Author: By Thomas Gerbasi

Vitor Belfort isn’t going anywhere. Despite his UFC 126 loss to Anderson Silva in their middleweight championship bout this past February, “The Phenom” is not about to let the longtime titleholder off the hook just yet. He’s still shooting for Silva, and that’s not just the word from the UFC vet, it comes from the whole family.

“In my house, we don’t accept the word ‘impossible,’” said Belfort. “If we want to do something, we’re gonna go to the end. We need to understand that losing and winning is part of life, but giving up is not a part of our lives. ‘What’s next dad, when are you going to have a chance to fight him again?’ That’s the question my son (Davi) asked me. That’s the way we see life here, as a positive. We recognize that he was the better man on that night, and the only thing he landed, he landed pretty good, and he won the fight.”

One of the most highly-anticipated title fights in years, Silva vs. Belfort matched up two countrymen with dynamic styles, long histories of excellence, and a little bit of heat. It made for an explosive encounter, but it was Silva who detonated the bomb, catching Belfort with a front kick that has earned plenty of consideration for 2011’s Knockout of the Year. It was a crushing end to Belfort’s five fight winning streak and his attempt to join BJ Penn and Randy Couture as the only fighters in UFC history to hold titles in more than one weight class. But the former light heavyweight champion has no sour grapes about the defeat.

“I went there to knock him out and he knows that, but he caught me with a very strange kick, and I believe it was the best knockout of his life,” said Belfort. “He knows the pressure was on his shoulders and the night shined for him. What can I say? I just have to recognize that and go back and work hard to have another shot. That’s the only thing you can do. No regrets, I did my best, I corrected the mistakes that I made and I try to improve myself every day in the gym.”

Now 34, Belfort is a far cry from the precocious 19-year old he was when he made his UFC debut back in 1997. He was a self-admitted “hot head” back then, a kid who believed his newspaper clippings until he started to get dealt some heavy doses of MMA reality. Some don’t come back from that tough love the fight game likes to issue out, but Belfort survived, dusted himself off, and while he has had erratic moments over the years, his recent run, which included first round knockouts of Matt Lindland and Rich Franklin, has rejuvenated his career.

As for life outside the Octagon, that has changed considerably as well. Belfort is a family man, married with three children, and his faith has taken precedence for him in his life. That’s not to say he’s perfect.

“I’m real, I make mistakes, I make bad decisions sometimes, but the key is to always try to live what you preach,” he said. “One day I’m gonna finish my career, but I don’t want to be like the leaders today in politics and sports. They shine on the field, and it doesn’t matter if it’s in golf, or American football, or on the soccer field, they have millions of followers but miserable lives. They’re not faithful with their own families, they’re not faithful with their own convictions, so they’re a bunch of liars. I don’t want to be that way. I want to succeed in my private life so then it can be a reflection on my public life.”

That public life continues this Saturday in Philadelphia, when he takes on Yoshihiro Akiyama in the UFC 133 co-main event. It’s a pivotal battle, not just to see who moves forward in the division, but to see how Belfort reacts to what may be considered the first true knockout defeat of his career (his TKO losses to Randy Couture were more due to an accumulation of strikes and then from a doctor’s stoppage in their third bout). He is saying all the right things though, so it appears that he’s put the loss in the rearview mirror. And the way he sees it, there’s no point in wondering what might have been. You have to live with what was.

“You cannot live by expecting things that were meant to go a different way,” he said. “You have to live according to the things that happened. If I knocked him out, it would have been totally different. If I connected my punch, he would be out. So the key is to be focused and deal with the things in your life. Don’t ever let the mind defeat you. In my mind, I’m unbeatable. It doesn’t matter the situation, I’m always going to have the mentality that nothing is impossible for myself.”

In Akiyama, Belfort has the perfect foil for a memorable return. The Japanese contender is aggressive, he refuses to take a backward step, and he has an undeniable will to win. If Belfort is on, it could be a short night for Akiyama. If the Brazilian is not on top of his game, expect a 15 minute war that could go either way. Belfort, while respectful of his foe, knows which way he expects the bout to go.

“He’s a very tough fighter,” said Belfort of Akiyama. “He’s well-rounded, he can take a punch, he can exchange, and he’s really dynamic. But my mind is tougher than ever. It’s so strong that no man can stop me. I’m focused on what I have to do to win, and I’m looking to finish. That’s how I’m stepping into the Octagon that night – I’m looking to finish him.”

Even if you ask Belfort about a possible return to 205 pounds in the future, he’s adamant that the only goal is another shot at the middleweight belt. And to get on the road back there, he has to get by Akiyama first.

“We have a goal,” he said. “We’re gonna go to the end. Nothing can stop me. I have Akiyama now, he’s my next opponent, and I’m looking at him as being in front of my goal.”

There are usually doubts in a fighter’s mind, words, or actions in the period between a devastating loss and a return to the Octagon. Belfort has no such questions to answer for himself. The way he sees it, when he’s firing on all cylinders, he can’t be stopped, and he’s not shy about letting the world know it.

“I’m always climbing a mountain and I’m not giving up,” he said. “I want to reach higher and nothing can stop a man when he puts in his mind and his heart that he wants to do it. I’m on my way right now.”

In an instant, Yoshihiro Akiyama found out that there are more important things than fighting. As a horrific earthquake assaulted his home country of Japan in March, the last thing the middleweight contender from Osaka was thinking about was his UFC 128 bout with Nate Marquardt.

“I was at home,” said Akiyama, who was on the 41st floor when the earthquake hit. “I dashed out of my home by the emergency stairs.”

Thankfully, Akiyama and his family were safe. So many others were not so lucky. Akiyama, obviously in no condition mentally to fight, withdrew from the Marquardt bout and instead focused on helping his nation rebuild, participating in a number of fundraising efforts to raise money for those affected by the tragedy.

Eventually though, it was time for Akiyama to get back to fighting, and he chose not to ease back into his day job; instead, he agreed to face Vitor Belfort in this Saturday’s UFC 133 co-main event. It’s a fight he’s unquestionably looking forward to.

“I think that Mr. Belfort is very strong, a perfect fighter, and he is actually one of my icons,” said Akiyama through translator Takashi Iizuka. But it wasn’t exactly a smooth transition from dealing with the devastation in his country to getting back into the gym.

“Immediately after the earthquake, it was difficult,” he admits. “But after a while, I could concentrate on training and think about the bout.”

And this one may be the most important of his UFC career. Three fights in thus far, Akiyama only holds a 1-2 record, but if you look closely, those three fights were against Alan Belcher (win), Chris Leben and Michael Bisping (losses), and all three earned Fight of the Night bonuses. So there’s no question that Akiyama is putting on memorable performances, but three losses in a row should he lose to Belfort isn’t a good thing, and he knows it.

“It is always important to make the fans excited, but more important is to be heading for victory,” he said. “It is hard to deal with losses. But at the same time, a new bout is a new challenge.”

For Akiyama, the real challenge is to get to a point where he’s still putting on compelling fights, but not dropping his hands and getting into wild slugfests which have allowed opponents like Leben and Bisping to capitalize. Against the hard-hitting Belfort, if you let him crack you one too many times, it’s game over. Akiyama realizes this, and it’s been on his mind from before the Marquardt fight, when he said, “I’ve been specifically focusing on how I can score enough points to win. From the past three matches I experienced in the UFC, I was too stuck in my own way and I wasn’t thinking about the result of the match.”

So how has he progressed in that area?

“My punching has made progress, thanks to a lot of practice and experience.”

That’s a positive development, both for Saturday’s bout and for the 36-year old Akiyama’s longevity in the game. Then again, he is a warrior in the Octagon, so you get the impression that the first time he gets hit, it’s on. It’s just his way, one he says comes from his “nationality and judo experiences.” No one who has seen him fight is complaining, whether it’s in his home country, or in the United States and England, the two countries that have been treated to a dose of the man his fans have dubbed “Sexyama.”

“I’m very grateful to have such fans,” said Akiyama. But is it still worth it to put up with all the rigors of the fight game after all these years?

“Yes, I enjoy it, but the bout is always tense.”

Saturday night’s meeting with Belfort will be no different, but tense drama and excitement is what we’ve come to expect from Akiyama, and this time, there’s even more meaning, as he’s fighting not just for himself, but for Japan.

“I hope that the people in Japan will be brave during these difficulties, that they will see a good fight from me and hopefully a victory on August 6th.”

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Or, in deference to Cyprus native Costa Philippou’s heritage, when in Greece, do as the Greeks do. So when the former boxer answered the bell for his first mixed martial arts match against future UFC fighter Ricardo Romero in May of 2008, he didn’t want to be rude or act like a rookie.

He threw a leg kick. It didn’t go so well.

“The guy picked me up and threw me on my head,” he laughs. “I got up and started punching and I don’t think I threw another kick the rest of the fight.”

That was a good thing, as he dropped Romero twice in the bout, only to lose a split decision. It wasn’t a bad showing for someone who just a few months earlier was ready to start going after Wladimir Klitschko, not Anderson Silva.

“After that I showed that I was actually a fighter, and they paid attention to me,” he said. “They started training me as an MMA fighter. But I went into that fight not even knowing what an armbar was or what takedown defense was.”

A native of Limassol, Philippou’s love was always boxing, and he was good at it, winning a Bronze medal in the European championships and just missing a spot on the Olympic team. Eventually, he moved to the United States to chase glory in the squared circle, and was encouraged to enter the prestigious New York Golden Gloves tournament in 1996, just two months after arriving in the States.

Philippou made it to the finals at Madison Square Garden in the super heavyweight division, losing a decision to Nagy Aguilera, who went on to a decent pro career that included fights with Antonio Tarver, Chris Arreola, and Samuel Peter.

Following the tournament, Philippou turned pro, decisioning Butterbean conqueror Mitchell Rose over four rounds, and following it up with a 53 second knockout of James Toto. But it was in his third fight, an ESPN-televised bout in February of 2007 that things got interesting.

“I fought a last minute opponent, on two days notice, and the guy was 6-5 with five, six inches longer reach than me,” said Philippou of his bout with Rodney Ray. “It wasn’t a great fight, but I won a unanimous decision, and instead of my coach getting back to the gym, seeing whatever we did wrong and fixing it, he was complaining about me not knocking out the guy.”

The two developed some irreconcilable differences at this point, and that normally wouldn’t have been the end of the world. But in this case, Philippou’s coach was also his manager, and he had two years left on a three year contract with him.

“I couldn’t box without giving him his percentage, and I didn’t want to do that, so I decided to try MMA, thinking a fight is a fight,” said Philippou. “I had no idea how to wrestle or do jiu-jitsu. I knew how to kickbox, but that was about it.”

Well, he at least had the boxing part, since that kicking thing obviously didn’t work out that well against Romero. But when he accepted the fight just four months after he decided he was going to become a mixed martial artist, he earned a measure of respect.

“I wanted to show them that I was willing to fight,” he said. “They didn’t know me. They thought that I was just all talk.”

He wasn’t, and in addition to his striking prowess, he had a willingness to work and to learn.

“I liked training jiu-jitsu,” he said. “I hated training with the gi because of the heat. So I used the gi for a year and then put it away. Wrestling was even harder than jiu-jitsu because in jiu-jitsu you’ve got time to think and come up with a couple of moves. In wrestling, you’ve got to react, just like in boxing, and a lot of things are different.”

That goes for transitioning his boxing into MMA striking as well.

“You can’t use the same technique that you use in a boxing fight,” said Philippou. “You won’t be able to stay up close and bob and weave and exchange five, six punch combinations because they’ll take you down. It took me a while to get used to that because my whole boxing career, they were telling me to throw a minimum of four, five punches and stay in the pocket because I’m a short guy. They wanted me to fight kind of like (Mike) Tyson. With MMA that doesn’t work. You’ve got to be light on your feet and you gotta move. A great example is James Toney. He’s a great boxer, but he’ll never be a great MMA fighter. He’s flat on his feet, he’s moving and bobbing and weaving and two seconds later he’s going to be on his back and boxing is over.”

“All the boxers say ‘oh, MMA fighters, they don’t really know how to box,” he continues. “It looks different, and it looks like we don’t know how to box. Every time I go to a boxing gym to spar and I tell them that I’m an MMA fighter, they say ‘ah, okay,’ and they just walk away. After the first round they realize ‘ooh, you really know how to box.’ It’s impossible for us to use the same techniques in an MMA fight.”

As time went on though, he began picking up the game and picking up wins. In 2010, he made it to the elimination round on the 11th season of The Ultimate Fighter, but was ousted by Joe Henle after a strong start to their bout, yet he got right back to business, eventually compiling a 7-1, 1 NC record when he got the call from the UFC to step in on a week’s notice to face Nick Catone at UFC 128 in March. Little had changed in his mindset from the first time he began in the sport, so he accepted the fight, even though he had just taken the previous three weeks off after his three round win over Uriah Hall in February.

The result was predictable, with Catone taking Philippou down to the mat and keeping him there en route to a clear-cut three round decision win.

“I proved I could take a beating, that’s about it,” chuckled Philippou, who wouldn’t mind a shot at redemption someday. “Hopefully in the future I get another match with Catone. I would like to fight him again just to prove a point that I’m not such an easy opponent. He had his way with me and walked right through me. Hopefully in this fight I get to prove that I’m a different fighter than what everybody saw.”

“This fight” is a UFC 133 main card battle with Jorge Rivera. Technically, it’s another late notice match considering that Philippou was originally scheduled to face Rafael Natal on the Philadelphia card, but when Alessio Sakara was forced out of the Rivera bout due to injury, what better replacement would there be for the former pro boxer than another pro boxer? Philippou agrees.

“Nothing really changed,” he said. “They switched the opponent and I gladly accepted the challenge when they asked me, but it was actually good news for me to get a new opponent. He’s mostly a striker, so I’ll be more comfortable to strike with him, and it’s the main card, so it’s a win-win situation for me.”

He also comes into the bout having been a key training partner for members of his camp, including UFC vet Pete Sell and Strikeforce prospect Gian Villante, and since he’s not facing Natal, a member of the Renzo Gracie camp, he will have Matt Serra joining Ray Longo in his corner. That sounds like a win-win-win-win. But then there’s Rivera, a hard-nosed veteran with knockout power and the experience to gut through a tough fight. Philippou is looking forward to the challenge of facing “El Conquistador,” but he believes he has the edge he needs to secure his first UFC win.

“I think my technique will be way, way better than him and I’ll be more powerful than him and have more speed,” he said. “He has the longer reach and he’s a bigger opponent, but I don’t really think he’s gonna try and take me down, so if he decides that he’s gonna stay on his feet I think I’m gonna have the advantage and I think I’m gonna get the better of him.”

If things seem a little bit different for Jorge Rivera this time around, days before his UFC 133 bout with Costa Philippou on Saturday in Philadelphia, that would be an accurate assessment.

There’s no trash talk, no bad blood, no tempers flaring like there was in February, when Rivera and Michael Bisping went to war before, during, and even after their UFC 127 match. It was almost out of character for the always affable Rivera, leading to the question, had he ever been in a fight quite like that?

“Not professionally,” he laughs. And he keeps laughing, because when you think about it, bad blood or not, at the end of the day, you put on the gloves and settle your business in the Octagon.

“It’s a fight,” he agrees. “Whether I love you or hate you, I’m going to go in there and punch you in the face, and vice versa. We’re not gonna always like one another.”

And when it was all over at Acer Arena in Sydney, Bisping was the one who emerged victorious via second round TKO. It wasn’t the way Rivera, who brought a three fight winning streak into the bout, wanted or expected things to end, but that’s the fight game, and if anyone knows that game, it’s the 39-year old native of Framingham, Massachusetts. And hey, they say you learn more from your losses than your wins, right? So were there any positives that he took home to New England?

“I’m sure there is,” he chuckles. He just hasn’t found them yet. And more than any of his previous defeats, this one hit home the hardest, and even had him contemplating retirement.

“Just how the whole thing unfolded, I was like what the f**k?” he said. “But it is what it is. I can’t sit there and cry about it, I gotta keep moving on.”

So how do fighters move on? They fight. And Rivera is back this weekend doing what he does best, and in Philippou he’s got a dance partner willing to give him the standup war he wants. That’s the good part. The bad? He only got his new opponent on short notice after Alessio Sakara suffered a knee injury and was forced from the bout.

“It doesn’t really affect me too much,” admits Rivera, 18-8. “The only thing that’s kinda bothering me this time is that I only have a week to study and prepare for my next opponent. But at the same time, he (Philippou) is similar to Sakara in the fact that he’s a banger. I think he has a little more power in his hands, but whatever, it’s a fight. This is what we do. If we were in the streets fighting, I wouldn’t get to pick and choose who I fight – it’s whoever I had the problem with.”

And stylistically, Philippou may be the better matchup simply because the Greek bomber is almost guaranteed to keep the fight standing.

“I didn’t think Sakara was gonna take it to the ground either,” counters Rivera. “I think he’s in the business of entertaining fight fans and he knows what he’s good at, and that’s what I think that fight was gonna look like. But with Costa, I think it’s a little more secure that this is what he does and this is what he likes to do. This is his strength and his bread and butter; this is how he makes his money.”

It’s how Rivera makes his money as well, and whether he’s won or lost, he’s never been afraid to step up to the mark and fight the best in the business. From Anderson Silva and Rich Franklin to Chris Leben and Martin Kampmann, Rivera has been in with them all, and with a decade in the game, he’s seen plenty of changes. One of them is the advent of technology to scout opponents, and he took full advantage of that tool when he was given the name of his new UFC 133 foe.

“I’ve been youtubing everything I can find on anybody named Costa Philippou,” he laughed. “There’s more information about your opponent, you can study him better, you can see what you can do with him – what his strengths are, what his weaknesses may be, what you can exploit and what you can look out for. It’s right there in front of you. But there’s also a million things on all of us out there that people can look up. There’s so much information on the internet it’s ridiculous.”

So how does he feel about that?

“It all depends on what they’re doing with me.”

When Rivera is relaxed like this it usually means that a solid performance is coming around the corner, and he hopes that’s the case this time. But another reason for his confidence that Saturday night will be a good night comes from a few weeks with Greg Jackson and company in Albuquerque. It was a change for the diehard New Englander, but a welcome one.

“I needed to freshen up,” he said. “The last fight took a little bit out of me, and going out there was the best thing I’ve ever done. I learned a lot, I got re-energized, re-focused, and I got a lot out of that experience. I’m really, really grateful to the people at Ranger Up, Tim Kennedy, Greg Jackson and everybody over at Jackson’s MMA. They helped me get my head straight, and I’m focused and charged up.”

Charged up for a title run? If he wins, that’s four wins in his last five bouts. Well?

“One day at a time,” he smiles. “One fight at a time.”

That’s probably the best way to approach it. One thing’s for sure though. Whether Rivera carries on for another five fights or calls it quits after the next one, the fighting life has left an indelible mark on him that goes beyond mere wins and losses. So he won’t ever forget what the game has meant to him.

“(Early UFC vet) Jason DeLucia was my first teacher,” recalled Rivera. “He said ‘you’re never gonna be as good as people say you are, but you’ll never be as bad as they say you are either.’ That never, ever left me. And it goes beyond that. I used to be a knucklehead and I was a troublemaker. This has saved me. I know the clichés and whatever, but this has been very, very good to me and I love it. I went from being an embarrassment to my family to something that they could be proud of. I love my parents dearly and I’m very happy with the fact that they don’t have to hang their heads when they talk about me.”

Coach Bruce Robnett didn’t pull any punches when sophomore Mike Pierce walked into the Barlow High School wrestling room to prepare for his second year on the mat.

“This year,” he said. “You’re gonna learn how to lose.”

Not exactly the rah-rah, you can do it, stuff you hear on afterschool specials, but wrestlers and their coaches never were the sentimental type. And after what he described as a “fun” freshman year, the teenage Pierce did get a particularly harsh dash of tough love that second season.

“I really got beat on sophomore year,” said Pierce with a chuckle. “It was frustrating because I was losing, but at the same time I could see the progress I was making, and then after that year I stuck it in my head ‘okay, this is my year.’ And I went from not placing at State the previous year to winning the State title the next year, so that made me feel good.”

In all, Pierce took home two Oregon State championships during his high school career, in 1998 and 1999, and in addition to his own determination and talent on the mat, he can also thank Robnett and a teammate who remains a training partner in his current gig as a mixed martial artist, WEC vet Dave Jansen.

“He was the guy I had the biggest rivalry with and he would kick my butt,” said Pierce of Jansen. “I would literally challenge him every single week for the varsity spot and he would beat me every single time. But then that junior year, we were in different weight classes and I ended up doing really well and winning state. It was us two pushing each other and beating on each other that made us better.”

Pierce went on to wrestle briefly at Portland State University before eventually settling into the world of pro MMA in 2007. He has since won 12 of 15 bouts, including nine of his last 10, with his only loss in that stretch coming to top welterweight contender Jon Fitch. But despite his success, Pierce is still seen as being in the prospect stage of his career, something he would like to change with Saturday’s UFC 133 bout against fellow wrestler Johny Hendricks.

“Facing another wrestler is always fun,” said Pierce. “We kinda know each other’s game, we’ve been doing it since we were kids, and so it’s the other facets of the game that become a little more interesting. I see Johny Hendricks and me being an exciting fight. I don’t think this is gonna be a fight you’re gonna see ground out on the floor. I don’t see that happening. I see us being more on the feet, in the clinch, working in the open or maybe against the cage, but I think it’s gonna be more of a standup battle than anything, and I’m looking forward to that.”

And even though the 30-year old Pierce is far removed from his high school days, in recent months he’s realized the wisdom of Robnett’s words to him before his sophomore wrestling season, and he has learned the value of patience. Don’t mix that up with content though.

“I want to hurry up because like (UFC President) Dana (White) says, your window of opportunity in this business is only so long,” said Pierce. “Nobody can do this forever unless you’re Randy Couture. (Laughs) Everybody’s got a finite amount of time in this business, so my goals are what they are and I’d like to get there as soon as possible. But at the same time I know I can only do it at a particular rate.”

But given the limited amount of time each fighter can realistically compete in the Octagon each year, every trip from the locker room has to count, and Pierce, a UFC vet since 2009, has grasped on to that reality with both hands. Winner of three in a row, the Portland native has finished his last two fights, submitting Amilcar Alves and knocking out Kenny Robertson. It’s a stark contrast to his decision wins over Brock Larson and Julio Paulino, which got fans up in arms about his inability to decisively end fights. But after the last two, he’s suddenly in their good graces again. Welcome to the fickle world of pro sports.

“I’ve read all the good stuff and all the bad stuff and something that people always complained about before was ‘oh, he just does decisions, there’s nothing exciting going on,’ but at the same time, some of the guys that I was fighting were tough guys,” said Pierce. “Jon Fitch was my second fight in the UFC, and I came close. I tried to finish the guy – everybody saw that, but it still came out a decision not in my favor. I like to finish, I don’t like leaving things up to the referee or the judges, and I don’t think any fighter does. But I’ve been on a little bit of a roll lately, finishing my last two guys, and the last one was a knockout, and that’s something I’d like to continue. I think I have the capability to do it, and that’s what I’m looking to do in this fight.”

What makes Pierce scary and a legitimate threat to his fellow welterweights is that even though he comes from a wrestling background, he has shown the ability to handle himself wherever the fight goes, and to do it with an ease that’s impressive. You don’t see him winging wild shots or shooting for takedowns from 20 feet away. If he can take you down to the mat and beat you there, he will; if he has to stand for 15 minutes or less, he won’t get flustered. In other words, he’s hard to decipher simply because he’s adaptable.

“You just have to be open minded in the training room, listen to your coaches, and try to put something together that is mixed martial arts,” said Pierce. “There are guys that go into the training room and they learn boxing or Muay Thai and they forget how to mix that up and transition into an MMA fighter. Instead, they’re in boxing mode or Muay Thai mode and then they go to wrestling mode. There’s a fine line in there where you gotta learn how to mix all that together and make it mesh and flow. That’s what I’ve always been trying to achieve – finding a style that meshes really well and where I can transition really well from one to the other.”

He seems to have found that style, even if the old Mike Tyson line that everyone has a plan until they get hit still applies at times. The trick is trying to reduce the percentage of times it does happen.

“It takes a long time and a lot of repetition to get it burned into your head to where it doesn’t even become a thought process, it’s just a reaction,” he said. “And what Tyson says is true; there are a lot of times when even the best of us get smacked pretty hard and we revert back to what we know. We go into that survival, freak out mode (Laughs), and you know what you do best, so you try and hang on to that. But there are times when you gotta just think for a moment about what you need to do instead of what you’ve always done.”

Aiding in this process are a couple of pretty fair fighters in their own right, Pierce’s training partners for the Hendricks bout, Chael Sonnen and Nate Quarry, who have had plenty of good advice for their gym mate about MMA in and out of the Octagon.

“These guys have been my training partners for this whole camp and even at this tail end I’ve been working with (middleweight contender) Yushin Okami because he’s in town getting ready for his fight,” he said. “Between all those guys, they have a wealth of experience and they have pointers here and there about what you should do on the business side of things or what might help, so you’ve got to take all those things into consideration and hopefully it pays off in the end.”

If he keeps winning, it’s about to. Pierce’s record speaks for itself: 12-3 with three UFC wins as well as victories over Paul Bradley, Justin Haskins, Mark Miller, and Mike Dolce. Plus, he’s on a two fight finishing streak and he gave Fitch a tough scrap in his lone Octagon loss. As Bruce Buffer would say, “It’s time.”

“I hope so,” he said. “They sent me Jon Fitch in my second fight, which is a huge honor and not very common that they’d throw a newcomer one of the top contenders in the weight class. I think I handled myself pretty well. I did better than probably 99 percent of the people thought I would do, and I really only improved since that fight. So I think after this fight I’d really like to get a little deeper into the mix and work my way to the top. That’s really what I want to do.”

And when a wrestler puts his mind to something, it’s hard to break him loose from it.

“There’s something about wrestlers,” said Pierce. “They have a mental toughness to them that’s just inherent to the sport. You’ve got so many levels of discipline – you have to maintain a particular weight, you’ve got to watch your diet and you’ve got to work out a lot, and learn different techniques – so I think the amount of discipline that’s involved in this sport by nature makes these people tougher if they really want to be serious about it.”

Mike Pierce is serious.

Brian Ebersole probably laughs a little, or maybe a lot, when the phrase “overnight sensation” gets attached to his name. Sure, the difference in attention on a mainstream level is night and day from where it was before he stunned Chris Lytle at UFC 127 in February and became one of the most visible rookies on the UFC roster. But nothing that took more than 11 years and 63 professional fights, in addition to countless more years and matches on the wrestling mat, could ever be called overnight.

So don’t get offended if Ebersole smirks at such a description of his sudden arrival on the UFC stage. If anything, the most surprised party of the bunch is the man himself, who when asked what his reaction would be if someone told him a few years back that in 2011 he would be coming off a win over Lytle and preparing for an August 6th bout against Dennis Hallman on the UFC 133 main card in Philadelphia, he simply says, “I would have probably partied a little bit more. I was too busy working myself to death to try to get here.”

Fate has funny ways of intervening though, and despite his years of toil in the game and a seven fight win streak compiled in his adopted country of Australia, he didn’t get his call to the big show until Carlos Condit got injured and Lytle needed a legit opponent in Sydney. Ebersole was legit, and he just happened to be living and training in Australia. Deal done. Who would have thought that was the way to get in the UFC? Not Ebersole.

“I figured I would fight for the UFC before I was done,” he said, “I just didn’t know what I was gonna have to do to get there, whether it would be diplomatic, be ignorant, pull a Chael Sonnen and talk s**t about everybody, I didn’t know was I was gonna have to do to get attention. I figured as long as I kept winning, I’d be all right. I’m in the gym two, three times a day, every day, so I was doing everything I could to do everything proper. I told them two years in a row that I was in Australia, ready to go to Sydney, and the way I got in was the way I got in. Now I’m just hoping to get some traction and stick.”

If he fights the way he did against Lytle, that shouldn’t be an issue. Unorthodox, quirky, relaxed, yet brutally effective, Ebersole fought as if he had been in the Octagon for years, and after walking away with a unanimous decision win and a Fight of the Night award, the fans embraced him as one of their favorites almost immediately. Was it the “hairow” he shaved into his chest?

“I think it’s the almost 70 fight thing and not being in the UFC,” said Ebersole. “I think a lot of people wondered why I never got a shot earlier, and once I did get a shot, they went ‘man, this guy’s gonna be fun to watch because he knows what he’s doing. He’s always gonna give a fairly tough fight.’ And from the looks of it in my first fight, I think a lot of people realized that I’m not afraid to take five seconds from the heat of battle and entertain and have a bit of a laugh before I step back into the fire.”

You would think that to be a risky strategy, especially in the UFC, where a loss or two can lead to an ouster from the organization. And after fighting for so long to get here, you almost couldn’t blame Ebersole if he wanted to play it safe and grind out a win over Lytle. But he didn’t.

Or did he?

“I was absolutely cautious,” he said. “That was a cautious fight from Brian Ebersole. I kept my distance from the dangerous Chris Lytle. Heck, I tried to wear headgear in the ring, that’s how cautious I was.”

He doesn’t even chuckle at first, but then can’t help himself before continuing.

“I think I can open up a lot more, but I think that’s the case for a lot of guys in the UFC. Some guys open up almost ignorant with their hands, but as a wrestling-based guy, there’s a lot more I can do wrestling wise to be entertaining and to try to gain positions and things like that or to even make the pace of the fight faster. That was a pretty slow paced fight for me.”

It’s almost hard to fathom another fighter quite like Ebersole, whose age (30) doesn’t seem to fit with his experience level. And while he jokes about it, he has certainly earned each year on his fighting calendar the hard way.

“Especially when I haven’t shaved, people definitely think I’m a bit older than I am,” he said. “I assume people think I’m nearing 40, but the truth is, my first three years of fighting, I had 36 fights. I averaged a fight a month, so the Midwest scene definitely allowed me to jump in and have a play a lot, and that came with both good and bad. The bad is that I saw the worst side of a lot of promotions, and the things that could go wrong with a promotion definitely did, and I took losses where I shouldn’t have even took the fight. Not that I physically couldn’t compete, but I probably wasn’t training right. When I first started I was just wrestling. I wasn’t fighting, so it really was my style versus whatever style they brought, and I didn’t have much violence in me and I didn’t have very many submissions.”

He toughed it out though, and those that survived that circuit learned plenty about themselves. Ebersole was no different, but then again, he already knew that he was tough. He can thank wrestling for that.

“I went to a college wrestling room where Matt Hughes was the assistant coach and got my ass beat,” said Ebersole, who wrestled at Eastern Illinois University, Hughes’ alma mater. “If that wasn’t the way to earn my scholarship and get my education, who knows if I would have pitched a fit or not. I just realized that I have to be here, so I’m gonna make the best of it.”

Ebersole didn’t graduate from EIU, but while he was there, he began to develop a style that would eventually become familiar to fight fans.

“When it came to wrestling, I was never the really, really strong guy that just stood in the middle of the mat and pushed people around,” he said. “I was always that guy that was kinda dancing on the outside looking for openings, and I kinda used that in and out game with level changes to open up my shots. So I’m definitely not the physically strongest guy; I don’t have that gymnast power where they can make themselves into a really small ball and they’re an immovable object. There are a few guys who are a bit like that. Matt Hughes and (Josh) Koscheck both come to mind where they can make themselves really small and just push in and you can’t do anything about it. But if I do that, I get walked over. So I need to use that timing mechanism, that element of surprise, and that’s very much integrated into my striking game as well. I’m not gonna go out there like Mike Tyson or a Matt Hughes type wrestler. I’m definitely gonna have to keep myself moving, and I’ll entertain myself and I hope I can entertain the fans with some things that they haven’t quite seen before.”

Not everyone is entertained by Ebersole though, and after his win over Lytle, UFC heavyweight Matt Mitrione had some words with his fellow Midwesterner.

“I need to have fun when I fight,” said Ebersole. “I told Matt Mitrione after he yelled at me at the UFC hotel after the fight about being disrespectful that I wasn’t trying to show anybody up or be disrespectful; that’s just the way I fight. It keeps me loose, and if I can keep myself entertained and happy, I keep on rhythm. I don’t see too many people that go to a dance club and have a crazy, serious look on their face, and that’s kinda how I feel – that’s me dancing, that’s my art. So I’m always gonna be fairly loose and playful, even if I’m getting hit or losing a fight by decision at the time. That’s how I keep my rhythm and myself going. When I tighten up and I look like I’m nervous or being reserved, there’s probably a reason for that; it’s probably because I’m worried about the guy or I felt something, whether it was power in his hands or the wrestling that he has that slowed me down.”

But as entertaining as a fighter can be, eventually, you have to put together enough wins where the big show will take a look at you. By the time Ebersole was two years into his pro career, he was just 11-6, and while he wanted to hit the UFC, he had no idea how to do it.

“I didn’t have a definition of what success was or a path set for me,” he said. “I was just doing it to do it. I didn’t know how to get into the UFC, I didn’t have a manager, I just did my own thing, and it was a way for me to compete. I had my wrestling career cut short due to an incident that got cleared up about nine months later, but I missed the whole wrestling season and that kept me from going back to the team. So I felt cheated out of part of my career, and I took blame as well knowing that I caused myself a bit of an issue. So I found a way to make up for that, and competing in MMA was that way.”

Eventually though, the losses began getting outnumbered by the wins in bigger and bigger numbers, and when he went out to California to train with the American Kickboxing Academy (AKA) in 2003, Ebersole didn’t just have a competitive outlet anymore; he has a career.

“I was drifting for a long time, and then I got the chance to move out to California, and I guess I had the delusions of grandeur and things like that, hoping for two and three thousand dollar paydays and maybe the UFC thing, and I went on faith and went and did it,” he said. “It didn’t all go smooth and I messed up in California a bit and didn’t take advantages of all the opportunities that I had, but it came good in the end and I had great training and some awesome experiences as far as fights go.”

Australia would be where he truly made his mark though, and his residence down under was the catalyst for his entrance into the UFC. So much for an overnight success, right? But Ebersole isn’t one to dwell on what could have beens. He doesn’t even resent seeing some fighters who had just a fraction of his experience get Octagon shots before him. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t watching everything that went on in the sport since The Ultimate Fighter helped launch the UFC into the mainstream in 2005.

“I don’t compare it (his story) with anybody else’s story,” said Ebersole. “But when I do look at other kids that have five, six, seven fights and it’s almost like they’re entitled to something, they think they’re owed by the sport. To put it in Aussie terms, that’s when I crack the s**t. That bothers me. They don’t know what people really had to do to get in the game and I hear fans and other people say, ‘well, Brock Lesnar only had two fights (in the UFC) before he got a title shot.’ Well, they’re taking a lot out of the fact that Brock Lesnar was one of the best high school and college wrestlers there was, and then he did the pro wrestling thing, which earned him a lot of fans, so then there’s the business side. You can’t put a value on something like that. But it’s a little bit different. I know that these wrestlers have had hundreds of matches and won dozens of tournaments, they put their time in. But the kids from the boxing or jiu-jitsu background that haven’t quite put it in like that, and they feel entitled, it’s a bit interesting.”

Few fighters coming into the sport these days will have stories like Ebersole’s. They will walk into a gym and learn mixed martial arts as a whole, and by the time they’re ready to turn pro, a few impressive wins on the local circuit will likely get them a fight with some sort of television exposure, and after a few more fights like that, they may get that UFC call that a lot of veterans waited close to a decade for. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as it marks a prosperous time for the fighters and the sport. But there’s something to be said for those fighters who came up the way Ebersole did, in an era where if you had talent and five fights, you were cleaning the spit buckets, not hawking your latest t-shirt.

“The guys that had the superstar attitude or that attitude of entitlement, they got that beaten out of them pretty quick back then,” he laughs. “Now you get guys with that attitude and they go to a gym and they get touched up in sparring and they don’t return. They’ll just find another gym and become the bully of that gym.”

Ebersole recalls his days at AKA.

“We sparred three times a week and wrestled five rounds after that,” he said. “It was probably my fault for being the 200-205 pound mark all the time as a middleweight, and I had to spar with the heavyweights sometimes and they don’t exactly tone it down on you. (Laughs) Especially if you’re competing with guys that big, if you’re actually hitting them and stinging them, you can’t complain when they whack you back, even if they’re bigger than you.”

Yet as crazy as these stories are, they made Brian Ebersole a fighter. This Saturday, he will fight in the United States for the first time since March of 2007, and he will do so as a UFC fighter. It’s been a long time coming, but it’s also been worth the wait.

“It’s gonna be a bit emotional because I have a lot of people coming out there,” he said. “I got three wrestling coaches from my youth coming out there, one of them’s gonna corner me, and I’ve got some family members and some friends coming up. I embarked on this journey a long time ago when I left college without graduating to go chase a career in this sport, so to be able to come back to the US in a big show like this gives me that level of success and it validates my career, not just to me, but more so to my family and friends that thought I was crazy for going out and fighting every month.”