Got Fight?

by Forrest Griffin

  I’m sending this one out to the fighters, but much of this philosophy applies to everyone. You’ll never be great at something you half-ass, and this is especially true in fighting. If you want to reach the top of the MMA mountain, you’ve got to have a pretty intense passion for scrapping in the cage. When you’re tired and beat up, going to the gym can be worse than going to the dentist. Such days suck in a major way, but you’ve got to bounce back. True success in MMA cannot be attained without a passion for resiliency, which is tantamount to being passionate for the sport. If you really feel the excitement waning (and you can tell this easily by how you approach the day you’re scheduled to do your favorite training exercise—if you’re a stand-up guy, and you’re dreading boxing practice, chances are you’re burning out), I recommend taking some time off. This is what happened to me—sort of. I was actually forced by a shoulder injury to take seven months off. But, in many ways, it was fortunate because I was so overtrained I could no longer protect myself. I still loved fighting, but my body and mind needed a break. Two months into the layoff, I was climbing the walls. Figuratively speaking. My shoulder wasn’t gonna let me climb shit. But the break was a mixed blessing, because it made me realize just how important training and fighting had become in my life. When I finally returned to the gym, my passion had grown tenfold.

  Close Your Piehole and Open Your Mind

  When you think of all the different techniques that can be utilized in MMA competition, it is mind-boggling. There is always something new to learn, so if you think or behave like a know-it-all, you’re, clinically speaking, pretty much retarded. I don’t care if you’re the best Brazilian jujitsu practitioner on the planet—there are all sorts of people out there who can show you new techniques and approaches.

  In order to keep up with the rapid evolution of the sport, you’ve got to keep an open mind. A few years ago, I would have told you that there was no way in hell crazy karate kicks would work in the Octagon. Lyoto Machida made me feel foolish. The best way to grow as a fighter or as anything else is to keep your mouth closed and your mind open. Absorb all you can, keep what works, and throw out what, for you, doesn’t. HOWEVER, once you get about six weeks out from a fight, it’s time to close the doors to new techniques. The last month before a fight is not the time to learn new tricks—it’s the time to hone the skills you already have.

  BOOK 3

  SMART ADVICE

  A Few Words on Clubbing

  Is That Real Velvet?

  After training hard all week, it’s nice to blow off a little steam at the clubs. But when you live in a city like Las Vegas, trying to get into one of the more popular nightclubs can be as difficult as getting past White House security. But there are a few things you can do to make admittance easier.

  1) Become famous. And when I say famous, I do not mean reality show, Sanjaya what’s-his-name famous. My stint on The Ultimate Fighter did dick fuck-all to impress bouncers. You’ve got to become Robert De Niro or Al Pacino famous.

  2) Become rich. Or at least feign it. Slipping a ten spot to the bouncer and winking won’t cut it. As a matter of fact, he might decide to clean the curb with your face out of principle. After all, he spent years neglecting to go to school and pumping roids into his swollen glutes to get this elevated position, and there is no way he’ll let some honest Joe insult him with ten hard-earned dollars (and he’ll be damned if he’ll let you get away with that wink, sister). So unless you’re ready to drop some serious cash, don’t bother with the bribes.

  3) Befriending a group of really hot chicks.* Hot chicks always get into the clubs, and usually they’re allowed to bring one or two guys with them. However, there is a strict three-to-one ratio. For every three hot chicks, one ugly dork is allowed in. If you’ve managed to befriend a bevy of chicks who have other guy friends tagging along, go into sabotage mode. For example, whisper things like, “Your friend Bob, there. He seems pretty cool. I have no idea why he thinks your ass is fat.” This strategy can work in the long term, but shit where you eat and you risk losing your bank, so try staying in the “friend zone.”

  4) Join your local MMA gym. The majority of bouncers are aspiring fighters, and if you constantly compliment them on their badassness during training, chances are they will let you into their club. Given that most bouncers are walking around at 220 or more, if you’re a featherweight, and you’re not Urijah Faber, the kiss-ass method is your best shot. But if you size up well with Mr. Pumpy Melons, the beat-the-living-piss-out-ofhim-in-front-of-the-whole-gym-and-then-offer-to-buy-hima-beer-afterward approach is a good one. This will earn you both his respect and friendship. However, I feel the urge to reiterate, please realistically assess your skills prior to attempting this method. In the worst-case scenario, not only does roid-rage bouncer boy displace your nose, he nicknames you “Pussy Boy,” and no one named Pussy Boy is getting into his club.

  5) Join your local Gold’s gym and seek out the biggest douche bag in the place. If MMA frightens you and simply the thought of joining an MMA gym makes urine dribble down your thigh, I don’t know why you’re reading this. Hell, I don’t even know how you know who I am. But, so as not to mix up the balls-y and the nutless, here is some advice for you timid folk. If, on your mission (I can’t believe I’m treating Pussy Boy like Ethan Hunt) you hone in on a guy who clearly gelled his hair back before he came to work out or, if you’re able to get close enough to some dude who smells like he just climbed out of a bottle of cologne (close enough means about twenty feet away, so don’t worry about the guy thinking you’re checking him out), he’s probably a bouncer at a club. Introduce yourself, and over the next few weeks, rush to his aid whenever he needs a spot. You won’t necessarily be his best friend come Friday night, but he’ll at least respect you and will most likely let you through the door. Quid pro quo, bitches. Admission: since you read this far, I suppose I owe you some honesty. I was Pussy Boy. I used this method. I tried the first four methods and none panned out. I’d rather not get into it, but yes, I didn’t just play a Gold’s Gym bitch on TV. In fact, if not for the few friendships I struck up with bouncers at the local Gold’s, I would have no clue what the inside of a Vegas club looked like.

  6) The last way to get into a club is to be on “The List.” The fancier clubs rent out tables for an exorbitant amount of money, and the douche bag that coughed up the bread gets to make a list for his table. I don’t know how many times I’ve had a friend tell me I’m on The List, only to get to the club and have the bounce say, “Nope, not here. Move.” You’re left standing there looking like a grade-A ass hat. To prevent this from happening, you want to get verbal confirmation that there is in fact a List and that you are in fact on it. To do this, all you have to do is call the club and ask them. If they have no idea what you’re talking about, you should immediately hunt down your asshole friend and kick his ass. I wish I had come up with the bright idea of calling the club on my own, but it was passed on to me by Mark Lamen, a jujitsu phenom. It has led me to believe that jujitsu practitioners have more common sense than true MMA guys.

  Finding the Party (Using a Little Technique I Like to Call the Wile E. Coyote)

  If you’ve passed muster and find yourself in a fancy club, it can sometimes be difficult to know how to proceed. After all, you spend most nights freezing your ass off on the curb out front. Instead of heading to the bar and paying twenty-seven dollars for a couple of beers, I suggest drinking prior to going out—meathead football-player wannabes (I imagine several of you fall into that category—hell, you’re probably proud of it) call it “pregaming.” Okay, so this isn’t news to most of you, but I’m just getting started. To keep things going, once you’re in the club, search for an empty glass, wash it out in the bathroom sink, and then scout out the busiest table you can find. With a smile on your face, ease into the mix and strike up meaningless conversation with a drunk guy. The reason you want a drunk guy is that he will seldom realize that he doesn’t have a clue who you are. After a few sentences,
reach casually for the bottle sitting at their table and pour yourself a tall one. I’ll admit here that I don’t drink that often—I’m convinced alcohol shrinks my scrote and suffocates my single teste—but I’ve seen many slide into my table and use this technique with great success. They don’t know me or anyone in my posse, but there they are, chugging away at our booze. Instead of getting upset, I admire them for it. If it’s gay-sailor night, I’ll even tip my hat.

  Getting Your Tail Between Her Legs Is as Simple as Resembling a Baldwin Brother—or Even a Rip Taylor

  Just like getting into the club, the best way to succeed in the chick department is to have a recognizable face. Like, Hollywood recognizable. Ever seen Super-hero Movie? It’s a piece of shit, but that guy Miles Fisher’s imitation of Tom Cruise gave me goose bumps. If you resemble anyone famous, and I mean even slightly resemble Orlando, Brad, or, fan me down, Jude, arrange it so that your friends come up to you and pretend you’re him. You’re suddenly that guy (not that guy, just that guy—no one wants to be that guy). Have them ask for your autograph as if they’re just some fans or simply tell them to make YOU the center of attention for the night (with the standing promise that you’ll do the same for them next time). The flurry alone will draw the interest of said women. But the good looks are a bonus, so I’ve heard. The magnetism of fame is the true aphrodisiac. I know this for a fact because it happened to me in a bar in Augusta. MMA athletes aren’t as popular as movie stars, by any means, and I ain’t no Cary Grant in the looks department (at least when I forget to shave), but in this bar, there just so happened to be a lot of fight enthusiasts. Guys kept coming up to me to talk about fighting, and the chicks in the place took notice. The majority of them had never seen an MMA fight in their life, but that didn’t stop them from approaching me with “come fuck me” eyes. If you don’t know the look I’m talking about, sorry for rubbing it in. Anyway, my buddy Luke, who was sitting off to the side, later told me that he watched several of these women take off their wedding rings. I can understand them doing that shit for some guy in the movies they had drooled over since they were little girls, but a guy they had never even heard of before? For all they knew, I could be Joey Buttafuoco. At first, I loved the attention and was sizing up these women to see who would look best in my bathrobe, but then disappointment kicked in: Women might not like the music of the band, but they will fuck the lead singer. They didn’t give a shit about me, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some hot chick ride this ugly train just so she can tell people about it. But, cynical as it may seem, I definitely understood that if you get a little cult of influence going, you’ll get laid for sure.

  Me and a couple of teammates from the Hardcore Gym wanted to test this theory, so we rented a few video cameras and some lights, and then walked around town like we were part of a reality show. We even got a couple of guys to run around to random girls and have them sign official-looking waivers. Shocked? Good. That was my goal. We never actually did this, but I fantasized about doing just that and I swear chicks would’ve been up to our nuts.

  Tired Attire

  The first rule is not to dress like your friends. When chicks do it, it’s cute. When guys do it, it’s just wrong. But if you hang out with guys who are into the same shit as you, this can sometimes be difficult to manage. For example, when I was a cop I noticed that all cops wear pretty much the same thing when off duty. They wear jeans, combat boots, and really tacky flannel shirts or black T-shirts that they tuck in—jelly belly optional. And let’s assume all your friends are fighters—or wannabe fighters—the last thing you want is to all roll into the club in matching Affliction T-shirts. Even if the shirts are all different, it doesn’t matter—the fact that they’re all Affliction is bad enough. To avoid getting stuck into the “poser dipshit” category, I like to dress like a hobo. (I said dress, not smell.) You’ve of course got to dress nice enough to get into the club, which might mean a collared shirt, but the shirt doesn’t have to have a Prada logo or anything. To give you a picture of what I’m talking about, think about how Tyler Durden dressed in Fight Club. The collar is often enough for admittance (assuming you use the greasy-palm suggestions I gave you above). Resembling a squatter might seem detrimental to your pimping ability, but I find, on the contrary, the majority of the time it actually helps. They’ll look at your friends, all of whom are clad in expensive clothing, and then look at you, covered in rags. Instead of assuming that you’re the brokest guy in the group, they’ll assume that you’re the richest, or at least the most interesting. After all, only a guy with “fuck you” money would come to a club looking like a slob. Reverse psychology to a tee. And if it doesn’t work, women have a soft spot for the socially challenged. I know this for a fact.

  The Only Pickup Lines You’ll Ever Need

  1) My friends over there were wondering if you liked me.

  2) Just to get this out of the way, I’d like some sausage and eggs for breakfast.

  3) Forrest: Do you work for UPS?

  Hot Chick: No. Why?

  Forrest: Because I swear you were checking out my package.

  Hot Chick (titters): I was. Now ravish me, please. Call down the power of the ancient gods and ravish me pagan style, you beast of a man.

  Thank You, Mike Damone

  I had a lot of trouble with rejection back in high school, but then I saw the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. In one scene, the cool scalper guy, Mike Damone, was giving “womanly” advice to the geek. He said something like, “You don’t care whether she comes, lays, stays, or prays.” I felt like he was talking directly to me, and after I acquired that mind-set, I no longer had problems picking up chicks. The trick is not investing too much time or effort into any one girl. You need to harness the buckshot approach and go after volume. If you talk to enough women, one is bound to like you. That was the great thing about being on a reality TV show. Chicks didn’t like me any more or any less, but I was exposed to a wide variety of women. So if I approached twenty of them in a bar, one was bound to think, I saw this dork on TV, and he was actually kind of funny. I guess I should let him sleep with me. It also really helps to have fun and be in a good mood. Being a brooding invert only works if you’re rakishly handsome. Needless to say, it did not work for me in high school.

  * * *

  DICK IN A BOX

  by Big John

  As you’ve probably figured out by now, Forrest is not normal. Nothing he does is normal, and that includes picking up chicks. Back when he was a cop and just getting into fighting, hot chicks would sometimes approach him and ask him why he had chosen those two professions. The majority of the time, he’d answer the exact same way: “I used to get beat up a lot in high school, I have low self-esteem, and I have a really small penis.” He would say this straight-faced, not even crack a hint of a smile. The woman would usually say something like, “Sorry to hear that,” and then try to cut the conversation short. Before she could slink away into the crowd, Forrest would ask her politely if she might be able to take a look at his pecker and let him know if it was really as small as he thought. He’d nervously draw open his zipper, and then slowly pull it out. Now I’m not a homo or anything, but Griffin ain’t got no little dick, especially for a white guy. Expecting to see a teeny-weenie, the chick would be utterly amazed. As a matter of fact, caught in Forrest’s Jedi mind trick, she’d think it was the biggest pecker she had ever seen. Her face would light up and the conversation would suddenly get interesting. Now, I’m not suggesting using this approach, because you have to be two parts crazy to get away with it, as well as have a decent-size schlong, but it seemed to work out quite good for Forrest back in the day.

  * * *

  Try this…

  The “passive pickup.” Search the bar for a group of attractive women and then migrate to their general area. Instead of engaging them in conversation, wait until a guy comes up and hits on them. When he fails, casually look over to the woman he hit on and say, within earshot, “Man, I can’t beli
eve that didn’t work,” in a sarcastic tone to no one in particular. If she smiles, immediately begin talking about how lame the guy was. As you can see, this requires you to bash some poor sap who actually had the balls to make a move, but hey, it’s a dog-eat-dog world. If she says nothing to you, play with your cell phone and order a drink. The number one rule when it comes to picking up chicks is to not give a flying fuck. Remember, we’re all going to die and very little of what we do in this world matters.

  All the Ladies in the House Say OOOOOoooo…

  (I don’t know if that’s what they actually say, because I don’t listen to them)

  I know women spend a great deal of time reading Cosmo magazine in an attempt to figure out what guys want, but guys really aren’t that complicated. If we want something, we usually tell you, either through words or actions. In order to make your man happy, all you have to do is pick up on the cues and then react to them accordingly. For example, if you pick up on the cue that your man wants some alone time, suck it up and, temporarily, be neglected. Honestly, it’s as simple as that.

  When it comes to dating fighters, my advice is simply not to do it. They are cheap, preoccupied, and think their career is the most important thing in the world, even though they make next to nothing. I know what you’re thinking: What if I just fuck a fighter? Still, don’t do it. Even if they don’t give you a venereal disease, they will probably give you ringworm or staph. (Haven’t you been reading this book? I can understand the dudes skipping around, but chicks, I thought, had more of an appreciation for narrative flow and literary nuance.)