Chael P. Sonnen returned to mixed martial arts knowing that as long as he made that walk to the cage, everything would sort itself out.
Sonnen has described this march like some kind of a ritual, and it was the one thing he needed to do above all other…
Chael P. Sonnen returned to mixed martial arts knowing that as long as he made that walk to the cage, everything would sort itself out.
Sonnen has described this march like some kind of a ritual, and it was the one thing he needed to do above all others after yet another doping fiasco prompted the former UFC star into a hasty retirement/hiatus in 2014.
“I’ve never game-planned,” Sonnen said in the buildup to his main event fight Jan. 21 at Bellator 170, which ended with a quick first-round submission loss to Tito Ortiz. “I’ve never watched the other guy and thought, ‘Well he does this, I’ll do that.’ I focus on myself completely. I show up ready to fight, and that’s it. My skills are my skills. Sometimes it’s been enough, and sometimes it hasn’t. But you make that walk and you find out.”
Not long ago, when he reigned as the sport’s most colorful personality, this idea was a cornerstone of Sonnen’s career, and it remains true today.
Facing a bigger and historically better opponent while apparently being clean (or, as he said, “pretty much” clean) of the banned substances that aided and defined his memorable career? That produced a tough set of circumstances for Sonnen, who began a six-bout deal with Bellator by floundering so badly that some of the smartest people in MMA, like his friend and training partner Vinny Magalhaes, an ADCC heavyweight champion, almost immediately questioned the validity of what they witnessed.
After a long stint away from the cage, there was reason to believe that as he stepped back into competition, Sonnen would be a noticeably diminished fighter from the one who navigated the wild days of challenging the world’s best fighters while on a cocktail of performance-enhancing substances.
A couple of days before returning to challenge the retiring Ortiz in the main event of what turned out to be a near sell-out night of mixed martial arts at The Forum in Inglewood, California, Sonnen joined The Huntington Beach Bad Boy on the dais at a charged press conference to hype the first card of the year for the Viacom-owned and Spike TV-aired fight promotion.
They traded shots, some of them cheap, but looking back on it there was some earnest analysis mixed with the heated banter. Inside a conference room at the brand new Viacom offices in Hollywood, California, Ortiz laid out how The American Gangster had been set up to get steamrolled.
“You’re a good comedian, man, a good actor,” Ortiz told Sonnen, who for the first time in a decade fought in a cage that wasn’t eight-sided. “That’s about it. I’m a fighter. You’re an actor. You’re on the Apprentice because of me. You’re the ‘Bad Guy’ because of me. You try to talk because of me. You’ve never won a world title.
“Who was the last champion you ever beat? Who was the last legend you ever beat? You call yourself a legend? What have you done legendary besides talk? Buddy, on Saturday night, those little blue eyes will be sparkling even more, man. Just wait and watch. You dug your grave, man.”
Sonnen did his best to spin his own analysis afterward on SportsCenterand at the post-event press conference, which he admitted felt terrible to attend but, like making the walk, was part of his code. He’ll say whatever he wants before a fight and to his credit face the music afterward if he has to.
After Ortiz squeezed his head and made him tap at 2:03 of the opening round, Sonnen fielded many questions about the finish. There wasn’t anything funky about it except that it seemed Sonnen wasn’t overly interested in fighting through what must have been terrible discomfort. He appeared listless while submitting to a hold that referee John McCarthy later indicated never appeared to endanger him.
“It felt so easy to get that position,” Ortiz said. “As soon as I see that palm hit the mat, boom, I got the choke. I’m super strong, and if I can get that choke, it doesn’t have to be under the chin. I can get it because I can crush. I just squeezed.”
All the fire Sonnen threw Ortiz’s way came back to bite him as a pissed-off former UFC light heavyweight champion clamped down on a pure power wrench of a headlock that made the ex-middleweight contender want out pronto. The defendable nature of the submission contributed to unsubstantiated claims of a “fix” or “work” that popped up on social media before the crowd had a chance to exit The Forum.
In September, after announcing his new agreement with Bellator, Sonnen told the press: “You either want to fight or you don’t, and one of my main motivations for coming back is pure anger.”
For this reason and others, Sonnen’s quick opening-round defeat, where he displayed little initiative or emotion, should be considered a disaster. Not that he saw it that way.
“I’ve been out for three years, and this was a long-term play,” Sonnen said to the press. “For me, it’s not a sprint. It’s a marathon. I need to get those minutes in, and I thought I did it in the practice room, and I had some deer-in-the-headlights out there. Tito threw a right hand right down the middle right off the bat.
“It was helpful. I hate to get stuck in those, and I hate to lose a competition, but I’ve got to get some minutes in. After three years, it’s just the way that it goes. I’ll be in the practice room on Monday, and we’ll just use it to get better.”
By Tuesday, he found another silver lining to smile about. Sonnen and “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” are expected to draw upwards of 2 million viewers to Spike TV when the final ratings are tallied, a spokesperson for the network told Bleacher Report, which represents a strong night for Bellator that suggests with a foil there’s promotional marrow left in his bones. At least there was pre-Ortiz.
With Sonnen’s 40th birthday coming up in April, Bellator will continue to bank that his talk-and-walk combination is appealing enough to draw headlines. Bellator has a match lined up for Sonnen with the man he has repeatedly stated drew him to the promotion to begin with, Wanderlei Silva. Despite how poorly Sonnen performed against Ortiz, Bellator appears eager to sell attractions like the Bellator 170 contest and plans to capitalize on the hype the UFC created before both fighters unceremoniously left the organization in 2013 after doping issues.
Sonnen vs. Silva is good on the marquee. And it’s good on a dais. It’s also a good walk for a guy who needs to pick himself up off the dirt after being booted from the Celebrity Apprentice Monday for—wait for it—cheating.
Let it be said that no one tries harder in more ways than Sonnen does.
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — If Bellator MMA is destined to develop into a legitimate alternative to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, 2017 could well be the year that perceptions shift in that direction.
That is the hope and intention of fightmonger Sc…
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — If Bellator MMA is destined to develop into a legitimate alternative to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, 2017 could well be the year that perceptions shift in that direction.
That is the hope and intention of fightmonger Scott Coker, who in his capacity as the president of Bellator MMA is operating with the full blessing of one of the largest media conglomerates in the world to make that happen. Aiming to sign, develop and promote fighters who will make combat sports fans eager to watch Bellator-branded fights on televisions and in arenas around the world, Coker sat alongside Spike executive John Slusser and between veteran stars Tito Ortiz and Chael Sonnen during a tension-filled press conference Thursday at the nearly completed Viacom headquarters in Los Angeles.
Coker said: “Tito is a legend. He’s been around a long time. This is his last fight, so this is really important to him. I can tell. He’s really emotional about this one. Chael, like if he was in this room right now and you weren’t here, we’d be talking like boys and then once the cameras come on, he becomes this supervillain. I think they’ve both come to the table in a big way to help promote this fight.”
As they traded barbs Thursday, Ortiz seemed to dwell in the anger Sonnen had inspired. Ortiz said throughout his 20 years as a professional mixed martial artist, emotion was the thing that fueled him.
Sonnen is far less visceral a competitor as someone who is playing a part, really, who butted up against the ugly truth of banned substances and who, because of a suspension, hasn’t fought in more than three years. But if there’s any rust to his game, it didn’t show in his ability to spin a yarn or unfurl a cheap shot against the mother of Ortiz’s twin boys.
As construction crews worked on putting the finishing touches on a building that will house the Bellator MMA staff under the same roof as other Viacom properties, Ortiz and Sonnen hurled insults and one-liners at each other, which is precisely what Coker imagined would happen when he convinced Spike executives to bring the light heavyweight headliner for Bellator 170 to the Forum in Inglewood, California, on Saturday.
“This is the perfect space,” Coker told Bleacher Report after Ortiz and Sonnen lobbed verbal bombs prior to delivering real ones Saturday night. “This the first time Bellator has been there, and we thought let’s really go for it. And we are. We’re swinging for the fences, hoping for great results.”
For Coker’s purposes, the construction imagery makes sense.
Bellator 170 heralds what should be a memorable start to a new campaign for a promotion that spent most of last year laying down the foundation of a sustained and substantial advancement. Now, Coker said, is the time for that work to pay off at home and abroad.
Ortiz and Sonnen moved to Bellator from the UFC, which is indicative of the kinds of maneuvers Coker is serious about making as free agency for mixed martial artists becomes more prevalent.
UFC light heavyweight contender Ryan Bader will receive an offer from Bellator next week, Coker said.
“When you get a guy ranked in the top five, I think you have to take a good look at him,” Coker remarked about Bader. “We’re going to go after every free agent that we can. That’s coming from the top down. We’re going to buy every free agent that we want. There’s nobody that’s off the list.”
In doing so, Bellator hopes to continue to capitalize off names who may have been built up in the UFC, such as last year’s signing of Rory MacDonald, who is likely to make his debut on Spike around June.
That’s been the case with Ortiz and Sonnen, who have driven an equal amount of press coverage ahead of their match at the Forum.
Coker’s philosophy as a fight promoter is well-known, and an event pitting the likes of a 41-year-old Ortiz and a 38-year-old Sonnen fits in his worldview that prioritizes amusement over sport and fun above all else.
For Coker, there’s much more sense in promoting a matchup between known veterans who most observers would agree are well past their best days than exhibiting the kind of contest the UFC did last Sunday in Phoenix when BJ Penn went down hard against young gun Yair Rodriguez.
“We would never do that,” said Coker, who called bouts like that a mistake. “I don’t think that 25-year-olds should be fighting 40-year-olds. It doesn’t mean that they can’t compete, but to me why do that? You may as well not fight them because we all knew the outcome of that fight. The odds were really stacked against him.
“That’s not really a fair fight. These guys have already fought all those guys. They’ve earned their legacy. If they want to continue to fight, you just can’t put them in there with young guys. It’s just not right.”
This is a formula Coker will stick to as he leads Viacom’s only sports property—a uniquely international business that plays well with the multinational media corporation’s strengths.
Looking ahead, Bellator will promote up to nine events outside the U.S. in 2017. Coker has pegged cards in Budapest, Hungary, and Torino, Italy, for April. Bellator is expected to return to London in mid-May. A jaunt to South America (either Argentina or Brazil) and a big show in Rome are also in the offing, along with a potential date in Japan. Leveraging international television properties controlled by Viacom has driven these excursions, and Coker expects them to grow in importance.
“It’s an international company,” he said, “and I’m really feeling the international presence.”
The largest consumer of MMA, among many other things, continues to be the U.S., and Coker still sees tremendous opportunity for Bellator to expand its brand of fighting this year and beyond.
“There’s a lot of MMA here, no doubt, but I think we can make fights like Ortiz vs. Sonnen, like the Fedor fight, like the Quinton Jackson fight,” he said. “We can make it a little bit more special that people tune in.”
LONG BEACH, Calif. — The father, a frank storyteller, won’t stop talking.
It’s as if Antonio McKee knows his words, shaped by a life of hard truths, will cling to anyone who listens. And in a way this is what he wants. Hearing McKee recount his u…
LONG BEACH, Calif. — The father, a frank storyteller, won’t stop talking.
It’s as if Antonio McKee knows his words, shaped by a life of hard truths, will cling to anyone who listens. And in a way this is what he wants. Hearing McKee recount his upbringing is stunning. True, too, the ease with which he shares memories of traumatic events.
I’m supposed to be reporting on McKee’s 21-year-old son, A.J., a fighting prodigy who shows all the signs of becoming a great mixed martial artist. It’s quite clear, however, that you can’t get to know A.J. without first attempting to understand his father.
“My dad is a realist,” A.J. told Bleacher Report. “Regardless of whether people like what he’s saying or not, it’s the truth. And the truth hurts.”
Antonio loves taking history, including his own, and confronting people with it. Perhaps that explains his ability to convey unimaginable acts as cold fact. There’s something appealing to him about treating the truth (as he knows it) as a blunt-force instrument. He deciphers people’s mannerisms and facial expressions while they squirm under the weight of his words, and it’s the underlying discomfort that amuses him.
“When I was growing up, that’s how I had to survive because I was dealing with criminals,” Antonio said. “I was dealing with drug addicts. I was dealing with gangsters, and I was also dealing with police officers. All of this was slammed on me at once, so I just developed that as a technique. I read body movement, language, and I love looking people in their eyes to see what kind of personality they are.”
Tales and tangents and world views pour from him as he sits at a desk in the apartment he shares with A.J., his teenage daughter and pregnant girlfriend.
Dayton, Ohio. Nashville, Tennessee. Long Beach, California.
These are the locations of his life, torment and tenacity.
Antonio McKee copes with the thought that at the age of 12 his mother was raped by his 19-year-old father. She didn’t tell him that. Neither did his dad. But someone did, and that’s what he believes.
He detailed the death of his grandfather by the hand of his father. And then, a few weeks later in 1971, the death of his father’s wife (not his mother) following an accidental shooting at a bar during a domestic incident. She held his father’s gun, angry because she thought he was cheating on her. He grabbed it. It went off, and she was shot in the head.
Then there’s the sexual molestation he suffered as a young child by his mother’s best friend, whom he claimed smothered him with a pillow to invoke arousal. Antonio McKee expresses this freely; he uses it as a bridge to discuss the brutality of white slave owners in the American South.
This experience, he said, helped him to empathize with the pain of others. Life. How he coped. What he learned. In time, the intensity of the recollections normalized because of the way he chose to treat them.
Pain expressed like it drips off the page of a Quentin Tarantino script. Shocking, violent, yet somehow detached from the awful reality of the thing.
As he discussed the moments that determined what kind of man he became, my thoughts kept turning to the future.
After an hour, I felt shell-shocked walking into their kitchen for a glass of water; Antonio, meanwhile, was ready to return to the gym for an evening conditioning session with A.J., who had a fight lined up in five weeks, Dec. 2, against an opponent who was supposed to test him.
Earlier in the day, following a sparring session, A.J. showed me around Long Beach. Memories lingered on corners and in alleys. Like his dad/best friend/trainer/adviser/mentor, he shared stories of hardships and triumphs.
“I want people to see me as that guy who’s been through some things that you don’t let affect you,” said A.J., who signed with BellatorMMA early last year after the promotion was offered his services prior to his first professional bout. “You have a choice at the end of the day. Everyone has a choice to do right and do wrong. I grew up with a lot of friends that were doing wrong, and I always tried to steer the other way and get them to go the other way. Sometimes it would work, and sometimes it wouldn’t.”
The hope of every decent parent is to provide a better life for their children than they had for themselves, and there’s no question that Antonio has done this for his son.
“There’s nobody looking out for kids that’s like this,” Antonio said. “He has ADHD. … Oh, give him some Ritalin, and he’s going to be OK. I said I won’t medicate him. What I did was I had him taught. I pulled him out of school and had him taught five subjects within the hour. He jumped up two grade levels in one semester.”
Antonio paid a teacher $26,000 to work with is son four months out of the year.
Hopping between subjects every 10 minutes to keep things fresh—this is how Antonio also learned to instruct his son in the gym. It wasn’t enough to wrestle, or strike, or focus on one particular move at a time. He had to approach it from all sides. Making training multilayered made it easier to digest.
“What I realized is guys like me and my kids have to stay busy and entertained,” Antonio said. “That’s when I really looked to train him right, left, right, left. I never let anyone know because no one would believe me. They’re not going to believe me until he’s undefeated and not getting touched.”
Antonio and I first chatted about doing a profile on his son in August, the night A.J. won his fifth fight as a pro 32 seconds into Round 2. It marked the first time in his career that an opponent had made it past the five-minute mark.
Thus far, A.J.’s trajectory as a fighter appears to be nothing less than special. Groomed by his dad and built for a purpose he is eager to fulfill. Home-schooled in the ways of ass-kicking, raised around fighters. A.J. will tell anyone who listens that he is in a rush to prove he’s the best mixed martial artist in the world. The best ever. A young GOAT. Smart, handsome and charismatic, he possesses everything, including a veteran’s bag of tricks.
A.J.’s promoter, Bellator President Scott Coker, said the kid is “very unorthodox. He punches and kicks from all different angles. He does the craziest stuff in the cage. That’s what makes him difficult to train for.
“I think that he really enjoys the combat aspect of it. Here’s a kid, a young kid who grew up in a fighting household. His father being a wrestler and a very successful mixed martial artist. And to be honest I think he has a lot more tools than his dad. He’s had great success. He is chomping at the bit. He is ready to go.”
Coker matched A.J. with Emmanuel Sanchez, a rugged featherweight, for a bout that was supposed to take place Dec. 2 in Oklahoma. Yet for the second consecutive fight, A.J.’s opponent backed out. Bellator officials said Sanchez strained multiple muscles in his back, but Antonio claimed that was bogus. Sanchez was scared, Antonio said, and wormed his way out because knew what was in store for him.
Opponents don’t mean much yet to A.J.’s dad. Until the money is right, Antonio is content to let A.J. mature and battle foes with similar records. So in place of Sanchez stood the strapping Ray Wood. The contest turned out to be tougher than the McKee clan expected, lasting three full rounds. During an impressive opening period Wood connected with several hard shots that tested A.J.’s chin, rocking him at least once. It was the kind of bout that any young fighter needs as they progress up the ladder.
“He’s a tough kid that will fight till the end, and I know that runs in his family blood,” Antonio said of his son. “Now he realized some issues that he has to fix before he’s a legit champ, but we are on the right path.”
This is a track the boy has followed since the age of three, which is one of the reasons A.J. calls the cage his “playpen.”
“I wanted to be a fighter since I can remember,” A.J. said. “I was like, Dad, you let me fight or I’m fighting in the streets. It was a choice.”
A.J.’s fighting style is fluid. The lanky, athletic featherweight wrestles and strikes and mixes technique in smooth and dangerous ways. Antonio, trainer to several top-echelon fighters including Quinton Jackson and Emanuel Newton, knows what he has in his son. Unlike A.J., Antonio was a grinder. He grounded opponents to boos from the crowd and wasn’t regarded as a hot commodity among promoters or fans. Now 46 years old, Antonio hasn’t fought since 2014. If he never steps foot in a cage again, he’ll retire with a 29-6-2 record.
“There’s a lot of I’ve seen in his career that was holding him back and holding him down,” A.J. said of his father. “He’s already walked this path. Of course, he’s not going to tell me to do anything he wouldn’t do himself or redo the right way himself. When it comes to the fight game, I don’t think anyone knows it better than him.”
Antonio got a relatively late start in MMA and never could bring himself to play the political game that is sometimes required for success. He fought once in the UFC, which released him following a split-decision loss to Jacob Volkmann in 2011. His brief time around the UFC was uncomfortable, and he likely didn’t help himself by telling executives what he thought of them.
Hint: not much, and the truth (as he knows it) hurts.
“That’s why his style is the way it is,” Antonio said of his son. “I can take credit for some of it, but you know I just don’t want him to suffer like I’ve seen other fighters suffer. There’s a lot of damage done to these fighters that you guys don’t see. There’s a lot of guys on steroids shooting up stuff. We’re doing everything right. If this is truly what he wants, I want him to be the best that he can be.”
Antonio designed A.J.’s exciting fighting style to be what his wasn’t. So far that has panned out, yet despite his son’s ability, talent and entertainment factor there’s the lingering concern that it can all fall apart in an instant.
Currently, Antonio’s biggest worry regarding A.J. revolves around his kid enjoying pot too much. Antonio repeatedly tells A.J. that marijuana can ruin a fighter’s reflexes and mess with timing, especially early in a career when rhythm and movement need to be the bedrock of success. Antonio said he’s never smoked it and never will.
The father remains leery of what lurks in dark corners. He keeps a house full of knives and guns just in case.
“I used to always feel something was going to happen, and I gotta be ready,” Antonio said. “I grew up and watched people die left and right. Death was outside.”
If A.J. can steer clear of distractions—drugs, women and topics surrounding race, which Antonio believes would only prevent mainstream audiences from buying into his son, a mixed child with a mother of Lebanese and Russian descent—the father is convinced that the son will rank among the best fighters in the sport.
A.J. has promised his dad he will stay on track. He’s so young, though—only three years removed from graduating Long Beach Polytechnic High School—that expecting him to live up to that hardly seems realistic, especially since money and notoriety are already a part of his life.
“When he’s done, I want him to walk away and have income coming in that gives him financial freedom,” Antonio said. “That’s it. I don’t care about anything else other than being a good person and a responsible man. Other than that, I just want him to be successful where I wasn’t successful.”
The McKees hoped the storyline of a father-son combo fighting on the same card would entice Bellator to promote both of them on Jan. 21 at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif. Coker said he was open to the possibility, but A.J. injured his left hand during the victory over Wood and won’t be able to make the date. They’ll have to wait.
A third-generation fighter—some parts his granddad (Golden Gloves boxer), some parts his dad (street fighter and wrestler) and some parts, well, the natural—A.J. is more measured than his father. More sympathetic. Smoother.
Antonio chimed in to make a point. He has conjured greatness for his son. But he has also dreamed about his demise, a mangled corpse in the charred remains of a car wreck. If A.J. had his way, he would take part in a second career as a rally car driver. It’s a vision that haunts Antonio, who knows the fast lane is where A.J. strives to be—like many young men, reckless is where he ends up when he outpaces the comfort zone.
A.J. has totaled four cars, including his dad’s dream machine, though the young fighter is quick to note that two weren’t his fault. Nonetheless, insurance rates skyrocketed, and he hasn’t driven much lately.
This, again, is the McKee Law of Attraction. Karma. Physics. However Antonio feels like framing it, this is life rebounding, energy repurposed.
“When I was little, I used to break into cars and steal radios,” Antonio said. “I tagged a couple of cars. So when those cars got destroyed and my son was OK, I was like, you know what, this is what you did when you were little, and this is the payback.
“I realize when I lose control, it’s dangerous. That’s why I do what I do to him. He has to be able to control that. The only time he loses control is when he’s in that ring. But he has to be able to hear keywords to come back. That’s when I tell him we have our own code of talking, and I realize he’s just like me. He can do whatever he wants. It’s in his blood.”
A.J. (and his sister and the baby on the way) could also be seen as energy and karma and physics. For Antonio, they are purpose. The purpose. He is the father he always hoped would be there for him.
“We’ve always been friends, and I’ve also been dad,” Antonio said. “I don’t know any other way. I’ve seen other fathers. They push their kid too far. The parent that does stuff like that never did it. They never accomplished anything like that in life, so they’re trying to live a lot through their children. He’s going to do things I wished I could’ve done if I had a dad. I told him I’m kind of jealous.
“I got something out of life that I didn’t think I’d ever get, and that’s my offspring doing the right thing. I’m good with that.”
Max Holloway is 25 years old.
Before we begin to understand what he accomplished in the main event of UFC 206 in Toronto, let that sink in.
For a man nicknamed “Blessed,” it seemed Holloway would need a miracle to make a mark in the UFC whe…
Max Holloway is 25 years old.
Before we begin to understand what he accomplished in the main event of UFC 206 in Toronto, let that sink in.
For a man nicknamed “Blessed,” it seemed Holloway would need a miracle to make a mark in the UFC when he showed up inside the Octagon in 2012. Four years later, there’s no question Holloway’s third-round stoppage of Anthony Pettis to capture an interim featherweight belt ranks as the biggest achievement during his UFC tenure. The thing is, snagging a title was not the most important act the once-scrawny prospect managed to pull off Saturday night.
Holloway—now a long, lean, tested competitor and the only featherweight to take Conor McGregor the distance—inspired hope.
When the UFC announced McGregor would no longer hold the 145-pound title and reinstated the man he defeated, Jose Aldo, as champion, the whole division felt phony. Worse yet, when the promotion announced Holloway’s fight with Pettis would cap UFC 206 as yet another interim title bout, the division itself seemed in danger of turning into a farce. A belt inside a belt inside a belt, this was a bad dream. An Interimception.
Consider that Aldo had been designated as interim champion while McGregor galavanted at 170 and 155. So how could Aldo be taken seriously as the undisputed “champion” after being knocked out in 13 seconds by McGregor? Dominating Frankie Edgar—again—was no small task at UFC 200, but that didn’t make it any easier to forget what McGregor did to the dangerous Brazilian.
In a world that viewed Aldo, arguably the greatest 145-pound fighter of all time, as an also-ran—an unfair view, but sometimes the consensus can be unfair—how could Holloway or Pettis deserve to hold a UFC belt alongside a champion who wasn’t really seen as one himself?
All of this was unhealthy for a weight class that 12 months ago was arguably the UFC’s most enthralling.
Then Holloway pulled off his 10th straight win, and here we are again encouraged that a talented band of fighters won’t be relegated to wandering aimlessly amidst the rubble created by McGregor and the UFC.
A chance to build, to flourish, and Holloway is the proof.
“It’s been a hell of a ride and it’s just getting started,” Holloway said at the post-fight press conference.
Saturday night represented the Hawaiian’s 16th appearance as a 145-pound UFC fighter. This is inspiring in its own right, of course. The maturation of an athlete. The culmination of hard work and effort and determination. All the things one would hope to see from someone striving to be the best were on display while he handled Pettis with relative ease.
Aided by the fact that on his first punch of the fight Pettis broke his right hand, Holloway took control from the outset. The pair played a game of distance and timing in the opening frame. Holloway found an effective range as the period closed, and Pettis returned to his stool with the area around his right eye bloodied and swollen.
Holloway, a high-output fighter, was judicious against Pettis. He scored with jabs and counter rights, including one that put Pettis on the canvas even though it didn’t really sting him.
After two rounds, all three judges (Doug Crosby, Derek Cleary and Eric Colon) scored it for Holloway, 20-18.
Action picked up in the third. Pettis attempted to create offense with his legs, which he famously used to deliver the “Showtime” kick against Benson Henderson while winning the WEC lightweight championship on Dec. 16, 2010. Six years later, the spectacular Pettis, the fighter who was featured on Wheaties boxes in supermarkets across America, had failed to make weight for the match with Holloway.
Stepping on the scale at 148 pounds, it was obvious Pettis is no featherweight, which he admitted afterward.As a result, only Holloway was eligible to win the interim title. That meant the best Pettis could do was muck things up with a win. Holloway had to handle business, or the stature of the featherweights would have fallen further than anyone could have imagined.
As soon as a moment presented itself, Holloway made sure to close the show. Holloway (17-3) executed a beautiful trip takedown before disengaging from side-control to stand in front of Pettis again. He followed with a spinning back-kick and punches to Pettis’ body and head. A right hand to the jaw stunned Pettis (19-6) along the fence, and Holloway swung looping shots that prompted referee Yves Lavigne to intervene.
“I finished a guy that never got finished,” Holloway said. “He opened the door I just had to push him through.”
Following in the footsteps of Hawaiian legend BJ Penn, Holloway, fighting out of Waianae, Hawaii, wrapped himself in the flag of his home state as he celebrated in the Octagon.
Holloway said, while he welcomed a rematch with McGregor, he wasn’t begging for it and would be content defending his belt—his “golden ticket”—for as long as he needed. He also said his future could dictate a trip to the lightweight division as he continues to grow into his frame.
“This is the ‘Blessed’ show now,” Holloway said. “I’m taking over.”
Holloway first called for a unification fight against Aldo in Brooklyn on February 11, then said he hoped he wouldn’t have to fight so soon while lobbying the UFC to promote him at the 50,000-seat Aloha Stadium in Honolulu.
“I asked you guys earlier in the week about Jose Waldo,” Holloway bellowed to Joe Rogan in the cage after UFC President Dana White wrapped the interim title around his waist. “Where is Jose Waldo?”
As disappointed as Aldo was that a rematch with Irish icon McGregor seems dead at 145, that’s how the state of the featherweights felt heading into UFC 206. Now there is a sense that maybe Aldo, with a challenger of Holloway’s caliber waiting in the wings, can find the inspiration to be his best and return to the UFC.
On the strength of his victory, Holloway did more than make good on his potential. He provided MMA fans a reason to be optimistic about the future of the featherweight division in a post-McGregor world.
Company man or union man? The way Conor McGregor makes it sound he might be a bit of both.
The only fighter in UFC history to reign as champion of two weight divisions at the same time seems intent on tilting the financial arrangement between himself a…
Company man or union man? The way ConorMcGregor makes it sound he might be a bit of both.
The only fighter in UFC history to reign as champion of two weight divisions at the same time seems intent on tilting the financial arrangement between himself and MMA‘s premier promotion even further in his favor.
Following his perfect stoppage of Eddie Alvarez during a record-setting Saturday night at Madison Square Garden—the UFC pulled a $17.7 million gate and is on track to surpass its previous high of 1.65 million pay-per-view buys—the Irishman spoke freely as he always has about the money he makes (and intends to make) in ways few mixed martial artists ever have.
“Where’s my equity?” McGregor asked without the slightest hesitation. “If I’m the one that’s bringing this they’ve got to come talk to me now. That’s all I know. I’ve got both belts. A chunk of money. A family on the way. You want me to stick around? You want me to keep doing what I’m doing, let’s talk. But I want ownership now. I want equal share. I want what I deserve. What I’ve earned.”
Over the last two years the UFC has become increasingly reliant on McGregor to deliver revenue, and while he made a small fortune in that time his stature has “outworn the previous contract,” he said.
So what’s to stop him from demanding a larger piece of the pay-per-view pie? Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., for instance, netted 60 percent of the pay-per-view receipts when he fought Manny Pacquiao on May 2, 2015. That type of split would be unheard of in the UFC, but McGregor fancies himself the person to get it done.
Fighters who slammed McGregor in the past for his brashness and the UFC’s receptiveness to it may want to reconsider. Even if McGregor’s motives are purely personal, any movement towards increasing the share of revenue he receives from UFC would break new ground.
The UFC is a place where marketability plus individual glory tend to yield the big bucks. It’s a cut-throat competitive environment that thus far has made collective bargaining little more than a dream. Yet McGregor has reached the point that his upward mobility seems like a tide-rising event, carrying the Irishman and potentially every other fighter on he roster with him.
In July, the UFC was sold to Hollywood powerhouse agency WME-IMG for $4.2 billion. The news sent shockwaves through the sport and awoke many fighters to the reality that what they were getting back wasn’t worth nearly enough for what they were giving up.
“Now it’s time for the reals,” McGregor said. “I know I’m the best paid already, but when I’m looking at what they’re taking in—that [prospectus] that Lorenzo and the team compiled to show the new owners—that’s like the gospel right there. That’s proof of what I bring. So you want me to be around? To stick around and help service that debt and continue to push the company bring me on board for real? Not just as this. I need to be set for life with this. If you want me to be truly in on this then I need to be all-in on this, proper. As an owner. An equity stake in the company. That’s what I’m looking for.”
This is the double-edged sword that’s inched closer to the necks of UFC officials as they relied on McGregor to turn out audiences in droves. WME-IMG needs McGregor to show up at least three times next year (he fought in the Octagon four times the last 11 months) if it has any chance of surpassing the $609 million in revenue the UFC made in 2015.
But will they go so far as to provide a piece of the company in exchange?
McGregor truly knows his value, and he sees no reason to play coy when WME-IMG is angling for hundreds of millions of dollars in earn-outs in 2017.
“I’m not in no hurry no more,” McGregor said. “There always many options after these events. Options are always a good thing. But I’m running it for real now. They’ve got to come talk to me.”
WME-IMG may want to get on that.
MMAJunkie.com reported in October on a 58-page document it obtained that detailed how the new owners of the UFC were courting investors on buying into the company. The previous month, 23 celebrities tied to WME-IMG were revealed as partial owners of the UFC for a minimum of $250,000 each.
“Conan O’Brien owns the UFC nowadays so where’s my share?” McGregor posited.
Seventy-nine percent of the revenue created by the UFC in 2015 was from content, according to the MMAJunkie report, which includes all revenue from UFC broadcasts including pay-per-view and media rights. McGregor-headlined events accounted for two million pay-per-view buys in 2015. He has far surpassed that number this year, hitting 3.25 million prior to UFC 205, which Dana White said would establish a new pay-per-view buy rate for the company.
“For a 28-year-old on top of the game, all the belts, all the money, all the numbers in a game like this, there’s not a f—ing thing wrong with me,” McGregor said. “I can keep going all day, but I’m aware of my worth. And now I’ve got a family. Now I’ve got a kid on the way. I’m coming for mine now.”
McGregor claimed to be fit and ready to fight after his second-round finish of Alvarez to claim the UFC lightweight title, but until his demands are met he’s open to sitting out at least until the birth of his first child next spring.
Will McGregor and the UFC play hardball? McGregor seems willing to step away from the Octagon until an arrangement can be found that suits him.
While outside parties attempt to unionize UFC fighters, it may be the case that a one-man union holds the cards.
ST. LOUIS — Tyron Woodley was all of eight weeks old when his mother delivered him to the blind woman sitting at the back of the church.
“Bring me that boy,” came the command. So it was done.
The trio were the last people to leave on a mid-…
ST. LOUIS — Tyron Woodley was all of eight weeks old when his mother delivered him to the blind woman sitting at the back of the church.
“Bring me that boy,” came the command. So it was done.
The trio were the last people to leave on a mid-June day in 1982, and Deborah Woodley, as God-fearing a woman as they come, did as her aunt requested. Tyron was then hoisted above his great-aunt’s head.
“God, give him the strength of Samson and the wisdom of Solomon,” she said. “That’s a prophesy. I’m prophesying over him.”
As Deborah processed it, the implications were clear: Well before the current UFC welterweight champion selected “The Chosen One” as his fighting nickname, Tyron had already been anointed as such.
“I knew he was,” Deborah told Bleacher Report last week.
Around Tyron’s first birthday, he offered a preview of his great-aunt’s visions, lifting 10-pound dumbbells to the amazement of his mother—so much so that 33 years later, she recounted the scene to a large crowd that had congregated to celebrate her son.
There were other signs. When Deborah took Tyron to the pediatrician, she would get scolded because her infant boy had too much muscle and not enough fat on his frame.
“She didn’t think I was giving him enough milk,” Deborah said. “And I was. I was breastfeeding.”
Several years later, one of Deborah’s friends brought her son over for a visit. He practiced karate and had outgrown his uniform, so it was handed down to Tyron. He wore it while kicking a hole into the concrete of their basement wall.
Tyron was indeed a physical specimen, yet this wasn’t going to be the only type of strength he needed to exhibit in life. Prophesy alone wouldn’t determine his fate, not in the face of life’s circumstances, which could have easily derailed him.
Built on a frame of determination, faith and smarts, Woodley, one of 13 kids raised in a modest four-bedroom home in Ferguson, Missouri, doesn’t come off like a long shot even if in many ways he is.
After earning a degree in agricultural economics from the University of Missouri, where he captained the wrestling team for three years and helped propel a flailing program into one that commands respect, Deborah thought her son was crazy to choose a life of fighting. The truth is, it chose him. When he told her he thought he could excel, that there was a real future for him in this world, she did what she always had: supported him in every way imaginable.
“I’ve always told my children, aim beyond the moon,” Deborah said. “If you fall, you’ll fall on top of it.”
The results of Woodley’s ordained gifts combined with his mother’s work ethic produced his most recent spectacle this July. The 34-year-old mass of fast-twitch muscle closed the distance on Robbie Lawler and starched the dominant UFC champion with a devastating right hand. It was a stunning outcome, not for the result but rather the explosive thrust that precipitated it. And even this was not shocking because Woodley (16-3) is well-known to be capable of such things; it’s just that the sight of them still makes jaws drop.
On Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in the co-main event of the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s eagerly anticipated return to New York following a 19-year ban in the state, Woodley has his next opportunity to shoot for the moon. Entering the Octagon against dynamic challenger Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson (13-1), the betting odds place Woodley as the dark horse for the fifth time in six fights, per Odds Shark. He has repeatedly found satisfaction in proving them wrong and said this time will be no different.
“I’ve always felt like the underdog,” Woodley said.
James Knowles III was the senior leader of the McCluer High School wrestling team when Tyron Woodley showed up intent on doing something that hadn’t been done in a quarter-century.
When Woodley was in the seventh grade, he was told there was no way he could win a state wrestling title at McCluer. The comment came from a member of the McCluer team that last took a state crown in 1968.
“You know I’m about to wrestle there?” a confused Woodley responded.
He took the moment as a personal slight and never forgot. It fed him.
Wrestling in the inner city is generally an iffy proposition. It’s an easy sport for school districts not to fund, and the season runs the same time of the year as basketball. Everyone wants to be like LeBron James. The thing about wrestling, it’s not a game. Pickup wrestling isn’t really a thing. In truth, it’s more of a martial art, and competitive grappling isn’t for most people. There’s no showing up half-cocked. Participants really have to want to do it, like deep-down desire.
And then there are the uniforms. The singlet. One of Woodley’s trainers, retired fighter Din Thomas, gave up wrestling in his youth because he couldn’t bring himself to put on the tight-fitting one-piece.
“We had to work our butts off to be able to afford new uniforms and pay for camps,” Knowles said. “A lot of other school districts’ parents shell out money to send their kids off to camps. To high-priced clinics so their kids know all of the newest techniques. These are things we didn’t have. If we did, it meant we went out and worked for it, selling candy and fundraising.”
Deborah Woodley supported her son’s wrestling every way she could, just as she did for her other kids’ interests. The dancer and choreographer. The cosmetologist. The writer and artist. The nurse. The saleswoman. The personal assistant who runs Tyron’s business. They all received Deborah’s support, same with their adopted cousin and several half-brothers.
Despite working three jobs, sometimes pulling triple shifts, Tyron said his mom only missed one or two wrestling meets ever. These days, she attends all of his fights, and she will be in New York when he fights Thompson.
“I had to do what I had to do,” she said. “No sleep.”
Tyron’s father left him on his 10th birthday. The man lived within jogging distance. They crossed paths at the grocery store. But Woodley never turned emotional about it. He was more stone-faced than anything, and he admitted to channeling whatever angst he felt into wrestling. Between being told he couldn’t win and the intense work ethic instilled by his mother, Woodley’s wrestling took off at McCluer.
“He excelled at athletics, but he was not somebody who walked onto the wrestling mat as a natural,” said Knowles, who at the age of 31 became the youngest person elected to the mayorship in Ferguson, a post he held in 2014 as civil unrest exposed fault lines between the community and the law enforcement tasked with protecting it. “He was naturally physically gifted, but he worked his butt off to be successful.
“I was a 189-pounder. Tyron was 140, maybe 135. We played king of the mat, and the winner stays in the middle. Sometimes, Tyron would be in the middle when I got out there.
“To me, what stood out was his perseverance. He was not going to fall out on his own. He was going to have to be taken out. That mentality is what helped him persevere to the level that he’s at today. It didn’t come because he was born with it, per se. He was born with some but worked for the rest.”
During Woodley’s senior year, he posted a perfect 48-0 record at 165 pounds and didn’t cede a point unless he allowed an opponent to regain his feet. Upon capturing the state title, he made sure to tell the man who said it couldn’t be done that he thought about that statement every year until he won.
A top-five wrestling recruit out of high school, Woodley signed with the University of Nebraska on a scholarship that would have paid for 75 percent of his tuition. That plan changed when the head coach, Tim Neumann, was forced to resign amid allegations that he improperly paid wrestlers cash when their scholarship money ran out. That’s how Woodley ended up at the University of Missouri, a program that was considered a layup around the Big 12 until coach Brian Smith was hired to change the culture.
“It was not only that he was a talented wrestler. He had a great work ethic,” Smith said. “But it was also about what was going on with the program and the type of person he was with his leadership. It elevated our program. It brought other people to our program with recruits. They would say, ‘Hey, if Woodley is there—he’s a great person, good kid, good student—this is where we want to be.’
“He made the most of it. His toughest year was his junior year. That was the year he didn’t All-American. He learned a lot from that year. He had had his oldest son born that year. I knew at one point he was afraid to tell me he was having a baby. I told him, ‘There’s nothing you can do about it. You’re going to love this child, and you’re going to be a great father, too.’ I said, ‘We’re going to have to work through it.'”
In 2003, Woodley became the first Missouri wrestler to claim a Big 12 Conference title. He served as the Mizzou wrestling captain for three years and scored All-American status twice. After Woodley stopped Lawler in the fastest welterweight title fight finish in UFC history, Smith texted him congratulations. Woodley was grateful, though he reminded his former coach that he still hadn’t gotten over not winning an NCAA title.
Wrestling seemed to be Woodley’s future. After college, he focused on earning a graduate degree and coaching. Assisting at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville for $30,000 a year was less than glamorous work, which would have been fine, but Woodley’s shoulder needed surgery, and he had gotten used to the big support network that comes with being at a major program. Any chance he had of wrestling internationally was gone unless he could get it repaired, and continuing on the path he was on wouldn’t get it done.
Woodley met MMA trainer Wade Rome, who promised to secure the wrestler health insurance if he worked around his American Top Team-affiliated gym in Columbia, Missouri. In 2007, Woodley had spent enough time at the gym to go under the knife. He had already dabbled in MMA, making his amateur debut two years earlier. Woodley mostly served as a sparring dummy for some of ATT’s top fighters. They learned how to deal with a big, powerful wrestler. He learned how to take punishment.
“He was pretty open, especially when we first started working together,” retired fighter Yves Edwards said. “His boxing definitely wasn’t what it is now. He couldn’t throw a punch beyond the fact that he was an explosive athlete. He could punch you and hit you, but technically, he couldn’t put combinations together with proper technique.”
Again Woodley went to work with the desire to be his best.
“I think a kid from the inner city, if I had to recruit, is the ideal person for MMA,” Woodley said. “They’d be less likely to be affected by hard work. They’d be less likely to not appreciate something when someone is helping them out, because they probably don’t have a ton of stuff. And all the stuff that encompasses their environment. All the struggles. All the heartache. All the pain. All the things they’ve had to actually endure to just not die, I think those things would make them think about training differently. I think about training differently.”
Nearly a decade later, Woodley is considered among the most dynamic fighters in the UFC. That wasn’t enough, though, to stop him from feeling like he was spectating greatness. It was time to move to the next level of the game.
One of the few criticisms levied against Woodley from the people who know him best is that he sometimes fell victim to a mental block.
Ben Askren followed Woodley to Missouri, and on several occasions, he challenged Woodley’s authority as team leader. For Askren, a two-time NCAA champion and member of the 2008 U.S. Olympic wrestling team, it was a matter of pushing his teammates to their absolute best. Eventually, he and Woodley developed a bond that formed after they shared some hard training sessions on the mat.
“I think a lot of us felt he had the potential to be even better, and I think there were mental things holding him back,” Askren said of Woodley. “Winning the UFC title got him over the hump there.
“He likes everything to be the way it should be, almost too perfect. A lot of times in athletics, it’s not about who’s more perfect or who has better technique, it’s about who’s going to go execute when it’s time to get down and dirty.”
It didn’t take more than a couple of minutes for the sweat pouring from Woodley’s 5’9″ frame to soak through several layers of clothes. After spending the majority of his training camp in Milwaukee preparing for Thompson, The Chosen One returned home for one final weekend ahead of his first UFC title defense on Nov. 12. It would be a busy few days in St. Louis before leaving for New York, and he was just starting to shed weight to reach the welterweight division’s 170-pound limit.
“Did you hear?” Woodley said during the middle of a 25-minute circuit-training session. “USADA tested me, and I came back positive for hard work and beast-like characteristics.”
In an era when UFC fighters are regularly caught with banned substances in their systems as the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency exerts its influence over MMA’s top promotion, Woodley says it’s been two years since he ingested a nutritional supplement. Looking at him with his shirt off, it’s hard to believe that the only tub of protein powder in his home, a beautiful property that feels about as far removed from Ferguson as one can get, met its expiration date in 2015. Maybe that’s because for as long as Woodley can remember, his physical gifts were honed by old-fashioned hard work.
This is what he says. This is what the people around him say. Everything worth having needs to be earned.
After his training concluded for the day, Woodley leaned against the wall of his gym, an American Top Team-affiliated academy in the St. Louis suburb of Brentwood. This is the gym’s second location, and the front lobby is under construction. On the list of things he is grateful for, owning a training facility is near the top. And not just because one of the best fighters in MMA needs a hideout location close to home. This is bigger than him.
“I had kids in there that were addicted to heroin, and the gym became their sanctuary,” Woodley said. “If they didn’t have the gym, they felt like they would go back to using. I’ve had families that had nothing in common, this was the one thing they felt like they could do together. I’ve had people that lost 400 pounds in there. Low self-esteem. All sorts of things. As an athlete, I thought if I moved, I was failing. But as a businessman, it was stupid for me to stay in there and eat up that monthly overhead.”
That overhead was nearly $12,000 a month, totaling close to $500,000. His business partner and one of his biggest fans, Tim Sansone, a St. Louis real estate developer, never wavered in his commitment to Woodley or the facility.
Woodley met Sansone after he began scouting locations for a gym. They hit it off, and almost immediately Woodley began teaching Sansone’s children. Sansone Saturdays, they called it.
Soon enough, Sansone felt comfortable offering the fighter a deal. For half of Woodley’s future earnings, he would open a gym with him. Woodley passed because he felt big-money fights would come and it didn’t make sense to give that much away. Sansone was impressed. The real estate developer attempted to line up investors for Woodley for a couple of years until Sansone realized he was the right person to partner with Tyron.
“He said back then that he would be world champion and he believed it,” Sansone said. “It was infectious. I got caught up in it. It felt right. I liked him a lot. He was the kind of guy I wanted my kids to meet and train with. The guy has been straightforward and honest with a high degree of integrity since I met him.
“One thing I know in business, it does not matter where you come from at all. It matters what kind of effort you’re willing to put forth. If you’re honest and willing to put in the time, you’re going to do well. I was just as fortunate to run into him as he was to run into me.”
“When he makes up his mind, that’s just what’s going to happen,” said Edwards, who advised Woodley against opening his own place. “That’s what he’s going to do and go all-in. To do that, you have to be driven and committed, and I think there’s a part where he’s not going to listen to naysayers and try to prove them wrong. It’s unspoken, but that kind of drive makes you seem like you’re hardheaded and stubborn. When you don’t know someone, and sometimes even if you do, that’s something that sours you to a person.”
Unspoken or outspoken, Woodley has had a knack for rubbing people in MMA the wrong way since he jumped into the sport in 2009. The people who know him best bring up his infectious sense of humor, but it hardly ever translates when he speaks in public. As his profile has grown, so has the recognition that words have consequences.
“You need to think before you speak,” Woodley said, “and if I say something, I’m not taking it back. I’m going to stand on it, 10 toes down. If it becomes a situation where people don’t like it, I’m OK with that. You also have to realize you can’t force someone to have the same mindset as you, to think the way you think. They have their own life experiences, and that’s probably why they’re geared a certain way, and also, you can’t fix stupid.
“There’s some ignorant people in the world, and if I spend time trying to convince people to think like me, I’ll be wasting valuable time I could use to be growing my business, perfecting my craft as a fighter, watching film, studying or just enjoying time with my family. Or just sleeping. Those are things that are way more important than troll-smashing on the internet.”
“Say anything, and you come off looking like Louis Farrakhan,” Thomas said.
Woodley has taken the time to reflect on how he’s perceived. Wondering what he can and can’t say. Discussing double standards that let certain champions get away with speaking in tones he doesn’t believe he can. Race baiting. These are things that make Woodley different than other champions in the UFC and unique even among African-American competitors.
At a time when black athletes have cast aside the tired notion of “shut up and play” for stand up and speak, Woodley finds himself in a unique spot, one he seems especially qualified for and leery of.
“I get n-bombed, or called a monkey or coon every single day,” Woodley said, noting that for every person who unleashes this type of hate on him, there are 20 others who offer words of encouragement.
St. Louis hasn’t fully embraced Tyron Woodley yet. With a win over Thompson on Saturday, that might change. For a man who seems to be a natural ambassador for the city and its residents, particularly the urban community, that’s the hope.
“It’s really important that people recognize that there are people in this country, especially people in this area here, who grew up with a lot of the same hurdles in life as Tyron,” said Mayor Knowles. “There’s a lot of people who have undergone many of the same obstacles and challenges that Tyron has. And someone like Tyron, who has not only been able to work and become successful for himself, but remain grounded and understand the importance of family and community…that’s huge.
“Someone who has grown up in the area, I think he’s somebody who can relate to people [because] he’s had similar experiences that people are upset about. Speak out about the experiences and hurdles. The disparities that exist like this and all across this country. Tyron can speak out about that, having experienced all those same sorts of things while also speaking out about how he overcame them. And how maybe as a community and region we can work to overcome them. I think he’s a great spokesman for that. Clearly, he has a perspective that needs to be heard.”
If Woodley is going to become the kind of champion who generates headlines and pay-per-view dollars for the UFC, the solution might be in unlocking African-American interest in mixed martial arts. As far as combat sports go, the black community at large tends to gravitate toward boxing. Woodley said he hopes to change that dynamic.
Thus far, the UFC has displayed little interest in promoting Woodley any differently than it does other fighters who are successful but don’t quite move the proverbial needle. So Woodley has taken it upon himself to get his name out there. He’s invested in his brand the last couple of years and hopes the UFC will see it as an exercise in gaining momentum.
“If I was his fight promoter, I would sell him as here’s a guy that came from some of the toughest circumstances that anyone in the country could come from. He made no excuses. He looked for no breaks. No handouts. No nothing. He made his own luck,” said Sansone. “He chose his own career path. He didn’t let anyone tell him what to do or what not to do. He was smart and put in the work. I would say look at what’s possible. Whether it’s the African-American community or anybody in this country, look at what this country allows for if someone is willing to put in the time and work. Nobody can outwork him. To me, that’s the key.”
Winning, of course, is the most likely way to open doors. If Woodley does his job in the Octagon, all he can hope for is a small push from his promoter.
“It’s a big gap missing with the urban community,” Woodley said. “That’s a community that’s been driven into the boxing arena for so many years. When Floyd Mayweather retired, it was a perfect opportunity for the UFC to educate the urban community on what MMA is. Still to this day, they think it’s just crazy cagefighting with mostly Caucasian fighters and sprinkles of brothers here and there. They don’t really understand it. I think I’m a person who can help educate.”
Last Saturday, as Woodley visited the Premiere Palace Barber Shop & Salon on Florissant Ave., he was greeted like a favored son. They hadn’t seen his UFC belt since he won it, and the hefty leather strap was passed between barbers and patrons. Photos were taken. Smiles and laughs were abundant. When Woodley was nine, he scored his first job at Premiere, sweeping and cleaning and doing whatever else was needed. This is where his hustle hit the road. The drive to succeed. To persevere. To do whatever he could to make his life and the lives of the people around him better.
There’s a sense that the community has improved, Knowles said, by building upon what there was so as to be much more inclusive than in the past. Woodley agreed. As for the police, who Woodley claimed had been belligerent to him in the past, there is renewed focus on law enforcement and the underserved segments of the community.
Knowles said the community needs Woodley and other homegrown figures like him. The face of Ferguson, which exploded in 2014, has changed. An influx of new businesses are growing accustomed to the community, and investment has returned a net positive from where Ferguson was two years ago. Socially, the community has a number of events throughout the year that are well-attended by a racially diverse mix of people. Knowles, who is white, said win or lose, Woodley is expected to be honored at an event after Thanksgiving.
“There’s still disparity in this region,” Knowles said. “Access to schools, jobs, training, education. Those are larger issues that transcend the Ferguson city limits, but we’re making progress on here. Things are getting much better, but … the schooling issues [and] economic issues affect the St. Louis County area, and we probably need a voice to help get some attention to those areas.”
This sounds like the role for a star. Just don’t tell that to Deborah Woodley, whose son has also taken to acting and appeared in a speaking role in Straight Outta Compton.
“I got a problem with that stardom thing,” she said. “Really, it’s just work. It’s Tyron’s job. For people to recognize you, let your work speak for you. Don’t try to go all out to be recognized. That goes back to reputation. You don’t need all that.
“For him to go do something with it, for him to encourage somebody, help change a young man or woman’s life or mindset about life, he’s always had a good heart.”
Deborah moved from Ferguson to troubled East St. Louis. She refuses to let Tyron buy her a home in a safer neighborhood, and she won’t leave because she believes this is where God wants her to impact the community.
“I walk up on gangbangers and say what I gotta say,” Deborah explained. “I pull up their pants. I tie rope around them. I give people money who look like they’re having a real struggle. And I pray with them. That’s my purpose.”
Chael P. Sonnen returned to mixed martial arts knowing that as long as he made that walk to the cage, everything would sort itself out.