Issue 027

July 2007

I remember the very first time I saw Jess ‘Joker' Liaudin fight, back at Cage Rage 2 in February of 2003. He fought fellow UFC acquisition Paul Taylor and at the time, like the rest of the people in attendance, I was blown away by his performance.

Liaudin had Taylor in trouble in the first round with a tight arm bar until the Midlander spiked his way out of it. From there on in Liaudin's hold on the match slipped away: but he was always in it. In between rounds the crowd gave both fighters standing ovations and I remember thinking that this was what MMA was all about.

Liaudin went on to lose the fight by decision, and I introduced myself to him afterwards, taking a picture of his beaten face while thinking what strength of character this fighter, like others that I had met, had demonstrated in the cage. Strength of character is often born out of hardship though, and Liaudin is no stranger to that.

When I talk to him about his childhood he talks about his father, a man who seemed to have provided the conditions for Liaudin to become the man he is today. Asking about his upbringing and the violence he experienced he is remarkably blasé. "It's nothing unusual in the fighting world really. If you talk to a lot of fighters you'll realise that half of them had a similar, hard upbringing. That's what forges your character and gives you the strength to fight. I had it quite rough, my father was a real tough guy, bit of a gangster, and he used to beat me up as well as my mum. When I say beat me up I don't mean a slap here and there but beatings with a black eye."

"When I was four years old my Dad got into a bar fight with some guys. He went into the car and people were shooting at the car and we were sleeping in the back seat. A couple of bullets hit the car just above my head.

Noticing the effect that this environment was having on her son, Jess' mother took action. "I was getting older and she thought that perhaps I was going to get worse and maybe go a bit mad one day; so she decided to leave. Unfortunately, we had nowhere to live so we went and lived in the church for a while. In the church most people there were homeless people, and we only got one meal each day in the evening. What we would do is go to the market and pick up the unsold vegetables and things like that, put them in a pot with some water, and that's what you had to eat. It was pretty tough when you're fourteen years old. We lived there for a while and then moved into a special place where there were a lot of people in a similar situation to us, women with kids.

Even away from his father violence followed Jess to his new home. "After we moved out of the church we lived in quite a rough area, the people were from other countries - Africa, North Africa, China. I was one of the few white boys in the area, and a lot of these people suffered (because of) racism and they wanted to put all this anger on a white boy: so, I was fighting all the time. I had started combat sports and because I'd done a little Thai boxing people wanted to challenge me. If my mom sent me to the local store to get some bread I knew that I was going to get into a fight."

Jess found his way out of the ghetto and into the ring at 16 years old, and his newfound career took him to the US. Entering a kickboxing competition in Texas in 1995, he decided to stay in the country, but found living there wasn't as easy as he had hoped. "I had to do security in bars that you wouldn't imagine, you'd have to see them to believe them. When you see these old, cheesy Chuck Norris movies where people are having bar fights? It was very intimidating and very hard. One evening I saw a guy getting shot just a few feet in front of me, just drop down and die. I thought I'm not going to be doing that anymore. That could've been me."

Jess found his feet and started to build a life for himself in the US. His girlfriend came to live with him, but as Jess explains, it was her that prompted him to come and live in England. "She said that she didn't like the states and she moved to the UK. Me being young and dumb left everything that I had started to achieve over there to come and live in the UK."

He famously put his application in to fight in the UFC way back in 1994, back when the UFC were still advertising for entrants in martial arts magazines. "I fought kickboxing in the states 21st November 1993 and a couple of weeks before they had shown the first UFC on TV. I wanted to do it. At the time the UFC were still advertising in various magazines for people who wanted to enter. I sent in my form back in 1994. I managed to have my first MMA fight in 1995 back in America.

When I came to the UK I stopped fighting for a while but then I took some amateur fights in the late nineties and then started fighting pro."

"For me I never got into MMA thinking I'm going to be a champion or anything like that. For me doing MMA was doing what I've done for the last 15 years now. For me it's been about getting experience and becoming a better teacher. I never dreamed of becoming a champion and becoming a professional."

Fast forward to now, and Jess has opened a gym, changed his management and found the motivation that he admits he was once lacking. A win over top UK welterweight Ross Mason gave him a boost and got the attention of the UFC. His appearance on UFC 70 in Manchester saw him submit Denis Siver in just under a minute and a half, narrowly missing out on Submission of the Night. With a documentary about him coming out in France very soon and plenty of attention from fans on both sides of the Atlantic, things are pretty much the same for Liaudin and he seems to be taking it all in his stride.

"My goal was to fight in the UFC because it was a long time dream, I desperately want to win because I don't want to be calling myself a veteran if I don't win. I'm pretty realistic as to how far I can go, I don't have the facilities that some of my future opponents will have. Guys who are training all day, training at places like BTT, sparring every day with some of the toughest fighters in the world. How can I compete against that?"

"I personally believe that I've got the technical ability to compete and to fight but I don't have the environment behind me to help me compete at the highest level. Right now my goal is to try and go as far as I can, and to win as many fights as I can and to keep my reputation intact as a good fighter. My goal is not to become the next UFC champion. What I want is to be respected as being a good fighter. I want to be the people's champion. I want to be the guy who steps into the Octagon and gives a good fight. I want to give people a fight worth their money. If I win: I win. if I lose: I lose but at least people will be entertained and remember the guy who gave them a good fight."