One day, in late May of 2006, a friend of Cody Stevens was wasting some time online when he came across information on Next Level Fighting, an organization not far from their homes in Mansfield, Ohio.
He called Stevens and encouraged him to take a fight. On no training. In 10 days.
“We had just been in a bunch of altercations, nothing organized or anything,” Stevens told MMAjunkie.com. “I said, ‘I’ve just been drinking and doing [stuff] I shouldn’t be doing.'”