The Housekeeper: Love, Death, and Prizefighting

by Josh Samman

  A friend and I had recently opened an LLC and began promoting Mixed Martial Arts events, which consumed much of my time. Combat Night was the name of our promotion, and my partner’s name was Mitchell, a former student who, like Matt, had grown to be much more than that. Mitchell was an intelligent guy who reminded me of my dad, short in stature, big in personality. He had good ideas, and enough money in the bank to buy a cage and get us started. I had made lots of connections in the sport, and we’d decided it was time to capitalize on them.

  There was so much more to event promotion than we’d ever realized, once we got started. We had to pay sanctioning bodies and referees, matchmake fighters with one another, solicit sponsors, purchase insurance, secure hotels for athletes and coaches, then still have to worry about filling the building.

  The first few events we held were in Tallahassee, at a local venue called The Moon. Isabel had made it to one of the very first, just days before she left for her vacation behind bars. I paid extra attention to her that night as I worked the event, trying my best to make her the guest of honor.

  She loved the whole idea of it, something I’d created from the ground up, to give others the opportunities that I had when I was younger. Years prior she’d watched me fight inside the same cage we used for our event, inside the same venue. She liked that things had come full circle.

  She enjoyed the idea of me being the guy outside the cage instead of in it, but she knew my passion was my own competition. The world’s premiere MMA organization was the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and The Ultimate Fighter was the UFC’s trojan horse to inject MMA into the mainstream the best way that they knew how; through reality television. Fighting in the UFC was the pinnacle of what MMA fighters strived for; to compete with the best in the world, and The Ultimate Fighter was the most readily accessible route.

  The series featured a number of fighters living in the same house, competing in a tournament where the winner, and often others from the season, were awarded a contract, along with the notoriety that being in front of an audience of millions for 13 weeks provided.

  I’d recently gotten a casting call for the show. I had a history with the series, having tried out three times before. I was more interested in winning the tournament than I was with being on TV, but for one reason or another, it had always escaped me. Isabel knew I’d been chasing the opportunity for years, only to have it elude me, time and time again.

  During our jail visits, I was healing up from a meniscal surgery repair that I had undergone after a fight. I told Isabel about the casting tryouts, and my hesitance to go back for the fourth time.

  “I’m not sure if that’s the route for me anymore.”

  “What do you mean that’s not the route for you? Of course it is. You’ve wanted this forever now.” I didn’t know if it was the fear of reinjury that was deterring me, or fear of disappointment, coming up short again. Sometimes people got signed to the UFC outside of TUF, and I was hopeful.

  “The Josh I used to know would be going in a heartbeat,” she said. She raised her hand up. “Believe, baby.” She had the word tattooed on her left wrist. Believe.

  Heedfulness be damned, she was right. She had always succeeded wonderfully at planting seeds in me, knowing just what to say to motivate me in a way no one else could, and this day was no different. Many of my friends had suggested it was silly for me not to go, but it wasn’t until I was looking through the glass at her, that my mind was changed.

  “You have to go,” she insisted.

  It occurred to me for a moment that I was taking life advice from a recovering addict who was sitting in jail, but it also occurred to me that she was right, I had to go. And I did. I went home that night and bought a plane ticket for Vegas, just days before tryouts.

  For the fourth time, I would fly west in hopes of punching and kicking my way into the UFC on national television. I knew what to expect. I’d been there before. This time, it would be different.

  14.

  Late Winter, 1999

  I was first institutionalized at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. After the overdose, I was taken to the behavioral wing of the clinic, to make sure that what I’d done wasn’t intentional. I could hear the doctor talking to my mom. She was crying. This had gotten out of hand fast.

  I was embarrassed and angry at myself. My mom and I were asked a series of questions following the incident. Yes, I’d been acting differently over the past few months. Yes, she’d noticed some of her alcohol may have been missing from the fridge. Yes, she was at work often and wasn’t always aware of my activities.

  My mom explained how I’d begun hanging with a new group of friends. She was reluctant to point towards counterculture as a source of problems because she was the counterculture herself. She always wanted to give everyone a chance.

  The other kids that were in the behavioral center had been through way worse than I had. The majority were anti-social. Many had been abused, and had intentionally tried to hurt themself. It was my first brush with real dysfunction.

  She couldn’t keep it from my dad, although I think she may have if she could’ve. That phone call had to have been awful for both of them. My cousin, Jeremy, from Mississippi came and visited me in the hospital. He was in his early twenties and told me about similar life experiences he’d had. I looked up to him, and he talked sense into me.

  Give it a rest, he said. Smoke weed on the weekends, maybe. Don’t eat pills. Don’t steal booze. Find other things to do if you don’t like school anymore. He handed me his old skateboard, and I was given an outlet.

  Mrs. Frinks came by and told me I could still go to the magnet lab for experiments if I wanted. She reminded me of all the things I’d been curious about at the end of the last school year and gave me books to read. Others came and left. I wanted to leave too. It was just a big accident. I didn’t belong there. I wanted the doctors to agree.

  I was released from the hospital after a few days, but I wouldn’t be home long. Once kids start down this path, it’s important to reset course early, the doctors told my mom. While she had little idea of what I’d been doing, my dad had even less. He was livid when finding out the news. My mom told me he wanted me to live with him. She didn’t know what to do.

  I’d never been a kid who was at odds with authority. I didn’t get into fights. I did excellent in class. I played soccer. I’d never displayed real problematic behavior until I got into middle school. I’m not sure why I looked up to kids who were doing bad things. I thought everyone drank when they got older. I thought all teenagers smoked weed, the exciting ones anyway.

  Looking back now, as a kid, I had fascinations with public figures that suffered drug overdoses. It was a step shy of glorification; more of a curiosity at what it was like to take things that far.

  I fought against living with my father. Every time I would go there he would cut my hair, and send me home with a lecture on how image is important, how I can’t be running around looking like a hooligan. He was more judgemental about everything, hated if I wore long shorts or hooded sweatshirts. It was an environment shift that I knew I didn’t want.

  Eventually, they agreed that my mom couldn’t supervise me how I needed to be. She thought it would be good for me to have a male influence in my life, if only for a few years. It hurt her to do, but it was time for a change.

  15.

  The tryouts in Vegas were the same process they had been before. By then the producers of the show and the UFC had seen me several times and knew who I was. I realized the tryout was more of a formality at this point. Along with 40 of the 200 other fighters that showed up that day, I was asked to stay in Vegas for the week, for further evaluation. From there, 32 would be called back to fight for a chance to get on the show.

  As the producer called out those asked to stay, I hurried to pull out my phone and jot down all the names I heard, spelling them phonetically best I could. I would use them later to exercise my inner nerd and scout potential opponents, looking up reco
rds, and watching film.

  Some guys I knew, some I recognized from previous tryouts. Next to me sat a short, stocky Hispanic fighter sitting with his girlfriend, who I sat next to as I filled out more paperwork. We exchanged small talk, and he introduced himself. He struck me as a shy guy, soft spoken, and carried himself differently than the general machismo of the other meatheads in the room. Kelvin was his name.

  We were set to stay for a few days to undergo more extensive interviews, as well as a series of physicals and drug tests, all under strict supervision of the UFC. In the meantime, we were all stationed at the hotel. I met up with the only other local fighter from my area, a guy named Clint Hester, and we found a pocket of the hotel pool grounds to spar on. Older vacationers walked past us, looking at us like we were crazy. I’m sure we did look crazy, two big muscular guys punching each other in the head in public like that.

  As fate had it, I would be in Vegas the day Isabel was released. After months of seeing her in a cramped visitation room, talking through a nasty payphone receiver, and looking at her through a wall of disfigured glass, I wasn’t even there to hug her when she finally got out. I was across the country, trying to tackle the only other thing in my life that had escaped me for years.

  I remember perfectly, the evening she was released. I had wandered down to the bottom floor of the hotel we were in, to a little spot called The Oyster Bar. There I found the same friendly Hispanic guy I’d made acquaintances with earlier in the week.

  He told me more about his girlfriend and asked if I had one. Sort of, I said. It was complicated. We finished our dinner, and I invited him to join me for a couple hands of poker at the table.

  “I can’t play.”

  “Ah, it’s not hard. I could help you out.” I’d once lived with a gambler who’d showed me the ins and outs of Hold ‘Em.

  “No, I mean I’m not allowed. I’m only 20.”

  I looked at him for a moment after he told me that, realizing he did look young. I thought of memories of myself flying out to The Ultimate Fighter tryouts at 21 years old, not knowing what to expect or what I was getting into, blindly following a dream.

  “What are you doing here, being 20 years old?” I asked him. The minimum age to be on the show was 21, for alcohol liability.

  “My birthday is the day before filming begins. They said as long as I’m 21 by the first fight, then I could try out.”

  More power to him, I thought. It was quite the story.

  “You gotta tell me your name, one more time,” I said. I was always horrible with names. Every year I had a New Year’s Resolution to remember them better.

  “Kelvin. Kelvin Gastelum.”

  “I won’t forget it. Good luck, bud. See you soon.” I went to gamble for a couple hours before heading back to my room, forgetting about my new friend ‘til the next time I saw him again.

  I remember trying to stay awake waiting for her call. It was a momentous day for both of us, and I wanted to share it with her, wanted to hear her the excitement in her voice when she was finally free.

  I ended up falling asleep, waking up the next morning with a single missed call. A special day for both of us, and I didn’t even get to speak to her.

  When I did wake, it was to a ring from a UFC staff, to come downstairs and be transported to an official doctor. There, we would be tested for all drugs and blood transferable diseases; Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, and HIV. It was procedure for all cast that were under consideration, and the standard to get a license to compete professionally in any state.

  The 40 of us got called down from our rooms, 10 at a time, in groups of four. When we finally got downstairs into the parking lot I took a seat on the front row of the extended van.

  “Yo, homie. You’re in my seat.” I heard a deep voice to the right of me as I sat down. A muscular black guy with a cutoff shirt, shaved head and goatee.

  “I didn’t hear anyone call a seat,” I replied. I recognized what was going on.

  “I called that seat, and you’re sitting in it,” he said again. It reminded me of a high school confrontation, juvenile posturing.

  “I didn’t hear anyone call shit, and I’m not getting up,” I said affirmatively.

  “Ok pussyboy. I’ll remember that. You’re the first one on my list.” He got in the van and took the seat right behind me. He continued in my ear. “You know this is a fight show homie? I’ll get you sooner or later.”

  I listened closely to every word. I had been taking names and Googling every one of them since the moment we got chosen, and I knew exactly who the culprit trying to affirm his alpha was. Kevin Casey was his name, a fighter with less experience than me, trying to make a statement at my expense.

  I didn’t hear much else from him after that day, although I had the feeling that eventually we’d get to the bottom of whose seat on the van that really belonged to.

  16.

  Early Spring, 2000

  I had no idea what it was I was getting myself into. My dad arrived in town in his new minivan. I was still 11, and my two sisters were six and four years old.

  You should be ashamed of yourself, he told me on the ride back to Mississippi.

  You fucked up big, mister. We didn’t even get out of town before he’d stopped at the mall and bought a whole wardrobe of khaki shorts and collared shirts for me.

  You’re gonna go to school, make straight A’s, and that’s the end of it. You hear me? He told me he’d kill me himself if I brought any drugs to his house. He made me sit in the back seat. I can still feel him burning a hole in me through the rearview mirror.

  You’re gonna go to church, play sports, and there’s not gonna be any bullshit.

  It was school, sports, and God, as he said it would be. He let me skateboard for a bit every night, but only in the driveway. Any friends I wanted to hang out with had to be from soccer or church. I was under constant supervision. Even if I wanted to smoke cigarettes or pot, I never would have had the opportunity.

  My world had been turned upside down. Being uprooted from the town I grew up in was tough. Changing the home life I was accustomed to was tougher. Worst was, I missed my mom. The separation bothered me.

  Frankie had done her fair share of diaper changing when I was young. I was fond of her family and had learned a lot from them, although it wasn’t long before we butted heads, hard.

  Every child is at odds with their stepparent, on some level. The defiance I had for Frankie was worsened by the abrupt circumstances. She didn’t know what my move meant for her family, and her concern was reasonable. We grew apart. She took my sisters with her.

  I see her in my mind now as a Nancy Grace character, mixed with Sarah Palin. And I don’t think she’d mind that comparison. She was always calling everyone a heathen. She once made my dad go see a therapist before they got married because he told her he’d gone to a strip club at his bachelor party. She believed in the rapture. I didn’t realize how immersed they were in it all until I lived there.

  He forced it on me, which was ironic because it was his doctrine switch early in life that made me realize religion was a choice. Every Sunday and Wednesday we played dress up and went to church. I’d always been intimidated by the place, the judgment of it all. I learned to blend in, and look and talk like the others to not become scrutinized. I guess that was the point.

  Being opinionated wasn’t something that was encouraged unless the opinions were popular ones. The sentiment rang true for the whole community where we lived, in Jackson, Mississippi. I became passive and more introverted, a 180 from my personality growing up.

  It was best not to challenge the things they said. I told them I let Jesus into my heart. I knew they wanted the best for me. I just told them whatever they wanted to hear so they’d leave me alone.

  I got baptized, in a hotel pool, by the youth pastor at a church retreat. I remember eyeing the “no diving” sign before he dumped me in the chlorine-heavy water. It felt insane, this cultural ritual I was subjecting myself to,
in front of all these people clapping. I struggled to take it seriously.

  I tried to travel the path of least resistance, to barrel forward into a time when my mom would let me come back home. I struggled to accept where I lived as home. I wanted to get back to Tallahassee.

  17.

  “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”

  -Ernest Hemingway

  I returned to town after tryouts with a renewed sense of interest in my career. I’d always been on the outside of the UFC looking in, wondering if I would break the threshold, and at times, I’d lost focus. I had fought in, and was champion of various second-tier organizations, and made decent money, and local recognition. I grew tired, though, of having to answer people’s questions about when I would be in the UFC, and having to correct their mislabeling of MMA as being called “UFC fighting.”

  “This is Josh, he’s a cagefighter,” folks liked to introduce me as. I detested the word, cagefighter. My friends were always needing to qualify me with the term, and it annoyed me to no end. I was many things, and didn’t like being pigeonholed into a single title, and one so barbaric.

  An event promoter, I would tell people that didn’t know me, or maybe a personal trainer in years past. When I told someone I fought in a cage for a living it made them see me differently. It may’ve been in a positive, awe-inspiring way, if they were a fan. If that was the case, the worst that could happen was they may want to talk my ear off, telling stories of every bar fight they’d ever got in. Sometimes it was a more revolting response, gawking at the idea that I would participate in something as uncivilized as fighting in a cage. Either way, I didn’t enjoy the response. I loved competing in MMA, but didn’t like the stigma attached to it, and was at odds with a subculture of fans that wanted only to see people get hurt.

  The UFC had come a long way since the days of headbutts and groin strikes. The inaugural event was held in 1993 and was the first of its kind in America to feature what would later be known as MMA. The promotion served primarily as propaganda for a family named the Gracies, and their signature martial art, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.