys who got it started, such as Kool Herc being the first DJ, Coke La Rock as being the first rapper, TAKI 183 being one of the first graffiti artists, Doug E. Fresh being the first beat boxer. You got a lot of people who were pioneers, and these kids know nothing about them. We go to schools and try to set the record straight.
“Hip hop culture isn’t just about rap music, it’s about the culture. A lot of people being up the words hip hop and don’t even know why they’re doing it. It’s a culture with many elements, DJ’ing would be the first one, graffiti art, break dancing, rapping, beat boxing, those are the elements that started our culture and what people are living off of today.”
Being good with kids is something the former asphalt-shoveller had to learn the hard way. The pressure of walking into the ring is nothing compared to that of standing in front of a classroom of kids, or raising a family by yourself. “I have help of course, but all my kids are with me. I’m able to handle the pressure as I’m an older gentleman. I’m 35. Pressure is having kids! (He laughs) If you can handle the pressure of kids you can handle the pressure [of fighting].”
Houston is actually quite bemused by the fact the media seemed to pick up so much on the fact he was father to six children. “I don’t know why it’s been such an issue, but I guess having three girls and three boys has been a topic of discussion.”
Fitting in the weekly visits to schools, hosting a radio show every Sunday night and making it to three training sessions a day must be pretty tricky, surely? “I choreograph my day, every day. I got a schedule book that I keep. I’ve got the art of organisation down,” he says.
Dealing with the bright lights and the excitement of appearing in the UFC was no real challenge for this down-to-earth athlete. “Did it scare me or anything? I was an established fighter already with a lot of experience. I took that experience and kept my composure the whole time throughout my debut. It was really exciting to be in the situation in the first place.”
Maybe the thing that Houston has been most comfortable with during this time is dealing with all the media coverage of his personal life. “See, I can handle the media, because I am the media, I do radio. But I’m always interviewing people, it is kind of weird being on the other side of that mic.”
Now the pressure is off for a while, it’s back to work as usual for Alexander. He’s right back in the gym to train with his coach Mick Doyle, right back to the radio station to present his show, and right back to his family to look after his kids. With a life as packed as this, you wonder how a guy can keep it all together, and if you’re looking for some tips on time management, Houston has some sage advice. “You find if you just go with the flow of the river, you go faster than if you’re going against it.”
