The Laws of the Ring

by Urijah Faber

  Those are easy questions, right?

  There are going to be people in your life who you can’t do without, but who you can’t stand to be around at times. This doesn’t necessitate you leaving them in the dust, but it may mean you do some research on what it is about them you can’t stand. You can actively adjust the degree of their involvement in your life. If your brother is always shooting down your ideas or your mom is never satisfied with your appearance, you may need to have an honest discussion about the things that are bothering you. You would be surprised at how many people are eager to change their ways once they are aware of the problem they’re causing. If this doesn’t work, then be proactive; it may mean not sharing your big ideas with your negative brother or spending a little less time with your critical mother. Replace the time you spend with them with time spent with people who get excited about your big ideas or who accept the way you look.

  The 28th Law of Power

  Money Is a Nagging Reality

  Charlie Valencia and I are good friends.

  Charlie Valencia and I climbed into a cage at the Apache Gold Casino in Globe, Arizona, on May 13, 2006, and tried to tear each other limb from limb.

  Contrary to what you might think, these two sentences are not mutually exclusive.

  Charlie was the reigning King of the Cage champion at 145 pounds when he retired. After I took over that title in late ’05, he came out of retirement to fight me and try to get his belt back. Our matchup was part of a ridiculous string of fights for me—seven in twelve months.

  Charlie was a big name in the business back then, as big as a lighter-weight fighter could be, back in the days when the sport was illegal everywhere in California but on Indian reservations. He was thirty-one years old, and he’d seen just about everything the game had to offer.

  So much of life is timing. In my case, I was fortunate to get into the business at a time when the people who ran the UFC came on the scene to legitimize the sport and bring guys my size out of the shadows. If that hadn’t happened, and if the UFC hadn’t established the WEC to spotlight the lighter weights, who knows how my career would have turned out? It wasn’t always easy to foresee those events taking place, but my passion for fighting and my persistence in believing the tide would eventually turn kept me at it.

  Charlie was one of the older fighters who wasn’t nearly so fortunate. He was a good college wrestler at Fresno State, but the fighting opportunities weren’t available when he was in his prime—at least not as we know them now.

  In the mid-1990s, when Charlie was in his early twenties, he made money by fighting in bars. This type of activity was common if you knew where to find it, and Charlie did. At some point in the night, after everyone had had a few beers, the people who ran the bar would start lining up willing patrons and you’d fight the guy closest to you in size. The rest of the bar would bet on each fight, and the winner would get a share of the pot.

  Charlie loved to fight, absolutely loved it, and the poor bastards who ended up being matched against him had no earthly idea what they were getting into with this five-foot-three-inch 135-pounder. Most of those guys were far bigger than him, but he’d destroy them and have a blast doing it. The few bucks he’d make doing it were a bonus.

  You might remember I met Charlie on the night of my first fight. He coached Jay Valencia. Not many people in the wider world knew who Charlie was, but as a student of the fight game, I certainly did, and seeing him across the cage in Jay’s corner was a big deal for me. Granted, I was an MMA junkie—an MMA nerd, even—but Charlie was the first guy I met in person who I had also watched fight on television before I made the decision to pursue the sport.

  Charlie was an inspiration to me. He’d come up the hard way, through the early days of anything-goes “human cockfighting,” and he persisted long enough to become known to early fight fans as MMA started to become popular.

  The fight with Charlie was not something either of us wanted. Charlie needed money, and so he decided to come out of retirement. The organization (KOTC) told him he would have to fight me, so he reluctantly agreed. “Reluctantly” because he wasn’t necessarily trying get right back to the top, and he wasn’t looking to fight a rowdy youngster like me. But at roughly five grand, it was by far the best payday he could find.

  Charlie dug deep and showed flashes of his former brilliance, but he had serious ring rust and I finished him off with a choke in the first round. The fight itself was immaterial. More important was the lesson I learned: Regardless of status, we’re all the same. We’re all just people, doing the best we can, and nobody should be jealous or envious of status. Status is temporary, and fleeting. Charlie Valencia was a big name at the wrong time, and when he fought me it was partly out of desperation. I might have been starstruck at the idea of fighting Charlie, simply because he was a face and a name that went back to the days when MMA became my obsession, but once we got into the cage, we were two guys trying to win a fight.

  Money is a nagging reality, but it’s a reality that, contrary to my seemingly carefree attitude, I fully grasp.

  From as early as I can remember until I was about five or six, the highlight of Pop’s day was coming home after work, plopping into his chair, and holding his feet up for his boys to pull off his work boots.

  That’s my pop: cheerful, happy, with a devil-may-care approach to life.

  He’s a hardworking contractor and an honest businessman. He’s just not a very good businessman. There’s no shame in that, but it has limited him. He never planned for a time when his body wouldn’t allow him to do the physical labor he’s done all his life. If he had a job that day, he was good. On Monday, his idea of the future is Tuesday.

  He has his family—Ryan, Pop, and I have a unique relationship—and his faith, and everything else can take care of itself in its own good time. He’s kind of a dreamer in that sense. This type of short-term thinking has had an effect on his life, though. There are things he wants to do with his family, but he’s getting close to sixty and he doesn’t have the means to do them. Years of “stumbling” means he never developed a far-reaching plan that would provide him with some comfort and security later in life.

  It’s important to draw a distinction between scrambling for security and planning for security. We might like to say money is not the most important factor in happiness, but it is a reality. You need to plan for your financial needs as much as for your emotional needs. I’m not big on striving for some magic retirement number, the way some commercials for financial institutions would have you believe, but you have to assess your situation and determine how much money you need to be secure.

  My pop is a perfect example of someone who didn’t focus on the bigger picture. Circumstances, such as Ryan’s mental illness, have made it tougher for him to see beyond the immediate. The small picture was always rosy and fun; the big picture was never a concern. As I got older and realized the short-term nature of my profession, I realized I needed to plan for the future better than Pop did. The growth of MMA has made my gym a far more profitable business than I could have imagined. Bigger purses for my fights and more outside opportunities, especially endorsements, have made it easier for me to sock a few bucks away.

  Money is something that can be either overemphasized or underemphasized. In the context of your life, and your passion, here’s an easy way of putting it: You need enough money to fund your passion. And if you achieve that, and follow your passion with diligence and intelligence, it will ultimately fund you.

  After our fight, Charlie and I started a conversation. It immediately became clear that he and I had a lot of the same life philosophies. In fact, he and his wife, Cris, hung out with me in Arizona in the days immediately following the match. After a couple days of hanging out in Arizona, we exchanged numbers and went our separate ways—me to Indonesia for the fateful trip I describe in the next chapter, Charlie and Cris back to California.


  I kept tabs on Charlie’s career, but we hadn’t spoken for a couple years when, out of the blue, he gave me a call. We caught up for a bit, and then the reason for the call emerged. He was having trouble finding a fight and was looking for some advice—and maybe even a little compassion. Now, as a reminder, among lighter weights in the sport’s early days, Charlie was a leader. A guy who didn’t just fight for sport, but for pride. He’d scrap with anyone. He wasn’t just an athlete, he was a legendary fighter. In the meantime, I had risen to a level that made Charlie think I could help him. Obviously, this was a humbling experience for both of us. So we continued talking, which I felt was providing him with some much-needed release, but it was clear he wanted to come away from the phone call feeling like he was a step closer to getting a fight—a fight with a payday and a worthy opponent.

  “Dude, I’ve gotta introduce you to my managers, Mike and Jeff,” I said.

  “Oh, man, that would be awesome. I’d appreciate it.”

  “Of course, bro,” I said, still jarred by the fact that Charlie Valencia was coming to me for advice. “You’re Charlie Valencia!”

  Mike and Jeff got to work kick-starting his career, and Charlie and I rekindled our friendship. He became part of our community. We spent a few Christmases and Thanksgivings together. He helped me through some rough patches in my career, and I helped him through some tough times with his family. Charlie had a good run, too, fighting until 2011, his last fight being in the UFC. Sadly he lost by TKO in the first round, but I felt good that I had been able to help him get back on track after some tough times. More than that, though, I was proud that a man I had admired years earlier had been brought into our community.

  The 29th Law of Power

  Be the Bigger Man

  After my fight with Charlie, I took a trip to Bali, Indonesia, with two of my best buddies, Tommy Schurkamp and Virgil Moorehead. Toward the end of the trip, I went out with Virgil to a bar. Tommy had flown home the day before because he had to work, and Virgil left the bar early in the night because he was fighting to stay sober and wasn’t handling the bar scene very well.

  I had met some chubby European girls, and we were having a good time dancing and talking. The scene was mellow, the girls were friendly, so I stuck around by myself.

  A short time after Virgil left, I was dancing with these girls when one of the sturdy local Balinese walked past and shoulder-bumped me. I ignored him initially, but then I caught him looking at me from about five feet away in a menacing fashion. It became clear he wasn’t going to stop.

  At this point in my career, I was a world champion in smaller shows, which meant there was almost no chance that anybody here knew who I was. This guy definitely didn’t know, and he didn’t care. This bigger, tough-looking guy just saw a small American who was attracting the attention of some girls—apparently he considered that an infraction that needed to be punished.

  He kept at it, getting closer to me and gesturing that he wanted to fight. I generally keep my wits about me, but it’s just not my nature to back down, and eventually I’d had enough. I came back at him with the international language for “You want to step outside?”

  Stupid, right? World champion or not, I’m all by myself in a bar in a foreign country, and I’m agreeing to fight a local guy with whom I can’t communicate. I don’t know what rules he follows when he fights, but I’ve got a couple drinks in me and I know there’s no way to avoid this altercation.

  We walked out to an alley behind the bar. It was almost completely dark, and this guy had to be wondering about this crazy American—five five and a half, around 150 pounds, wearing flip-flops and a baseball cap—who’s decided to take him into an alley all by himself. Guys don’t do that unless they’ve got skills, or a death wish.

  Or, perhaps, both.

  I saw a little doubt creep into his mind. It was in his eyes. He’d expected me to either run or continue to ignore him. Now, as we’re outside, I could see him thinking, What have I gotten myself into?

  At that moment I felt the dynamic change. Just a few minutes before he had been the one holding the power, on his own turf, with his friends, toying with me. But the moment I called his bluff, the (unofficial) laws of power shifted. I let him know I not only wasn’t intimidated by the challenge, but I welcomed it, and upped the ante by dictating the terms. We were going outside, and it was dark.

  We squared off in the alley, and I said, “Let’s do it, motherfucker.” I kicked off my sandals and tossed my hat to the ground. He started screaming what sounded like gibberish to me but was clearly a call to his buddies who were in and around the bar. He had come to the conclusion that he had asked for something he didn’t really want.

  A few of these guys—I recall about three or four, but I wasn’t counting—materialized near us. One of them spoke broken English and asked what was going on. Finding myself outnumbered, I became a little alarmed, so I addressed him. “This guy wanted to fight me,” I said. “It’s got to be one-on-one.”

  I kept making the point. “ONE-ON-ONE.”

  They moved us to an elevated area that was just a few steps away from the alley, where they all stood to watch the show. I remember there was a fountain and some kind of monument inscribed with a couple hundred names of Australians who were killed in a terrorist bombing at one of the clubs a few years back. We squared off and I attacked. It was obvious that I had the upper hand, I was beating the guy up handily, but he put up a pretty decent fight for a random guy in a bar. (Remember, I’d had a few drinks, and he was obviously no stranger to third-world-country street fights.) The fight ended when I picked him up in a bear hug and brought him down onto a cement planter. I could hear the thud of him landing. I’m pretty sure his collarbone broke right before he let out a horrific scream.

  So there I was, standing with these locals around me and their buddy pulling himself from the ground holding his shoulder. One of them was motioning to me to get out of there. “You won,” the English-speaking one said. I knew I had to get out of there, but I wanted to grab my sandals and my hat first. I was walking around for a minute or two, just catching my breath, when I got cheap-shotted in the back of the head with brass knuckles.

  The pain was vicious. It reverberated in my head, like a gong. I knew immediately it wasn’t a fist. I turn around and see a Balinese man staring at me, smiling, holding up the hand with the brass knuckles, saying “One by one” in broken English.

  I hesitated for a second and said, “What the hell is that?”—pointing to the brass knuckles on his clenched fist. Apparently he didn’t care that I had realized he was breaking my proper street-fight rules. “Okay, let’s do it,” I told him, because I was pissed off and half drunk and not thinking real clearly. Besides, I didn’t think I had much choice.

  I tried to decide how I was going to attack a guy who, with the brass knuckles, was wearing the equivalent of a weapon on his hand, when two other guys showed up. One of them was holding a glass bottle. The other reached down and picked up a rock.

  Oh, shit. I already felt the blood trickling down the back of my head from the cheap shot I took, and now there were two more guys standing there, grinning and laughing and saying, “One by one.”

  I quickly came up with the most basic plan I could muster: Attack them first. I addressed the bottle guy with a right and a kick, knocking him back. I grabbed the guy with the rock in his hands and tried to pull it from him. The whole time I was getting rabbit-punched in the back of the head with the brass knuckles. I’m guessing not many people reading this have been punched with brass knuckles, but that shit hurts. Every time he hit me it felt like he was tearing the back of my head open.

  The bottle guy came back and I threw him over a moped and started running. The brass-knuckle guy didn’t react fast enough, so I managed to get away momentarily. I ran around the corner and did a dive-roll over these metal railings to get back into the club. I figured that was w
here civilization was, so that’s where I should be.

  It turned out that the bouncers at the club were part of the group that was after me. Of all the shitty luck, right? I discovered later that the bouncers in these clubs are the closest thing to organized crime in Bali—and I was their target for the night.

  I darted through the dance floor of the club, gushing blood from my head and drawing attention. My attempt to find people to help me resulted in the discovery of more enemies. There were now twelve guys after me, each one focused on doing damage to me. We ended up on the dance floor, where I was shucking and jiving and trying to free myself from these guys. I got knocked down and ended up kicking up at my attackers.

  They were coming at me from all angles. Feet, bottles, and fists. At this point some of the Europeans on the dance floor came to my rescue; they started pulling people off me and shoving guys out of the way so I could make a run for it.

  I got up and headed for the door. I had to shoulder-shrug through the people, jump over the base of a staircase, and get through the seated area of the bar before I could take on the guy at the front door who was trying to keep me from leaving. I took care of him with a hard elbow shiver and headed out onto the street. I felt like I was on the set of a Jackie Chan movie, or one of the Bruce Lee movies I’d loved as a kid. Except there was no glory in this.

  As I made my way to the street I realized the situation had shifted. It was no longer a bar fight. This is crazy, I thought, but I think these guys are trying to kill me. This was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, inside or out of the cage. There’s danger every time you fight, but this was all-out mayhem, and the worst part was I couldn’t predict who or what might turn on me next, and I didn’t know where it might come from.

  I needed to be strong, and even though I was used to pushing myself beyond limits, this wasn’t a workout in a gym, where I could stop if I needed. This time I couldn’t stop. Stopping meant dying.