Got Fight?

by Forrest Griffin

  When up against this type of opponent, you don’t see the battle as a sport—you see it as a struggle to remain alive, and a lot of fighters aren’t prepared for that. It breaks them mentally. A perfect example of a wild animal in the ring is Wanderlei Silva. It doesn’t matter how hard or how many times you hit him—as long as his lights are still on, he’s coming forward swinging for the fences. The guy fights like a Neanderthal, and that’s downright intimidating because in order to stop him, you damn near have to kill him.

  The most intriguing fights are when two competitors with this “never back down” attitude square off. A perfect example is when Diego Sanchez fought Karo Parisyan in UFC Fight Night 6. Both fighters headed into that battle with the game plan of going balls to wall until the other broke, and they kept that game plan for all three rounds. I got tired just watching them go at it. Another example is my bout with Stephan Bonnar. That fight was fought in both of our heads. For three rounds, it was a nonstop flurry of punches and kicks. The only reason either one of us kept going was that each of us was certain his toughness would break the other. I have since talked with him about that fight, and it was funny because we were both thinking the exact same thing: I’m catching him with some good shots, and eventually he’s going to get tired of this. He’s going to break. However, with both of us being too stupid to quit, neither one of us did.

  How do you develop this kind of toughness? The answer is simple—do things that make your body and mind scream at you to quit, but don’t (dipshit psychs might call this cognitive behavioral therapy or some bullshit). Personally, I use the treadmill to accomplish this. Every other day, I’ll rev that sucker up to twelve miles an hour and do three five-minute intervals. Running at that speed for that duration doesn’t come naturally to anyone—it’s hideous, absolutely horrible. But by pushing past the pain, you become progressively tougher. You prove to yourself that pain is just that, pain. You can walk away from it afterward knowing that you surpassed a barrier that makes most humans curl into the fetal position and weep for Jesus. If you’re not in good shape, you don’t have to run at twelve miles an hour. You could run at eight miles an hour, but it is important to set goals for yourself. If eight miles an hour becomes too easy, push it up to nine miles an hour. The most important part is setting a pace that is more than you think you can achieve. It is also important not to do exercises where the pace isn’t set. I chose the treadmill over running outside because when I’m on the track, my body naturally slows down as the pain sets in. On a treadmill, you don’t have that option.

  This mental toughness must be developed BEFORE you start fighting because you don’t want to be that guy who quits in the ring—that’s unforgivable. Of course, if your opponent has your arm and he gives you a chance to cry uncle before he breaks it, hey brother, you got to tap so you can fight another day. I broke my arm in a fight down in Brazil, and if I’d been given a chance to tap, I would have in a fucking heartbeat. But if you quit because you don’t want to get hit anymore, you took the hairy vagina way out. If you want to be a man, take the hits and get knocked the fuck out. My philosophy on getting knocked out is that it renders you unconscious and numb, so why worry about it.

  * * *

  DICK IN A BOX

  by Big John

  Forrest gave some good advice about how to develop mental toughness, but he failed to mention that in order to develop toughness on an inhuman level, you pretty much have to be insane. He’s my best friend, and I want to portray him in a good light, but there is a side to him you don’t ever want to see. It’s not the crazy, fun-loving side that was captured when he was on The Ultimate Fighter—it’s the side you see when you piss him off. When I spar with Forrest, I realize he is the better man because he’s willing to go places I’m not willing to go. Hell, he’ll go places 99.9 percent of human beings are not willing to go. That’s why he’s been so successful—he can take himself mentally and spiritually to a place where everything is bathed in blood and devilish creatures feed on the limbs of babies. I’ve heard that Herschel Walker had multiple personality disorder, and although I’ve taken just a few classes in psychology, I feel safe diagnosing Forrest with the same thing. When he fights or gets angry, he acquires a different personality, and that personality doesn’t see limitations or recognize pain.

  I’ll give you an example. About the time Forrest broke his arm fighting down in Brazil, I had a fellow cop as a roommate. The guy was an absolute tool. He’d introduce himself to chicks as an undercover narcotics agent, and he never shut up. Well, Forrest and me had plans to go out one night, and we brought this guy along to be our designated driver. For hours he went on and on about how much ass he got on the job and how badass he was as a cop. The guy started grating on Forrest in a big way, and when he continued to ramble after we got back to the apartment and began watching a movie, Forrest snapped. Instead of flying off in a rage, he transformed from the fun-loving Forrest most people know into the sinister one most people don’t.

  “Could you toss me that lighter?” Forrest asked my douche-bag roommate.

  “Sure,” the guy said, and tossed him the lighter.

  Looking at my roommate straight in the eyes, Forrest positioned the lighter directly underneath his arm and sparked it up. After holding it there for approximately four seconds, he said, “My record is sixteen seconds. Wanna see me break it?”

  After another three seconds, the smell of burning flesh filled the room. I couldn’t take it anymore, and I knocked the lighter out of his hand. Forrest cracked a smile, and then went back to watching the movie. His arm was a bloody, bubbled mess, but he didn’t even treat the wound. I still have no idea why he chose to burn himself, but it served its purpose. My roommate was horrified, and he didn’t utter another word for the rest of the night. All he could do was sit there and stare at Forrest. From the look in his eyes, I’m pretty certain he feared for his life.

  Now, I’ve been around awhile, and absorbing that kind of pain isn’t normal. Who do you know that can receive a third-degree burn on a substantial part of his body and then just sit there and enjoy a movie? That kind of toughness isn’t something you can develop. It originates from lunacy. It might not be a perfect condition if you want to be a refrigerator repairman, but it’s tailor-made for fighting. Never once have I been surprised that Forrest has made it as far as he has. The only thing that surprised me was how long it took.

  * * *

  Busting Your Cherry

  The first fighting event I ever took part in was a Toughman competition. Did I go through a grueling eight-week training camp to prepare for the show? No, most certainly not. I was a twenty-year-old kid enrolled in the police academy in Athens. I signed up for the event because I had been doing some training with this guy I had met, Robert Fox. He was actually into MMA (or NHB—no holds barred—as it was called back then—this was ’99), but because I had no technique to speak of, we had been taking it one step at a time. At that point, all we had focused on was my boxing. I had a couple of good combinations and a hard punch, but that’s it. I entered the event not because I wanted to win the whole thing and begin some fabulous run that would land me in the Toughman Hall of Fame. I simply wanted to sock some people in the face.

  The day of the show I skipped out of the station early, picked Robert up in my piece-of-shit ride, and we made the two-hour drive to Athens, Georgia. The show was being held in the infamous 40-Watt nightclub, which is where R.E.M., the B-52’s, and several other popular bands had gotten their start. We walked into the joint, and instead of seeing a bunch of well-conditioned athletes, we were greeted by a host of bikers sporting leather vests and mean-looking tattoos. It looked like a pretty shady competition, and when I caught sight of the ring, it only reinforced that assumption. The promoters of the event had been organized enough to go out and rent an official boxing ring, but apparently their budget was hurting because the ring had failed to come with a bottom rope. Not wanting the fighters to fall out of the ring and onto the tooth
less women in the front row, they had strung a steel chain where the rope should have been. In case you didn’t get that, let me repeat myself. In place of the bottom rope, they had strung a steel chain. Now, I’m not a stickler for creating a whole bunch of rules and regulations, but come on. A chain? Really? I suppose barbed wire would have been worse, but not by much. The entire scene was straight out of a Van Damme movie. In hindsight, it was pretty fucking cool.

  * * *

  DICK IN A BOX

  by Luke

  White men can’t jump, but they can elbow the fuck out of you. If you want to increase your toughness, all you have to do is play basketball Forrest style. I would say that he was a good basketball player, but what he did out there on the court could not rightly be described as basketball. Although he could ali-oop and had a mean crossover, if he got angered by something you did, he would just haul off and try to punch you in the face. This led to several of his more notorious beatings. When he tried to punch Frankie Dickenson in the face for bullying a smaller player, Frankie beat the holy living hell out of him. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—never will he get his ass kicked as bad as that day. His face literally got beat in. I remember the coach sentenced them both to cafeteria duty after the fight, and Forrest came in with blood all over him, his face looking like the character Sloth from Goonies. Instead of being bummed out like most kids would be, he had a massive smile on his face, as if he had enjoyed the beating. Another time after we had seen the movie White Men Can’t Jump, we had the bright idea to hustle other kids for money in pickup games. Everything worked out great until we whopped a couple of older kids. They didn’t want to pay us, so Forrest got into their grilles. It got a little heated, and suddenly one of them starts punching Forrest in the face as hard as he could. Instead of struggling to get away or fighting back, he just laughed as the guy hit him. It spooked the older kids, and they sprinted away. I still see those guys around town every now and then, and I still ask for our motherfucking money.

  I honestly believe that Forrest’s involvement in basketball is partially responsible for his toughness today. To develop that toughness, you do not need to be good at basketball or whatever sport you’re playing. As a matter of fact, the worse you are, the more likely you’ll be to lose your temper or piss off another player. It can sometimes be hard to get into fights when walking down a hall or while hanging out with your friends because you build the fight up in your mind. But when playing a sport such as basketball, your adrenaline is through the roof and you tend to act out your emotions, causing you to start trading blows before you even have a chance to think. And it doesn’t have to be basketball. It could be soccer or baseball or even tennis. Forrest played just about every sport our high school had to offer, and he got into fights in all of them. The trick is to play aggressive. I remember one time when Forrest was playing goalie in soccer, a kid was charging toward him with the ball. Instead of focusing on the ball, he focused on the kid and tackled him. While he was on top of him, struggling to make him submit or some shit, the ball rolled casually into the goal. Shortly thereafter, a fight ensued.

  * * *

  When it came my time to brawl, I strapped on two eighteen-ounce gloves, both of which were the size of Tito Ortiz’s head, and climbed into the ring. I weighed two-forty at the time, and they paired me up with this big fat kid. For the first round we tore into each other with wild, looping punches. We held on longer than the bikers, most of whom gassed after approximately twelve seconds, but by the second round, neither one of us had much left in our tanks. With my wad blown, I drove my opponent back into the ropes so that I could rest my weight on his big fat stomach. Busy sucking in gallon-size gulps of air, he had pretty much given up on trying to hit me. The most I could muster was the occasional body shot.

  Now, I’m not sure what this kid was thinking, if he was trying to escape the ring or what, but he stepped one foot over the bottom rope, which as I mentioned was, in fact, a steel chain. At that same moment, I summoned one last ounce of energy and hit him with a good shot that caused him to drop. Somehow his leg got tangled up on the steel chain, and when his weight fell, the chain snapped his tibia in two. Obviously he couldn’t continue with a broken leg, so I was declared the winner by technical knockout. Awesome, right?

  After I cleaned up, I went looking for this kid to tell him “good fight” or some shit. Instead of finding him on a stretcher getting treated by medical professionals, I found him lying on the pavement out back by the trash cans. I’m not fucking kidding about this—they had dragged this dude out back, dropped him on the greasy pavement by the trash cans, and then left him there. It was as ghetto as you could get, but for some reason the whole experience left me wanting more.

  Having won my first bout, I got invited back for the semifinals. Once again, I handled the scrap like any 240-pound dude who was used to winning fights in the street—I went out there and swung for the hills. I gassed just as badly as I had the first time, which is pretty pathetic considering the rounds were only three minutes long, but I did enough to earn another victory. This landed me in the finals, but my championship bout didn’t go quite as well. Instead of another roughneck as my opponent, the guy across from me was a fellow student from the University of Georgia. He was longer than me and had a good jab, but every time I got inside on him, I would kill him. The problem was I didn’t have the desire to kill him. One time I accidentally stepped on his foot and tripped him up, but instead of capitalizing on his awkward positioning, I let him recover. Another time I had him bent over with his headgear turned around, rendering him blind, but instead of beating his face as though it were a piñata, I backed away so he could straighten it out. The end result is that he got to implement his game plan, which was to utilize his superior reach and pepper me with jabs, and I lost the decision.

  When I came back to my corner, Robert looked at me in disgust. “I guess you didn’t want to win that one.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “You should have hit him. Whenever you have a chance to hit your opponent, you hit him. You don’t let opportunities pass you by.”

  Right then I realized that I had been a nice guy, and nice guys have no business being in the ring. I wanted a rematch. I knew I could beat him the next time around if I fought with my heart and paced myself better, so I kept my eyes open for other Toughman events in the area that he might enter. While on this mission, I got sidetracked by mixed martial arts.

  MMA

  I was in the grocery store one day, and I ran into this guy I’d seen doing fight training at the Ramsey Physical Education Center at the University of Georgia. We got talking, and he told me that they had an MMA club on campus and that I should come check it out. A couple of days later I picked up a brochure for their club at the phys-ed building, got the times for their classes, and then paid them a visit.

  Adam and Rory Singer were sitting on the mats when I walked in, and immediately I liked them. Instead of wearing designer tank tops like a lot of the tampons in the gym, they wore old sweatshirts turned inside out so they wouldn’t advertise Bob’s Vacuum Repair or whatever gay shit was advertised on the front. They didn’t have gel in their hair or smell like they just took a bath in cologne. They looked like dirty mongrels because while in the gym they didn’t give a shit about impressing the opposite sex. All they cared about was pumping iron and fighting.

  To get my foot in the door, I made up a bunch of lies about my training experience. Those lies were obviously shattered when they mopped the floor with me the first day we did jujitsu, but by that point we had already become friends. So, I started doing jujitsu every Tuesday and Thursday. At first, all we did was gi-training. It wasn’t that any of us believed that you had to train with a gi in order to be good at MMA, it’s just that Georgia is as humid as a motherfucker, even in the winter. If you tried rolling without pajamas, the mats quickly turned into a slip-and-slide, making submissions impossible. Training with a gi helped add some
friction. The only downside was that the uniform would leave scuff marks all over your body. Now that MMA has exploded, explaining the big red welts on your body is as easy as telling people that you grapple, but back in the day people had no idea what grappling was. I would walk into the police academy in the morning with a black eye and red marks all over my neck and face, and my superiors would look at me like I was insane. They all thought I was involved in some type of fight club where the only rules were not to talk about fight club. I remember one time my lieutenant pulled me aside.

  “What the fuck is that shit all over your neck?” he asked.

  “Oh, it’s from my gi,” I said. “I was fighting off a choke.”

  A repulsed look soured his face. “Wait, wait, wait,” he said. “You guys carry ropes and try to choke each other? I don’t understand—you try to strangle each other with nooses? What kind of things are you into, son? Is it some type of autoerotic asphyxiation?”

  I tried to explain it to him further, but he didn’t want to listen. I felt like a black sheep, but it didn’t stop me from going to jujitsu practice every Tuesday and Thursday. At first I would also go to the Friday class, but it got a little too weird for me. They’d dress up in hockey gear and practice stick fighting. For good measure, they would also throw in a little fake knife fighting. I was interested in neither. When they asked me why I wasn’t down, my answer was simple. “I carry a gun, resulting in no need to learn how to fight with a stick or a knife. Just to let you know, I will never engage in fake knife fighting.” Ironically, ten years later I’m now getting really into knife fighting and knife throwing. However, I still carry a gun everywhere I go.