Fighter's Heart, A

by Sheridan, Sam

  Then it was time to get moving. Events were pulling us along now willy-nilly, a race for the end of the night, the approach of the new year, and the smiling, rotund, rubicon face of Fedor was waiting for us.

  Energy was flowing and crackling off Rodrigo, and he would stop every few minutes and blast through a few hard combinations with Dórea. He was separate from us, the one going into the ring, isolated and alone, the guy he had the most in common with that night across the arena somewhere, preparing himself to step into the same ring. In the first dressing room, Rodrigo knelt in a deep prayer for a few long minutes, and Zé held the door closed with his foot.

  As we kept walking from room to room, Rod stayed out in a big hallway and started running laps and shadowboxing. He was building the intensity. The Japanese guide wanted to keep moving but stood patiently waiting, as did all the Brazilians who had already started down the next corridor. There were a lot of people in this cold space that led outdoors, and the camera crew loved it. People were staring and taking pictures with their phones.

  I realized what Rodrigo was doing; he had confessed to me that he was a slow starter. He was working himself up, building the pitch and pace so that he would have already started by the time he got into the ring. He was going to try to jump all over Fedor. He was taking control of the situation, this headlong flight through the bowels of Saitama Super Arena. There is an inherent danger in the fluctuating time of fights; a series of quick knockouts and your fighter could be in the ring before you’ve properly warmed him up; but if the preceding fights go the distance you may have warmed your man up too soon.

  Finally, Rodrigo was ready to move on, and we did. Up in the last little room before the entrance, he continued to jog and shadow-box and hit mitts. He slowed a little as Wanderlei Silva and Mark Hunt went the distance, the crowd erupting in roars seconds before the crowd on the TV, about a two-second delay. I’d hear the roar rumble through the building and then glance at the TV and see the event that caused it, a takedown or a big punch.

  Rodrigo was now just pacing, the need to conserve energy coupled with the need to keep moving. He was slapping his arms, his legs, his face, twisting and rubbing his ears—keying his body up. He is going to have to get off, I kept thinking to myself.

  Dórea paced with him, his hands in the focus pads like lobster claws, both of them with their specialized hands that would sometimes leap into a dialogue that was only between the two of them; they were the only ones who understood and mattered in this world. They knew what they were talking about—they’d been talking about this for months and months—a tight, neat little conversation of hooks and jabs, rat-tat-tat on the mitts.

  The decision came for Mark Hunt, who looked bemused, slightly surprised. He had been completely unintimidated by Wanderlei (and had outweighed him by seventy pounds). A K-1 heavyweight, he just wasn’t scared by the whole stare-down routine. It was Wanderlei’s first loss in Pride, and the crowd was in ecstasy.

  Now it was time for Rodrigo, and we followed him again, and then he climbed through the scaffolding and stood alone on the platform that would lift him into the arena. He shadowboxed a little, and the whole thing shuddered under him. He spat into the depths of the darkness and waited, and the red light lit his craggy features and we all stared up at him and loved him, and shouted encouragement to him. It was time.

  As he goes up to the screaming and shouting, we pile one after another up the stairs and suddenly everyone is racing down the catwalk behind Rodrigo, and I am last but I go too, storming down the aisle in a kind of frenzy. Down the walkway we go, above an ocean of upturned faces.

  The three real seconds get through, but security meets the rest of us hard and fast when we step off the walkway and shoves us into the aisle with everyone else, to crouch down when the rounds start and sit up when the rounds end and the lights come up. Still, we are nearly ringside.

  The bell dings, and they both rush out and touch gloves, moving like speeded-up movie clips, frenetic and exploding with anticipation.

  They come out boxing, both trying to stay up, and at a furious pace. They search for range, throwing jabs and moving. Rodrigo jabs, and Fedor counterpunches with a bombing right that is laser straight and unbelievably quick. The crowd moans in shock as Rodrigo takes another big punch. In the ring, the truth will out, and it quickly becomes obvious that Fedor, standing, isn’t worried about anything Rod can throw. He is much stronger—and faster. His rights are shattering Rodrigo’s game plan.

  They stand for almost the whole first round, and Rod chases, jabbing, although he is tentative in his footwork, especially after Fedor hits him a few times. When they do clinch, Fedor tosses Rod around like a rag doll. Fedor, with his hands down and low, strikes with blinding speed, a sound in the eerie silence like an ax splitting meat, and Rod staggers. I hear his nose break.

  The crowd cheers at the beginning and end and when big moments happen, but other than that it is strangely silent during the working part of the fight; you can hear the fighters grunt and breathe in the silence. Sometimes someone screams, “Nogueira,” in a kind of Japanese rolling of the g’s and r’s, but that is it. Fedor is quicker than shit and hits harder than anything I had seen. He never stands still but is always drifting and moving.

  With a minute left in the first round, Rod takes Fedor down and is on top, but the round ends before he can really get to work. Bebeo, an old top team member, joins me and is shaking his head. “This boxing thing isn’t going to work, he needs to go to the chão, the floor.” Bebeo yells this to Zé, who is up, and he nods and returns to his quick and quiet consultations with Rodrigo, whose back is to us. We know now that the guy is too much for him standing, Rodrigo wants to be on the ground with him, preferably on top. But there isn’t much time left. The first round was ten minutes, and the second and third will only be five.

  Things don’t get any better. Rodrigo pursues, edging forward, all too aware of that fast, looping, heavy hand of Fedor’s, and he does catch Fedor a few times, but the difference in punching power is instantly apparent. Fedor doesn’t even blink from Rodrigo’s punches, and although Fedor never has Rod in trouble, it is obvious that he is hitting much, much harder. They go down sometimes, usually with Fedor on top, but instead of staying down, where even from the bottom Rodrigo might have a chance, Fedor quickly stands back up. And standing, he puts the hurt on.

  All the coaching in the world cannot make someone a big puncher; a figher either is or isn’t a heavy hitter. You can improve speed and boxing ability, but you can’t make someone heavy handed. Fedor has changed his strategy and is more than ready to stand with Rodrigo.

  We sit and stare quietly with sinking hearts. If things keep going this way, Rodrigo is going to lose. “He’s got to put him on the floor,” Bebeo says to me in the break heading into the third, shaking his head. The crowd is deadly quiet. Between rounds, Fedor stands and bounces, and Rodrigo is on his stool with his head down. They have been telling him all this time that he is faster, and he isn’t.

  It is not to be, although in the third Fedor seems to tire and Rodrigo keeps coming after him, punching and moving, and the round might go to Rodrigo, even though he’s lost the first two, probably.

  The bell dings insistently, repeatedly, and the inevitable sound closes the fight off and seals Rodrigo’s doom. He tries to raise his arms like he felt the momentum shift, but he’s kidding himself and he knows it. His face is running with blood. There isn’t much doubt in the arena, and when the decision comes, it is unanimous for Fedor. Fedor never tried to decisively win the fight, but Rodrigo never threatened him, either. I feel like five more minutes might have been enough. As it is, through twenty hard minutes, Rodrigo’s courage never flagged.

  We all stand around feeling sick, wondering what the hell to do now.

  The night wasn’t quite over. All the fighters came out and entered the ring, and I was struck again by the fact that these men had so much in common with one another and so little in common with the fa
ns: the endless hours of mat time and training, running and lifting and infinite punches and kicks into bags and pads.

  Zé Mario had a flag draped around his shoulders like a cape, the Brazilian superhero. I could see Fedor, the Nogueira brothers, and Murilo discussing something, at ease and friendly, consummate professionals who understood one another. I would love to have heard what they were talking about. And then Fedor smiled and left, and they had their core group, safe and secure up there. They believe in themselves, they really do, they believe they can go out there and box and they do it. They believe they can submit the other guy, and sometimes they can.

  The promoters had the crowd give self-congratulatory cheers as midnight approached. There was a brief countdown and a big cheer and we all (the Brazilians) found ourselves sheepishly looking at one another, depressed but willing to smile and exchange hugs; they included me even though I didn’t deserve it. Rodrigo, with his face starting to swell, hugged me and gave me a kiss on the cheek, and I was filled with love for the guy. He just has a lot of love in his heart. It’s what has made him.

  Love has given him belief in himself. It’s what makes a dog fight past forty-five minutes. Love is what makes us great, and this display of strength, heart, and love is what brings us all to the fights.

  Two days later I left Japan. The Dragon Lady and the Tokyo Hilton never caught me, and the sun was shining brilliantly.

  4

  THE TAO OF THE PUNCH

  The weakest things in the world can overmatch the strongest things in the world. Nothing in the world can be compared to water for its weak and yielding nature; yet in attacking the hard and the strong nothing is better.

  —Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching

  New York City in January is never really a good thing—too cold, sheathed in black ice, silent and dark and gleaming. It was a far cry from Rio, but the doctors are the best in the world, I was told. I went to see a specialist for my shoulder, and he looked at the MRI and said it was an “umbral tear” (to part of the rotator cuff) and that I should just keep resting it, doing what I was doing, rehabbing it on my own. “Listen to your shoulder,” he told me. For this ten-minute pep talk I paid $325.

  For a while now, ever since Thailand, I’d been scheming to go to Myanmar, where the bare-fisted tradition is alive and well and they still allowed head butts. Brazil was inspiring, but I was a striker at heart; I wanted to stand and punch. If I was going to even think about fighting bare-fisted in Burma, however, I needed to be healthy and sharp as a tack. I couldn’t throw myself to the wolves again like I had in Rio, just go in and hope for the best. I knew what I wanted: Virgil Hunter, Andre Ward’s boxing trainer—his eye, his attention. I had spoken to him about the idea from Brazil, and he was willing to take me on for a while. But I had to get my shoulder healthy first.

  It was while I was stuck in New York, doing the rehab, that I thought I would look at the internal side of martial arts, something I had never done in earnest. The internal arts had a strong historical precedent; they formed the bedrock of martial arts philosophy. I had always been intrigued but hadn’t had the time. Now I had an excuse.

  The martial arts are usually divided into two categories, for simplicity: hard and soft, or external and internal. The hard, or external, arts are the explosive ones, the punching, the kicking, karate, tae kwon do, boxing, jiu-jitsu—everything you’ve probably heard of. They rely on strength and training of muscle memory; they’re about hitting and controlling with force or technique—force on force. Soft arts are more about redirecting the opponent’s energy, flowing with him, and the focus is on the mental, on meditation, breathing, building up and controlling energy—called chi—internally. Tai chi is the main example, but arts such as aikido, pa-kua, iai-jutsu (sword drawing), and even jiu-jitsu could be considered “softer” than many hard arts (but the jiu-jitsu the Brazilians do has no real mental component, except what they add from yoga). These distinctions are just cheap, easy ways to differentiate the two; in reality, there is usually not a sharp line; this is the yin and the yang. As you get deeper into any hard art, you may move into the more mental stages and it becomes more about the soft. Even boxing.

  One of the many myths about the division between hard and soft martial arts claims that in the birthplace of martial arts, the Shaolin temple in China, the monks all trained in a total program that took ten years to produce a perfect warrior. The teachings balanced the hard with the soft, the yin with the yang. With the attrition of wars and the need for new fighters, however, the training regime was shortened to two years and involved just the hard arts, which were quicker to learn and more immediately practicable.

  When you start to read about and get into internal arts, you can’t help but encounter a lot of mythology, a popular mysticism that was latched onto by the Western world for the last hundred years—Taoism, the magical healing abilities of tai chi, the archetype of the ancient Asian man who can perform miracles and is a fountain of Confucian, Taoist wisdom. The legends abound: Tai chi masters who can move people without touching them, or who can “root” into the ground and not be budged by seven men pushing on them with all their combined strength (kind of like yogis who levitate). Everyone is familiar with the ancient master who trains the young warrior in the kung-fu flick, a pervasive icon from The Karate Kid to Kill Bill.

  I was willing to entertain these ideas—why not? It’s kind of the fun side of martial arts, delving into mysteries. After all, most martial artists and MMA guys love kung-fu films; we all embraced spectacular martial arts heroism at an early age. And who wouldn’t want to be invulnerable, or know the tao of the one-inch punch? The secret of dim mok, the death touch?

  MMA, of course, has been the ultimate proving ground for all those guys who claimed to have techniques that were so deadly they could never even practice them—and they nearly always get stomped. Kung fu, with its strict stylization and emphasis on forms, is the biggest offender in this category. Team MFS has a T-shirt that says, “Team Miletich: Your kung fu is no good here.”

  And yet, there must be something to the myths, I reasoned. Tai chi and the soft arts come from medieval times in China, when life was cheap and dangerous and the monks were fighting all the time, for their lives, against robbers and bandits and invaders. There is no way that everything they did was horseshit; there had to be something to it. It is only in modern times that man has become so divorced from actual fighting that bogus systems can survive and flourish. I decided to try tai chi—I was injured and couldn’t train hard, anyway—to see if there was anything in it I could learn, or take into my own study.

  Robert Smith, who lived for years in the East and trained extensively in martial arts, what he called “Chinese boxing,” transcribed the following, from Huang Li-chou’s Nanlei Anthology. It is an inscription on a great tai chi teacher’s tomb:

  The boxing prowess of the Shao-lin school is widely known throughout the world. Since it is essentially an offensive system, however, it is possible to counter its methods. There has arisen a certain school, the so-called Inner School, which controls the enemy’s action by calmness. The founder of the Inner School was Chang San-feng . . . a Taoist living on Mount Wutang. Emperor Hui Chung summoned him but he could not go because of bandits. One night he dreamed of being taught a special kind of boxing by Emperor Hsuan Wu the Great. The next morning Chang killed over one hundred bandits by himself.

  I didn’t plan on killing a hundred men—but having that ability couldn’t hurt.

  I found the closest tai chi place to me, on Twenty-third Street, run by a practitioner named William C. C. Chen. (I always pick the closest spot for training, because otherwise I won’t go.) He was exorbitantly expensive, around $230 for a month of classes, four classes a week. It is Manhattan, so I grudgingly paid him. I asked about private lessons, but that would’ve run $180 for a fifty-minute session.

  Tai chi, as most people know it, is that “slow-motion, weird stuff” that old people do in parks. As they practice it, it doesn’t
even remotely resemble a fighting art. Or does it? Watching someone go through a tai chi form, you start to see fighting postures in there, but everything is so slow, calm, and balletic. They move gently from one pose to another, stepping and sliding, turning and kicking, all at a snail’s pace.

  Tai chi is based directly on the philosophy of Taoism, put forth by Lao-tzu. It is a mystical, natural way of thinking, and the tao is simply “the way.” The world is in a constant state of flux, and the soft and yielding win out over the strong and hard. Tai chi is based on those ideas and the concept of yin and yang—that famous symbol is actually the symbol for tai chi, as well. The use and control of chi, which is energy or life force, is the primary focus of tai chi. In China, practitioners often do not study tai chi until they have had ten years of experience in other arts, but the “short form” (the shorter sequence of movements) has been shown to cause significant health benefits and has become probably the most popular martial art in the world because of this. The People’s Republic of China did studies and found that tai chi was a very cheap form of health care, and they developed their own short form. I knew that I wouldn’t have enough time to really get into it—that would take years of study—but I thought perhaps I could take something away.

  In William C. C. Chen’s studio there was an older crowd, nonathletes, maybe six or seven people. It could have been a dance studio, with its hardwood floors and wall of mirrors. Master Chen (it felt funny to call someone “Master,” as in MMA you never hear that traditionalist stuff) came out and started teaching without much fanfare. He was a small, slender man, older and clean-cut in a WCCCTCC sweatshirt (William C. C. Chen Tai Chi Chuan—how’s that for an acronym?). He looked to be in his sixties but was in fact a well-preserved seventy.