Beast

by Doug Merlino

His opponent, an African American with the nickname “The Black Beast,” came next. The two made angry faces at each other for a few seconds before being ushered away.

  An imitation of the main riff from AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” kicked in. Now, Chas Skelly rushed onto the stage, stripped his clothes, and weighed in at 145 pounds.

  Bektic was next. He took a breath, heard the crowd. He’d imagined Joe Rogan calling his name since he was seventeen. It felt as if he’d willed himself into a scene he’d watched on TV hundreds of time.

  A few nights earlier, after he’d arrived in Orlando, Bektic had dreamed he was walking in a dejected manner, surrounded by people who were trying to cheer him up. He had taken it to mean that he’d lost the fight. He had been so shaken that he’d called Will Lenzner, the sports psychologist, who had told him to focus on how well trained and prepared he was. “You are exactly where you should be,” Lenzner had reassured him.

  (Doug Merlino)

  “Mirsad Bektic!” Rogan now yelled.

  Bektic strode up the stairs and stripped to his blue underwear.

  He stepped on the scale in full body-building flex, pumping his arms up and down.

  “One hundred and forty-six pounds!” Rogan shouted.

  Bektic stepped off, shook hands with White, and faced Skelly, who dropped into a wrestling pose.

  Bektic, momentarily surprised, responded by holding his hand over Skelly’s head and miming a right knee straight to his chin.

  . . .

  That night, Dan Lambert hosted a dinner for all the American Top Team fighters, along with their friends and families, at a Buca di Beppo Italian restaurant. More than eighty people packed into a private room, sitting at long tables laden with bowls of pizza, pasta, veal parmigiana, and lemon chicken.

  Bektic sat next to his brothers, Senad and Suvad, and several cousins and friends. He ate, said little, and left early.

  Later, in Bektic’s room, I sat on one bed, he on the other. The nightstand held his Bible and a book by the evangelical preacher Joel Osteen, Break Out! 5 Keys to Go Beyond Your Barriers and Live an Extraordinary Life.

  Bektic flipped through the channels until he landed on something familiar.

  “Do you like Twilight?” he asked.

  “I’ve never seen it,” I said.

  “Really?” Bektic asked. “We can watch something else if you want.”

  “No, this is fine.”

  “It’s a good movie,” he said.

  He thought a moment. “I guess this isn’t what people would expect a UFC fighter to be watching the night before his fight,” he added.

  A few weeks earlier, I’d gone to the Peruvian chicken place around the corner from American Top Team for lunch after a morning practice. I was surprised to see Bektic alone at a table. I couldn’t think of a time when he hadn’t been with Sirwan Kakai or another young fighter from the gym.

  He was texting with his girlfriend, part of a running conversation that had stretched out over weeks as they broke up, got back together, and broke up again.

  His relationships at the gym were changing as well. Kakai had returned, but was dealing with his own doubts and problems. Kami Barzini now had an infant daughter and was also taking on more coaching responsibilities. Liborio, dealing with his mother’s cancer, was not around as much, either.

  Bektic was trying to be more open. He was taking salsa lessons, trying to meet new people, testing out what else life had to offer.

  I told him I remembered when I’d spoken with him and Kakai right after I’d arrived at the gym, all of us flush with optimism. Bektic and Kakai had shared their dreams of championship belts. It all had seemed plausible. I had wanted to believe that they could enjoy a simple march to the top. We all knew better at this point.

  I was exhausted. After Steve Mocco’s defeat in Edmonton, Daniel Straus’s loss of his title, Jeff Monson’s risking of his life—it had all been draining, hard to watch.

  Kami Barzini had told me how difficult he found his job, constantly worrying about his fighters, fearing that they would one day be on the receiving end of a punch that would shatter their lives. But the sport also fit with Barzini’s self-defined mission, which was to help people find the best in themselves in a world that was at best indifferent, and at worst hostile.

  Ricardo Liborio, by nature a more upbeat personality, struggled with it as well. The job, the travel, the needs of the fighters wore him down. He prided himself on giving everything he had and worried that one day his energy would ebb. He knew that if he started to fake it, the fighters wouldn’t be fooled.

  He’d come up with his own formula: “Celebrate the wins as much as you can, and get over the losses as quickly as possible.”

  Bektic and I watched Twilight’s Bella and Edward work through the early stages of their romance. He leaned back on his bed, his phone above his chest, answering texts and reading messages of support arriving from Nebraska and Bosnia through Facebook.

  The next evening would be a beginning for him and an end for me. Daniel Straus was not scheduled to fight for months. Steve Mocco, who had just returned to full-contact training, had decided to develop his striking before booking another fight. Jeff Monson was back in Florida and pinning his recent string of losses on poor nutrition and anemia, but he would surely fight again soon.

  I had come far enough to answer the questions I had when I started.

  I still found fighting exciting—more so, even, as I got to understand the amount of training and strategy involved at the highest level. The elite fighters were artists, with extraordinary control over both their bodies and their minds. Occasionally, when two of the best met on the right night, the result was something that could be called beautiful.

  But what had seemed exotic on television in a New York City bar a few years earlier no longer was. The fighters were, in most ways, normal guys. The aspect that set them all apart was a driving will to be better, to endure what it took to try to reach a goal that only a handful would achieve. Everything in the business was stacked against them but they pressed on.

  Many people find professional fighting savage, morally indefensible. There was certainly not one coach or fighter I met who denied the potential harms and consequences of their sport. Most fighters would try it for a while and then move on to normal jobs; a handful would achieve money and fame; a few would leave broken and battered. All felt that it was something they had to do.

  On the larger scale of the savage and indefensible—pointless wars, the looting of the economy, homelessness, mass incarceration—it would not make the list. Professional fighting has always ritualized the conflicts intrinsic to being human. It will never go away as long as we remain as we are.

  On the business side of the sport, there is a truth and a lie. The truth is that life is hard and full of conflict, aggression, pain, anger, and, sometimes, victory, joy, beauty, transcendence. The fighters offer a temporary conduit for our own dreams and frustrations.

  The lie, which is the product sold by every fight promotion, is that you can swagger your way through, that the trappings of combat—the muscles, the T-shirts, the Harleys and Budweiser—can protect you from harm.

  The fighters, the good ones, knew that for all the strength they might have one day, the advantage might shift to their opponent the next time.

  These were men who trained six days a week, for years, to reach where they were. They had family and friends behind them, a team, a coaching staff—even, in the case of American Top Team, a financial benefactor.

  No one was really a beast. There were no superhuman powers. Everything was training, preparation, will, discipline, controlled aggression applied at the right moment. And ultimately, the making of champions happened in the quieter moments. It wasn’t just how hard you could punch, kick, or strangle someone, but how much you could sit with your fear and uncertainty and still keep going.

  . . .

  The morning of the fight, Everton Bittar Oliveira, one of ATT’s strength and conditi
oning coaches, stopped by Bektic’s room. He opened his laptop and cued “Yeha-Noha,” a 1990s New Age song by the band Sacred Spirit. Synthesized chords swelled, a world beat kicked in, a cello entered, a man chanted in Navajo.

  Bektic sat on the edge of the bed in his underwear.

  “Nobody’s going to stop you today,” Oliveira said. “You know what you have to do. You trained really hard to be here. I don’t know how many times you laid down in your bed, wishing for this moment, and now you are here. Your dreams come true today.”

  Bektic stared into the distance.

  “You have your family and your team, we are all going to fight with you. All of us are going to be behind you. Today your life is going to change.”

  Bektic nodded.

  “Fighting is in your blood,” Oliveira said.

  “Yes, it is,” Bektic answered.

  They hugged.

  The bus left at a little after one, driving north on Interstate 4, heading away from Disney World but passing by the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando, and the Holy Land Experience, a theme park based on the life of Jesus, including a crucifixion reenactment.

  Bektic sat next to Liborio. “This is just the beginning,” Liborio whispered. “You’re here for a reason. You’re going to be a world champion. No one can beat you. No one can beat you.”

  Bektic made a fist, leaned over, and laid his head on the coach’s shoulder.

  The American Top Team fighters had their own warm-up room, ringed with open lockers and laid with blue grappling mats.

  Conan Silveira hung the white American Top Team flag, soiled with blood and sweat from countless prior fights.

  Jorge Masvidal set up a two-foot-tall powered speaker and hooked in his phone. Wiz Khalifa’s “Smokin’ On” blasted into the concrete enclosure.

  Bektic’s was the second fight on the card, the first of the American Top Team fighters to go. He stretched while the others relaxed. When they left to check out the arena, he unplugged Masvidal’s phone and put in his own.

  “Overcome” by New Life Worship filled the room: Jesus/Awesome in power forever/Awesome and great is Your name/You overcame.

  Bektic sat on the floor, his back to a locker, and watched a video of clips from the movie Gladiator overdubbed with inspirational quotations: Warriors look into the eyes of the future without fear or arrogance … How we approach the difficulties is what makes the difference … Facing adversity is when many rediscover the best in themselves …

  A man poked his head in. “Forty minutes until the first fight!”

  Masvidal returned and changed the music back to hip-hop. Uh, fuck that nigga, ho ass nigga/Leave that nigga with a toe tag, nigga, Lil Wayne crooned.

  Bektic shadowboxed, worked jiu jitsu with Liborio, wrestled ferociously with Kami Barzini.

  When they finished, a winded Barzini stood back and shook his head. “He’s strong.”

  “He’s ready,” Liborio replied.

  “He’s a butcher,” Barzini said. “Gonna cut a piece of filet.”

  Bektic had taken an opportunity to put Gospel music back on the stereo. The Brazilian coaches ended the tug-of-war between the sacred and profane by cuing up some samba. A cacophony of drums cranked into the room. Conan Silveira danced a two-step, moving his arms up and down over his chest.

  The fights were about to start. Liborio and Silveira called everyone to the center of the mats. The five fighters on the card—Bektic, Magalhaes, Masvidal, Alves, and Romero—stood in the middle. Twenty men huddled around them, arms locked around each other.

  Nearly every trainer from ATT was present, including several Brazilian striking, jiu jitsu, and strength coaches. Silveira told the fighters they were going to pray in Portuguese.

  They started with the Lord’s Prayer, the Brazilians in unison, asking to be delivered from evil, and ended, still in Portuguese, with the Hail Mary:

  Holy Mary, Mother of God,

  Pray for us sinners,

  Now and at the hour of our death.

  Amen.

  A television mounted on the wall showed the first fight. It ended four minutes into the first round, with “The Black Beast” standing over “The Outlaw,” pummeling his head.

  Liborio draped the American Top Team flag over Bektic’s shoulders.

  “It’s just a beginning, you’ll be here for a while,” Barzini said.

  A voice called in the hallway: “We’re rolling!”

  The locker room cheered. Bektic left, followed by Liborio and Barzini.

  He entered the arena holding the flag above his head, dancing from foot to foot, nodding his head to his walkout music:

  Big things poppin’ and little things stoppin’

  Several thousand early arrivals—the main card did not start for another four hours—were spread throughout the stands. Bektic’s brothers stood with several of his cousins and friends, who had made the trip down. They held up a Bosnian flag.

  (Doug Merlino)

  Bektic had visualized this moment thousands of times. I’m where I belong, he thought, I’m where I belong.

  Chas Skelly waited in the cage. A former NAIA All-American wrestler, he was, at five-foot-eleven, unusually tall for the 145-pound division.

  At the bell, Bektic and Skelly danced over the Bud Light logo underneath their feet. Each threw a series of jabs and straights, but they were so far apart nothing landed.

  Gradually, they inched closer. Skelly reached a right hand to Bektic’s face. Bektic jabbed back and pushed Skelly into a clinch. Blood swelled in a cut over Skelly’s right eye.

  Mirso! Mirso! Mirso! the Bosnians chanted.

  They separated. Skelly threw a front kick. Bektic returned with a right to Skelly’s body followed by a left hook to his head.

  Skelly tried for a takedown. He failed, but both ended on the mat, Bektic in top position, Skelly trying to hold him in place.

  Bektic pulled back and slammed elbows into Skelly’s face until Skelly reached around Bektic’s neck and grasped him close to his body.

  The round ended. Liborio held a bag of ice on the back of Bektic’s neck.

  “Five deep breaths,” he said. “One … two … three … four … five.”

  Barzini poured water into his mouth.

  The second round began like the first, the two prospects circling, firing shots from out of range.

  Skelly began to aggress, moving forward, trying to find Bektic’s head with his fists.

  They clinched against the cage, separated, engaged with a flurry.

  Suddenly, Skelly landed a right into Bektic’s cheek.

  Bektic was stunned. Skelly pushed him back to the cage.

  Bektic bent over, his right side pressed against the fence. In a reversal of the pose they’d assumed at the weigh-in, Skelly slammed a left knee directly into the side of Bektic’s head, jolting it back.

  Skelly reached down to hold Bektic’s head in place and aimed his knee into his temple.

  Bektic crumpled to the mat. The referee rushed to separate the fighters.

  In the locker room, where I was watching on the television, everyone fell silent. Oliveira, the strength coach, twisted around as if he’d been shot.

  He lost, I thought. After all that, he lost.

  Bektic’s legs buckled as he wobbled to his feet. The referee reached out a hand and pushed him back against the cage to steady him.

  He then approached Skelly. “You kneed him when he was down, his hand was down.”

  It only became clear on the replays. Bektic, as he was up against the cage, had his right hand on the canvas, making him a grounded fighter. The knees to the head were prohibited.

  The locker room came back to life.

  Bektic was badly hurt, though—he may have been concussed. The fight, by all rights, should have been stopped and Skelly disqualified for the two illegal knees. But the ref did not even call the ringside doctor into the cage to examine Bektic.

  Instead, Bektic was given just a few minutes to rec
over.

  He had double vision. He breathed, tried to clear his mind. Take your time, he thought, take your time.

  There was still more than a round to go, and one more hard punch from Skelly would likely end the fight.

  They began again. Skelly pushed ahead, trying to work his advantage. Bektic danced out of range.

  For two years, I’d seen him drill the same things week after week. It had sometimes seemed like overkill, the product of Bektic’s perfectionist tendencies, but now, when he couldn’t think straight, I watched as he seemed to go on autopilot.

  Bektic’s body performed, his hands and feet moving in unison, his defense intact, even as his mind was fogged. Skelly could not push too hard without risking a counter. Bektic survived to the end of the round.

  As the bell rang, he wandered away from his corner.

  “Here! Here! Sit down!” Liborio called to him, slapping his hand on the stool.

  Liborio put his face right up to Bektic’s.

  “You feeling okay? You feeling okay?”

  Bektic nodded.

  “Listen, we’ve got one more round to go. You got to tighten your defense and work on your counterattacks a little more. But at the same time, you have just one more round to go. Breathe.”

  Bektic had won the first round. The ref had taken a point from Skelly in the second for the knees, meaning that it would probably be scored a draw. Bektic had to hold on for five minutes and take this round to win the fight.

  He and Skelly shadowed each other for more than a minute, neither able to do damage. Suddenly, Bektic dipped down, grabbed Skelly’s legs, paused to gather strength, and pushed up, lifting Skelly off his feet before slamming him down on his back.

  They hit the canvas so hard that Bektic lost his grip. Both scrambled in desperation to get a hold.

  Skelly got behind Bektic and worked for a choke. Bektic slipped out.

  They stood and squared up. There was one minute left. Skelly stalked Bektic as he circled away, landing a right hand and then a jab to Bektic’s face.

  Sensing opportunity, Skelly charged.