Pete Irving (9-5-1) is one of the best welterweights in the UK and is currently on a tear that has seen him unbeaten in his last five fights. He has been fighting MMA professionally since 2003, well before the days of regular UFC shows in the UK. But now it looks like the big show is here to stay, Irving is keen to challenge himself in the Octagon. His quest to reach the top of the martial arts world has seen him homeless in Brazil, stuck in a South Carolina jail, living with alcoholics and accepting a fight two weight categories above his own just because he needed money for food. This interview is a long one, but very funny and well worth a read.
Fighters Only: You submitted tough German welterweight Daniel Wiechel at the end of October. What have you been up to since then?
I’ve quit my job so I’m back to training full time, it’s much better. Actually I was training full time anyway – twice a day – as well as working, so I was just knackered all the time. So I’m back into it
now, trying to get a fight in February.
Fighters Only: Any idea when your next fight is?
Hopefully I’m going to fight on Strike and Submit. It’s a good show and I’ve got a lot of friends and sponsors in the Newcastle area. I also hold the S&S British and European belts.
Fighters Only: Weichel has a solid reputation on the European circuit. You must be pleased with that win?
Weichel was quite a big win. Apparently it has made me famous in Germany. I have a student who is based in Germany and he told me.
I’m like the David Hasselhoff of MMA – not the biggest guy where I am from, but over in Germany I am great (laughs).
Fighters Only: Hasselhoff is a big time pop star in Germany. Maybe you should release a song.
Yeah I need to get my cheesy rock ‘n’ roll thing going. And a talking car. Or any car at all, in fact.
Fighters Only: Looking at Weichel’s record, he’s only really been beaten by top-flight Europeans such as Thiago Tavares, Dan Hardy (both in the UFC) and Paul Daley, another international…
I’ve put myself on a good list of names there. I feel in quite good company. That was my thinking when I challenged Weichel. I’ve kind of followed him since he beat my friend Abdul Mohammed years ago, and then I saw him win European Vale Tudo championships and I thought, ‘This is a guy to aim for’, so I challenged him.
Then I thought ‘Shit, now I really have to beat him, because I called him out”. And then I did. Thank god. (laughs).
Fighters Only: You’re climbing the rankings now, but I understand it has been a tough journey for you at times. Can you tell us a bit about it?
Well, I thought my jiu jitsu was weak so I went to Brazil, then I got a couple of wins there. I lived in Brazil for a while in 2004-5, I did a few months on, few months off, to get around the visa requirement thing.
I had intended to do that indefinitely, but it just gets harder and harder, having to move all the time, having nowhere to live. I came back to the UK and I was homeless, crashing on sofas and I was really roughing it. I ended up in a hostel because I had nowhere to live and I was surrounded by recovering… actually, not even recovering, just drug addicts, alcoholics, guys on methadone programs, sleeping in dormitories and all that.
Fighters Only: Quite the Hollywood lifestyle you were living there.
I just thought ‘Jesus Christ, I’m trying to be the best that I can be and it has brought me here, with drug addicts and losers’.
I moved around, sleeping in the gym, sleeping in people’s front rooms. I had good support from my teammates, they helped me out a lot. And then I went back to Brazil and I slept in the gym. My bed was a stack of mats, I was eating and sleeping jiu jitsu and just living as cheap as I could.
Fighters Only: Tell us how to make a comfortable bed using only gym equipment?
A few layers of mats and a sleeping bag will do it nicely. Maybe a Thai pad as a pillow, if you’re one of those people that needs those little luxuries.
Actually, I still have that sleeping bag, I take it with me to fights for when I want to chill out.
Fighters Only: Most people have a lucky t-shirt or something, you have a lucky sleeping bag?
Yes, but it also works as the massage table for before the fights, so it has seen some action.
Fighters Only: So would you class yourself as a jiu jitsu fighter?
Because of my wins in Brazil, everyone thought I was a jiu jitsu fighter. But I wanted to be a Muay Thai fighter really, I was just too short. I fight at 80 kilos so everyone I face is like 6’2 and I’m 5’9 on a good day.
Fighters Only: Ever think of dropping to lightweight?
I used to fight at lightweight but cutting the weight just kills me. I could never eat anything at all. I fought at lightweight for a couple of years and really suffered. I was physically diminished, my strength was going down and I was getting illnesses all the time, I was always rundown. So I had a layoff, came back and welterweight and I’m staying here. I walk around at 83 kilos.
Fighters Only: Is that with a clean diet or with the odd sneaky beer and a curry?
No its with very little fat. I actually strip away some muscle when I cut weight. My diet is very clean I really don’t deviate from it much at all. I have a week or so after a fight where I eat a pizza and stuff like that but generally that’s it.
Fighters Only: Have you ever fought higher than welterweight?
I was fighting in America at lightweight and then this show said ‘We will give you some danger money to fight Reg Cordel’ who at the time was a middleweight champion. So they said they would give me extra money to fight this guy because their fight card was being messed up by pullouts.
I’m sitting in the weight-in room completely boiled down to nothing for the lightweight limit, and now I have to fight this six foot tall middleweight. No problem! So the fight went really well, they called me back and said they would get me two fights on Ken Shamrock’s show, two fights on a show called Valhalla. There was no UFC in England at the time so I thought ‘If I fight in America its all going to happen, I will get noticed’ and my record was going really well, I was winning and winning.
Fighters Only: Why do I get the impression this story is about to take a bad turn?
(laughs) So I went over, but I had no money, I had to borrow money to get a flight to America, and they were going to give me somewhere to live, which was great as I had nowhere here in the UK.
Then I got there and it was the day of the terrorist attacks, 9/11. They were checking everyone’s passports and ripping everyone’s bags to bits and they opened mine and said ‘What are you doing in America?’ and I said ‘Oh I’m going on holiday.’
The customs guy looks at me and he says ‘You are going on holiday with shin guards, two pairs of gloves and several pairs of Thai boxing shorts?’, so I told him my buddy owns a gym and I’m going to do some kickboxing while I am here, but he says ‘No, no, no. You are a professional’.
Then they find a copy of Fighters Only magazine in my bag and there are pictures of me in there. They said I was there to make money and I denied it, but it was no use, they slapped the cuffs on me and put me in jail!
Fighters Only: So MMA has taken you from hostels to gym floors to jail cells. So much for martial arts being the path to self-improvement. How was US jail?
It was terrifying. I got like, three strip searches.. it was horrendous. I was the only white guy in the jail, the only British guy. And my knowledge of US jails comes from TV and movies, so I was bricking it. I thought I was going to get killed. Maybe not raped, I have pretty good back defence, I was confident of maintaining my chastity…
Anyway, there was one guy wrapped around the toilet in the corner, another guy perched on the wall that separates the toilet from the rest of the room, there was loads of people in there and nowhere to sit so I was stuck in a kind of stress position for hours! (laughs). And there was a huge lobby area right outside the cell – it’s like psychology, you can see all this space but you are crammed into this little box with all these other guys.
Fighters Only: Nice facilities. So how was the food?
The food was inedible – but I still thought I was going to be released and have a fight so I didn’t eat anything! I was still trying to make weight so I was getting really weak and shakey. Plus I had been awake for about 24 hours before I got there and it was like another 24 hours before I got released. I was surrounded by extras from every gangsta film you’ve ever seen. They stuck me on a plane and back in London I was just relieved. I didn’t get a phone call when I was in jail, because you are only entitled to local call and I didn’t know anyone in South Carolina!
Fighters Only: Unbelievable. Has 2008 been a good year for you? I suppose any year that doesn’t involve jail in Carolina must be a good one really.
(laughs) Yeah. There’s guys like Paul Daley that I would have to concede have done more than me this year and last year, and are a force to be reckoned with. But just in general terms, aside from a few exceptions such as Daley and Hardy, I don’t think there is anybody that has outstripped my achievements.
Fighters Only: Another win puts you on five fight run. Are you hoping that will attract the attention of the UFC?
Well, GroundandPound.de have me at number ten in Europe, that’s a real compliment. It’s been a pretty good year.
I was meant to fight Diego Gonzalez in June, he had the European belt I hold now, but then he got tied up by Bodog or M-1 or something, and so he couldn’t defend it and so I fought his teammate instead, but I wasn’t disappointed, I thought he was one of my best opponents ever, I loved that fight.
Fighters Only: A lot of people have expressed surprise you haven’t been on a UK UFC undercard, especially for the Newcastle event. Have people said as much to you?
When the UFC came to my home town of Newcastle I had been out with injuries and I’d only had one fight in the previous year, so it obviously wasn’t my time. But it stung me because everyone was
coming up to me at the show saying “Are you not fighting on this?” and I was having to say “No, they didn’t want me”. (makes a sad faces and imitates tears)
Fighters Only: I know you’re acting sad now but I expect the disappointment was real at the time?
Yeah it was really disappointing. Everybody was asking me. They are all used to me headlining fight events in Newcastle and I was having to explain that yes, BJ Penn is a little bit better than me… (laughs).
I think maybe if it was now, they might have a look at me. For some reason at UFC 80 they didn’t get a local fighter in the way that they have done for all the other UK events. But maybe it is for the best, maybe it was not my time. I have come on a long way in that year, so if I get a chance in the UFC now I might be able to shine in a way that I maybe wouldn’t have back then.
Fighters Only: What is your take on the UFC welterweight division? Are you ready to fight in one of the toughest divisions around?
It really is absolutely stacked. Where do I put myself in the UFC welterweight division? Hmmm. Hardy debuted against Gono and they really put him to the test there. But there are no easy fights in the UFC and he shone. He’s a massively confident guy and he has got lots of self-belief and he rose to the challenge.
For me, if I was to go in there, I know that I would have been able to hang on any of the undercard fights from the last year or two. I’d have entertaining fights, maybe lose some, definitely win some. If you were to throw me in with Koscheck right now, I have to be honest and say I don’t know how I’d fare.
In an ideal world I’d like to have three or four more fights, have loads more training in Brazil, America… but of course you can’t afford it. You need to be making good money off the fights in order to support the lifestyle that makes you a better fighter! It’s a vicious circle.
Fighters Only: But if you got the call, you would say yes?
(emphatically) If the UFC said come and fight tonight, I would pull my shorts out of the wash and run for the bus!
Pete would like to thank his sponsors 10th Legion Fightwear, Fighters Only and Blue Velvet Gentleman’s Club in Newcastle for all their support.
John Joe O’Regan
