Issue 030

October 2007

By Andrew Garvey and Hywel Teague

Portrait by Hywel Teague

Only days before his Ultimate Fighter Season 5 finale fight with bitter rival BJ Penn in June, the first ever Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) lightweight champion Jens Pulver spoke to Fighters Only about his future plans. “I’m a 145-pounder.

I can make 155 in my sleep. I fought at 143, I boxed at 147. I guess it’s time to go down and make some more weight classes big. I’m proud of 155. When I’m old and a grandpa, I can look back when this sport is the biggest thing on the planet, if they still have 155lbs I can say ‘yep, your grandpa started that’. There are so many great 145-pounder and so many good 135-pounder, I want to find a home for them too. The World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) is blowing up and showcasing the little guys.” Zuffa’s purchase of the WEC and a TV deal with the Versus channel made a return to his natural weightclass with UFC’s sister promotion a very real possibility.

His WEC debut was subsequently set for September 5 against the brash, exciting Cub Swanson. Fighters Only caught up with the talkative and very likeable Pulver just hours after news broke that a training injury meant his showdown with the confident Swanson had to be postponed. “I’m pretty bummed right now. I was getting over a staph infection and just got back into grappling. With staph you can’t really have much human contact, so I was on the last day of my antibiotics and was rolling with my friend. He grabbed my foot and it got stuck in his shorts. He went one way and I went another and there was just this loud ‘boom’ and I thought, ‘man, you gotta be kidding me’. I waited and rested over the weekend until I could get to a doctors and they said I’d need an MRI. It may just be I’m out for 4-8 weeks, or if it’s an [Medical Collateral Ligament] tear it’ll be surgery. I can walk around, limp around, but there’s no lateral movement, I can’t hold my leg up. I still feel great, beyond confident. I’m taking a hiatus but I’m real pissed, mad as hell. I’m walking around at 153lbs and I do not pull out of fights.”

Amazingly, this is Pulver’s first ever knee injury. “I wrestled all my life and this is the first one. But when that thing popped, it’s a different kind of pain. I guess I dodged a bullet for a long time. But everything happens for a reason. I’ll stay in as good a shape as I can, work on technique and I’m gonna ask [the WEC] for a fight in late October or November.” Asked about Swanson, Pulver’s eagerness to fight was clear. “Cub’s a tough fighter. He comes forward. I like his arrogance too. He said he could submit me easy on the ground so he wants to stand with me. But not everybody’s BJ Penn.”  

Speaking of his former nemesis, Pulver explained how their rematch (which Penn dominated, submitting him with a second- round rear naked choke) had changed their relationship. “I felt pretty bad after the fight but I gained so much from that show. Fans got to see me as a person and not just a fighter. My rivalry with BJ got me to that position. I owe him a lot and I’d still like to learn from him. It was way too much of a learning experience for me to still hate him. I’m not good at hating people and you can’t hate somebody when you have so much to thank them for. The hatred just isn’t there anymore. We’re not calling each other up and saying ‘hey buddy, how are things?’ but that five-year grudge is gone. I never really knew BJ personally and I still don’t.”  

On the overall The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) experience, Pulver noted “I was learning to be a coach, somewhere along the way I remember calling Pat [Miletich], I didn’t tell him what was going on but I said, ‘man, when you see the show you’ll know, but I just want you to know right now that all those times I was really difficult to you, I apologise! I understand now what you were trying to do with everybody in the gym and I want to thank you for it’.”

Declaring that WEC is “the perfect place to be”, Pulver managed to sound upbeat despite the injury. “It kinda sucks, but soon enough I’ll be healthy and ready to go.” Those eagerly awaiting his fight with Swanson (not to mention a potential WEC Featherweight title match against the outstanding Urijah Faber) will be wishing one of the sport’s finest ambassadors a speedy and successful recovery.