by Josh Samman
By this point, Combat Night had become all of ours; Mitchell’s, Brandi’s, Isabel’s, and mine. It was the venture that made it possible for us to have no other obligations but each other. It was one of her favorite things, the four of us together. Mitchell and Brandi had moved to Orlando, and we stayed at their house while there.
Combat Nights were Isabel’s time to get dolled up, a chance to go to the mall and buy us both new outfits and accessories. Before we went on trips she’d have our bags packed, truck gassed, everything done and ready. She was always on top of everything.
She loved visiting old friends that had moved out of Tallahassee and gone to college in the towns we went to. Many of her friends hadn’t visited with her in years and were so happy to see her doing well. I decided it was time to fly my dad in, and show him what I’d been doing with my life, romantically, and professionally. “Don’t fuck this one up,” he said, after meeting her.
My dad enjoyed chatting it up with our employees while he was there, learning more about what we did. One of them he liked was Larry, our referee for Combat Night. Larry might’ve been the baddest dude on the planet. He was the on the S.W.A.T. team, worked with an anti-terrorist unit, and had a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. While Isabel was in jail, she was part of the work camp that cleaned the Sheriff’s office. Larry recognized her but kept it a secret.
While Combat Night used Larry as the same referee for every event, we hired different ringside physicians for each town. At the same event my dad came down for, the doctor asked me how long my fiancee’ and I had been together. He said his assumption within earshot of her, and she darted her eyes towards me, flicking her eyebrows up and down.
I like the sound of that.
Wyatt had told her he was thinking of proposing to his girlfriend, Lauren, and it’d been the topic of conversation lately. I asked her what it was she wanted to do if we got married. “Am I not doing a good enough job of being your housewife?” She joked. Some folks look down on traditional gender roles, but Isabel relished in them. The single thing she wanted most in life was to bear children.
Being a mother meant the world to her, but that wasn’t all she wanted to do. Her dream was to own a coffee a shop, she said. That was another of her impeccable skills, the little barista. She had her own heavenly combination of Splenda and sugar and milk and cream and hazelnut and French Vanilla, a whole recipe perfected over thousands of cups of practice.
She enjoyed making coffee as much as she liked taking pictures. She’d asked me for a nice camera for her birthday. She was always taking photos, and reminded me once that there were years of her life that she felt like taking none. She said it felt good to feel pretty again.
She was always asking questions when we were watching fights, trying to get a better understanding of what was going on. She’d gotten good at it. She liked seeing emotion in the fighters, catching them on some of the best or worst nights of their life. MMA had a way of chewing people up and spitting them out, she said, phrasing it perfectly.
Everything was moving at a mile a minute. I’d managed to create a charmed life for myself. I was living with my best friends, and doing what I was passionate about with the woman of my dreams. Life was great, and I thought there was no end in sight.
78.
Spring, 2010
The Burtofts and I were firing on all cylinders. I had access to a gym day and night, a team built around me, and a whole operation geared towards my success. TCS was gratifying, but outside the cage, the promotional side of MMA was what intrigued me most. Having new fans share my enthusiasm for the sport was what turned my gears.
I became immersed in it and wanted to control everything. I insisted on sitting in on every Ubersmash meeting. I wanted to learn as much as I could about the business, from the inside out.
I was coaching the guys on the card, so conflict of interest prevented me from being a matchmaker for Ubersmash. I got a license for it anyway and worked with other promotions around the state. I got paid for that, as well as a percentage of winnings from the folks I coached, and a cut from the gym fees. Between those revenue sources, my own fight purses, and personal training, I was making a good living off of something most never thought possible.
I met many of the sponsors that supported our events. My favorite was Lance Maxwell. He coached little league teams around the city and was as a leader in the community. He helped serve as a male influence in Orkin’s absence.
I moved into a new house with some of the coaches and fighters from the gym. Karla stuck around and was a nice addition to the things I had going on. Training camps were easier when I had a team and a lady to go home to.
While fighting in front of 1,000 screaming fans in my hometown was a great experience, my goal was still the UFC. Since my last TUF tryouts, the UFC had held two more casting calls. I went to both, one in Los Angeles, the other in Vegas. It was the first time I’d gotten to fully experience Hollywood Hills, Venice Beach, the Vegas Strip. They were all such eye-opening adventures.
I got to train with people across the country outside the confines of the Florida Panhandle. It gave me an idea of just how many people were chasing this dream. I was obsessed with getting on The Ultimate Fighter. It wasn’t about the reality show for me. I just wanted to finish what I had started.
I wasn’t loud enough the second time. I should’ve been more vocal. I should’ve told them what I’d been through en route back to them. I assumed I would be a shoe-in, that I’d be ushered to the front because of what had happened. I was wrong.
When I went back a third time, I took pictures of the surgery with me. I made sure to find the producers, and make them know my story. Well why didn’t ya tell us last time? They invited me to be on the show. Of course, no problem, they said. Just do us a favor and make 170 lbs. They’d held casting calls for several weight classes that season, and just like the first time I’d went, they dropped middleweight. There was no way I’d ever cut to 170 lbs.
While I went home for a third time disappointed, it was also with a knowing that I was close. I took my experience back to Tallahassee and used it to keep helping the ones coming up underneath me. I was still the only person in town that had ever gone across the country for face punching. From time to time, I’d think about how I’d started a pro career just to impress a girl. It was a crazy thing, fantasizing about how far MMA could take me. Until then, I kept my head down and continued grinding.
79.
“There is a sense that we are all each other's consequences.”
-Wallace Stegner
Isabel answered my phone as it rang one morning. It all started with that call, months in the making, that set into the chain of events that would be my unraveling. Before that call, it began with a man named Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and his brother Tamerlan. The Tsarnaev brothers were Chechen natives that planned and executed the Boston Marathon bombing. Because of the recent terrorist attack, Massachusetts increased the difficulty with which visas were given to immigrants before entering the country for work. The effect, as would it would ripple in my life, would be the withdrawal of Canadian UFC middleweight Nick Ring from his bout, against TUF castmate Uriah Hall. Naturally, I got the offer to replace Ring and was asked to fight Hall in Boston on August 17th, 2013. I accepted and began training camp immediately.
I’d had knee surgery in Spring of 2012 before TUF, and it had never felt right since. I thought I could make it to one more fight, and did my best to push through. The clicking in my knee was always present, but one day started to get louder. It became painful, and my patella was beginning to shift. One day while wrestling, I felt a final pop that was not the same as the others. It swelled and put an end to my training.
A prominent storyline that the producers had beset from the beginning of our season circled around the fact that I’d chosen other fights besides Uriah during the tournament. I’d done my best to advance as far as I could using the tools I was given, like Chael had encouraged. I wasn’t scared of Uriah
, or anyone else, and didn’t want the public to think that was the case when deciding whether to pull from the fight. I had never withdrawn from a bout before, and it didn’t sit well with my ego.
I reached out to the coach from the show that I was closest with, Frank Mir. We kept in touch after the season from time to time, although he favored brevity, so I spoke accordingly.
“Torn meniscus.. Could maybe fight, but not sure if it’ll get worse.” I texted.
“Do you need the paycheck?”
“No.” Combat Night was becoming bigger every day, and we still had money in the bank from the Casey fight.
“Live to fight another day.” Short and sweet.
And that’s how the decision was made. I thought I had made it to the point in my career where it was time to take injuries seriously, and not just ignore them as I had many fights on my way to the UFC.
I bowed out, planning the surgery that would hopefully once and for all fix the problems plaguing my knee. My orthopedic surgeon lived in Tallahassee, and that’s where we chose to do the operation. Isabel and I headed north, and were planning on staying at Stephanie’s house to recover. It would be a few days before I was able to sit in a car long enough to drive back home.
When we got to the doctor’s office, we were surprised to find her aunt as the nurse. It was the same aunt whose daughter’s wedding we’d gone to months earlier. We chatted for a few minutes before Isabel left to go the bathroom, and had a few moments to ourselves. Her aunt gave me words of endearment.
“Thank you for being so good to her,” she said, taking me by surprise. I wished I had more time to explain how anything I’d done for Isabel had been reciprocated several times over. I thanked her and assured her it was mutual. Both Isabel and the doctor returned, and wheeled me towards the operating room. The doctor put the mask on me.
“Take some deep breaths and count backwards from 100.”
That damn line.
It never took 100 seconds to go out. I woke up hours later, feeling sedated, with a dull pain in my left knee, Isabel to my right.
“You survived!” She wasted no time cracking jokes. “You wanna drive home?”
I chuckled a bit, still inebriated, and asked her to hand me one of the cold Gatorades she’d had waiting for me when I woke up. She wheeled me back to the truck and drove us to Stephanie’s. I woke up to a text from my mom later in the afternoon.
“How you feeling?”
“Fine. Drugged up.”
“Good. Make sure you’re being nice to Isabel. She’s been in touch with me. You’re lucky to have her around.” She wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know. I wondered what I would’ve done without her. She waited on me hand and foot, getting mad if I tried to use my crutches to get anything for myself. Finally, I’d had enough, and convinced her I was well enough for us to drive home.
I thanked Stephanie for letting me stay while Isabel packed our stuff into the truck. We were both anxious to get back. I was in the passenger seat on the way home and was in pain, and reached into the back to grab my bottle of codeine from the doctor.
“You’re not worried about leaving all those pills around me?” She asked.
“What? No. Why, are you tempted?” I hadn’t even thought twice about it. Her doctor had written her a prescription of Klonopin for some of the side effects of her treatment, and she’d yet to take a single one. I don’t even want to start that game, her exact words when I asked her why she hadn’t been using them.
“I’m not tempted,” she said, “that’s just a big bottle to leave around someone who’s had drug problems.” I should’ve been more considerate.
“That’s all behind us, right?” I asked.
“Yes. I think I was just trying to say I appreciate you trusting me.” I did.
Our conversation was interrupted by a loud noise from underneath the truck. With every wheel rotation, another crack emanated from the axle.
“What the fuck is that?” She said, pulling off the road.
“I don’t have a clue.” It sounded terrible.
I called AAA and got a tow truck to the scene. We were near Orlando, so I had the driver take us to Mitchell’s house, and the truck to a shop nearby. I got a call from a mechanic, hours later.
“Looks like your front differential. Gonna be a couple grand and a little wait before I can get it fixed.” I asked him to make it as quick as possible, while Isabel and I buckled down for another few days away from home. Within the course of a week, I’d gone from training for the biggest fight of my life, with a comfortable amount of money in the bank, to being broke, sedated, and handicapped, relying on my girlfriend to do everything for me. I thought that I had it bad. There’d be more to come.
80.
Spring, 2011
I’d seen some weird shit in the sport, but nothing was stranger than the return of the masked Luchador man.
JC and the Burtofts were hesitant to give the hometown hero a tough matchup in our first Ubersmash event and had paired me with a can, combat sports lingo for a low-risk fight. The following three opponents were stronger. One was a TUF vet, Dave Baggett. Another was an eventual UFC vet, Chris Cope. Finally, I rematched the last guy to have beaten me, John Walsh.
I won all four of fights in the first round. Three of the four had gotten double punched, which fans around Tallahassee affectionately named the Samman Smash. I didn’t care for the moniker; double punch was fine with me, but at least it got people talking.
Amidst our events at home, I’d gotten several emails from folks wanting to get involved in guiding my career. At the time, I was managing all the guys on the team, as well as myself. There was no need to sign with anyone, unless they could get me into the UFC, and that’s what Michael Schaffner promised to do. All I needed to do in return was sign an exclusive management contract with him.
It wasn’t until he sent me the terms that I got suspicious. I did a background search on the guy and found nothing. I wondered why his name sounded familiar. Finally I realized; Michael Schaffner was actually Miguel Shoffner. He’d changed his name, not disclosed anything about being the same masked man whose face I’d broken years ago, and tried to sign me to a restrictive five-year contract.
The whole thing was disturbing and made me want to talk to a lawyer about what had happened. There wasn’t any possible recourse for what he’d done, but a friend recommended I get in touch with a real manager if I wanted to get to the next level, and ensure that stuff like that didn’t happen again.
An old friend I trained with who’d moved to California introduced me over the phone to Gary Ibarra. He was the owner of a management group out of San Francisco called AMR Group. Gary told me I’d been on his radar, and while the middleweight UFC roster was full at the time, he could get me into a league called Bellator, the second most prominent MMA organization in the world. Bellator had just signed a contract with MTV and was offering $100,000 to the winner of their tournaments; three fights over the course of three months. To enter, I had to win a qualifier, against a guy named Dan Cramer.
Gary flew me to San Francisco to meet his family, and some of the other clients he represented. Also signed to AMR Group was Cesar Gracie, who coached MMA superstars Nick and Nate Diaz, as well as Gilbert Melendez, and Jake Shields. Nick was the team captain, armed with a bag of weed and a chip on his shoulder. He was my favorite fighter, and it was surreal to share a training room with him.
I traveled to several parts of California while there. I went to see Big Sur and other state parks. The city of San Francisco was stunning and was the first time I’d thought about moving out of Tallahassee. There was just so much more to offer elsewhere. I wasn’t sure about the details of getting out, but I knew that signing with Gary was the next step. I agreed to join AMR Group and enter Bellator’s tournament.
The fight with Cramer would be in Miami, a city I’d come to love after several trips with Karla. She knew I wanted to get out of Tallahassee, and she wanted to move too. She’d gotte
n an offer for an internship in Tampa, and accepted. It took me by surprise.
She complained that I was vacant, that I’d never love anything like I loved MMA. It was a source of most of our arguments. I was obsessed, and spent too much time on forums and fighting websites, she said. I was focused on my career when she wanted me to focus on her. I had love for Karla but realized she was right when it wasn’t hard to say goodbye. We agreed to spend the last few months together and try to have a clean break. My fight in Bellator would be the last we’d see as a couple.
As Karla was on her way out, my mom had a man coming in, named Jeff. I gave him a hard time when we first met, as that’s what sons are supposed to do when they’re introduced to stepfathers. I liked him just fine, I just had to test him a bit first.
I went down to Miami for my Bellator debut, and lost a hard fought decision. While I didn’t win, there was much to be gained from it. I was reminded how it was to fight away from the comfort of home. I got a glimpse of how world-class organizations worked and had my first brush with national television. Most importantly, I met Daniel Valverde and Cesar Carneiro, the coaches from MMA Masters. We shared a locker room as they prepared fellow Bellator veteran Luis Palomino for his fight that evening. They invited me to come train with them. I told them I’d take them up on it one day.
81.
“We gravitate to where we feel most important.”
-Isabel Monroe
Isabel loved rainy days. I couldn’t stand them. Cuddle weather, she called it, but I didn’t feel like cuddling. I hadn’t even recovered from my knee surgery before I was bedridden again. I was laying there, sweating a storm, with pain in both my sides, worsening at an alarming rate. I couldn’t stop aching, and it’d been going on for a couple days. Isabel was begging for us to go to the hospital. I had limited health insurance and insisted we play internet doctor.