With life’s roads being so crooked and rocky and all, it’s a good thing we’ve all got our MEPS to guide us.
It’s not a spelling lapse. Mental, Emotional, Physical and Spiritual: It’s a familiar group of motivators distilled down into a very nice, very novel little acronym. And if you notice the acronym’s similarity to another term, so does the term’s inventor, Bubba Jenkins.
“It’s similar to the spelling of ‘maps’ on purpose, because it’s about trying to get to a certain place,” Jenkins said in an exclusive interview with Bleacher Report.
This Friday at Bellator 132, Jenkins enters uncharted territory against Georgi Karakhanyan. Considered a top prospect in the sport for years, Jenkins, a former national champion wrestler at Arizona State, can finally convert all of that potential into kinetic energy.
The 26-year-old took a circuitous route to get here, the most notable bump being a knockout loss to LaRue Burley, a fighter just as anonymous as he was beforehand after he shocked Jenkins in 2013.
Four wins later, Jenkins has reclaimed the lost ground and faces the biggest fight of his life against Karakhanyan, a former WSOF featherweight champ now returning to Bellator.
Win, and Jenkins is unequivocally legit. Lose, and it’s back to square one and a road back to the light just as steep as the one he faced after Burley. Luckily for Jenkins, he’s not heading into this crossroads blind. Luckily, he has his MEPS.
Mental
“It just means I’m on point,” Jenkins said. “I’ve analyzed the fight and I’m ready.”
A lot of fighters don’t watch tape on their opponents or at least don’t admit to doing so. Strangely, in some eyes, studying up is like an admission of weakness.
Jenkins doesn’t look at it like that. He freely acknowledges watching so much Karakhanyan footage that he finds himself involuntarily mimicking his opponent’s style.
When asked what he has found in his research, Jenkins doesn’t hesitate to break down Karakhanyan’s tendencies as if he’s in the film room with coaches.
“Georgi doesn’t really throw any straight punches,” Jenkins points out. “I mean, he’ll throw a jab and a hook, but basically everything’s a little bit loopy, so most of it’s aimed at your temple or your ear. It’s more of a brawler style than a straight one-two.”
Jenkins also seems bent on preventing any more physical lapses. Part of his solution was moving full-time to Empire Training Center, a smaller camp where he says he gets more one-on-one attention than he did at the other camp he used to attend, American Top Team.
“Nothing against American Top Team; I love American Top Team. I just needed to go back to the basics,” Jenkins said. “Here, it’s less of a classroom environment. I can get criticism on my hip twisting and things like that.”
Emotional
At age nine, Bubba Jenkins’ life was sundered. His father passed away, and in the wake of that tragedy the family relocated from Indiana to Virginia in hopes of rebuilding. Jenkins took up wrestling as a release and as a means of controlling his aggression.
“I was one of those angry young men,” Jenkins recalled. “I was always fighting, always wanting to unleash the beast. Eventually my mom said ‘go into wrestling.’”
All these years later, with that entire career arc channeling down into one fight, Jenkins is seeking a different kind of control. Call it focus or dedication, but it boils down to a kind of psychological pointillism: weaving a large picture out of a series of tiny splashes of strategic art.
“I’m willing to put in work and I’m able to put in work. … That’s a bridge to the next realm of fighting,” he said. “I have to show who has ‘next,’ but I also don’t care who has ‘next.’ After this, I’ll have been in a big fight. It’s a co-main event. It sets me up for bigger fights, and I’m ready for that.”
Physical
He calls it the athlete factory. It’s an apt name for Virginia Beach, Virginia, and the surrounding environs, where Jenkins spent his adolescence. The area incubated household sports names like Michael Vick, David Wright, Michael Johnson and Pernell “Sweetpea” Whitaker.
When Jenkins played Pop Warner football there, he didn’t play just any ordinary Pop Warner football. He played alongside teammates like New York Jets wide receiver Percy Harvin and Clemson star quarterback Tajh Boyd.
At the time, all of them looked up to one specific local kid, an athletic force of nature who became a national phenomenon and arguably the best in the world at his profession before their eyes.
“Allen Iverson is and was our role model,” Jenkins said. “He was taking Philly to the NBA Finals while we were coming of age.”
It’s pretty fertile ground for athletic success, and Jenkins found it, playing football and wrestling at Cox High School in Virginia Beach.
That background sunk down the roots of a sports career, and it’s a career Jenkins is now striving to bring into full bloom. That means moving beyond those wrestling roots and embracing a more nuanced MMA game that can best showcase his talent, power and athleticism.
“It’s no longer mandatory that I wrestle,” Jenkins said. “The wrestler who threw punches was someone who didn’t try to get hit until he got his wrestling going. Now, I don’t mind being on my feet. I’m not always looking to go to the mat, even though it’s my strongest attribute.”
Spiritual
For Jenkins, this is the red line that runs through his MEPS and brings it all together. He speaks openly about his Christianity, viewing it as a kind of overarching life guide.
“I just make sure I’m saying my prayers regularly and walking in the footsteps of righteousness,” he said.
And it’s just as simple as that. Four points on a compass, meeting in the middle, leading the way toward a man in full. It’s probably unfair to determine whether Jenkins has the right MEPS based entirely on the outcome of Friday’s fight, but that’s life, and Jenkins said he’s more ready for it than ever.
“I know where I’m going,” he said. “I’m feeling good. I’m feeling a little more anxious for this fight than normal. … But I have to let the pressure be on him. I like to fight up to the competition.”
The Beaten Path is a series of interviews and articles highlighting top prospects in MMA. For the previous interview in the series, click here. Scott Harris writes about MMA for Bleacher Report. Follow Scott on Twitter.
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