No one likes the guy who can put you in the corner — the disciplinarian. As such, Executive Director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission Keith Kizer gets the brunt of any and all criticism from fans, fighters, coaches and promoters with almost anything related to boxing and MMA.
Despite the target on his back from being the chief regulator of the most important fight commission in the world, Kizer never seems to shirk away from questions and accountability. Long one of the most accessible major figures in combat sports, Kizer furthered this reputation by sitting down for nearly two hours with The Conversation to discuss a wide range of topics, from his life and career to controversies in sport regulation.
Kizer may be the public face of your favorite fighter getting suspended for weed or roids or what have you, but he also, for example, was instrumental in putting together the rules that helped make MMA legal. Always thoughtful and deliberate, even when disagreeing with you, Kizer also never takes himself too seriously despite his position.
Whether you love or hate the NSAC, or if (gasp) you simply want to learn more about fight regulation and the people who do it, chances are you’ll get something out this week’s episode of The Conversation. We hope you enjoy it after the jump.
(Note: Sorry for the gap in episodes. We’ve been a bit under the weather for the better part of a month. Check back tomorrow for another episode where Phil Nurse — the Muay Thai coach of Georges St. Pierre, Frankie Edgar and Jon Jones — visits The Conversation for the most in-depth interview of his career.)
No one likes the guy who can put you in the corner — the disciplinarian. As such, Executive Director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission Keith Kizer gets the brunt of any and all criticism from fans, fighters, coaches and promoters with almost anything related to boxing and MMA.
Despite the target on his back from being the chief regulator of the most important fight commission in the world, Kizer never seems to shirk away from questions and accountability. Long one of the most accessible major figures in combat sports, Kizer furthered this reputation by sitting down for nearly two hours with The Conversation to discuss a wide range of topics, from his life and career to controversies in sport regulation.
Kizer may be the public face of your favorite fighter getting suspended for weed or roids or what have you, but he also, for example, was instrumental in putting together the rules that helped make MMA legal. Always thoughtful and deliberate, even when disagreeing with you, Kizer also never takes himself too seriously despite his position.
Whether you love or hate the NSAC, or if (gasp) you simply want to learn more about fight regulation and the people who do it, chances are you’ll get something out this week’s episode of The Conversation. We hope you enjoy it after the jump.
(Note: Sorry for the gap in episodes. We’ve been a bit under the weather for the better part of a month. Check back tomorrow for another episode where Phil Nurse — the Muay Thai coach of Georges St. Pierre, Frankie Edgar and Jon Jones — visits The Conversation for the most in-depth interview of his career.)
(Elias is the “eccentric American” on the left. Photo courtesy of Facebook.com/HardKnocksFighting. If you missed the first two installments of The Travel Chronicles, click here to catch up.)
He was a two hundred and twenty five pound Canadian amateur MMA heavyweight champion. She was a buck and some change, blonde, twenty years old and from California. They would both knock me on my ass. I just didn’t know it yet.
A few days after my win in May I got a friend request from someone named Chad. I didn’t know him but for whatever reason I accepted. He was a young aspiring fighter out of La Ronge, Canada and recommended that I contact the matchmaker for Hard Knocks Fighting, Sarah, which put on pro/am MMA events in Northwestern Canada. Ronda Rousey had made her MMA debut at Hard Knocks and the organization was developing a strong reputation. Chad was going to make his MMA debut in July and had seen tape of my fight on CagePotato.
I didn’t feel ready to fight yet again — my knee hadn’t gotten more injured in my last fight, though it still wasn’t strong — but I thought I’d at least introduce myself to Sarah to put me on their radar. I’d never been out of the U.S. except for Mexico, and getting flown out and put up to fight in another country as a lowly amateur seemed like a prospect not to be missed. How many people other than high level professionals get that type of chance?
Sarah and I spoke, she looked at my May fight tape and said she was definitely interested in including me on a card at some point. Perhaps if they had an event in the fall I could jump on board after training during the summer to improve. Canada would come a lot sooner than I expected, and would become the first stop on my summer travels.
Shortly after speaking with the Hard Knocks Fighting matchmaker I happened to meet a girl at a concert my friend’s band was playing at. Turns out he was a mutual friend of ours. She was passing through Chicago quickly to see his concert and would soon be heading home to California from school.
I’d seen her behind me at the concert. I stared. She smiled.
(Elias is the “eccentric American” on the left. Photo courtesy of Facebook.com/HardKnocksFighting. If you missed the first two installments of The Travel Chronicles, click here to catch up.)
He was a two hundred and twenty five pound Canadian amateur MMA heavyweight champion. She was a buck and some change, blonde, twenty years old and from California. They would both knock me on my ass. I just didn’t know it yet.
A few days after my win in May I got a friend request from someone named Chad. I didn’t know him but for whatever reason I accepted. He was a young aspiring fighter out of La Ronge, Canada and recommended that I contact the matchmaker for Hard Knocks Fighting, Sarah, which put on pro/am MMA events in Northwestern Canada. Ronda Rousey had made her MMA debut at Hard Knocks and the organization was developing a strong reputation. Chad was going to make his MMA debut in July and had seen tape of my fight on CagePotato.
I didn’t feel ready to fight yet again — my knee hadn’t gotten more injured in my last fight, though it still wasn’t strong — but I thought I’d at least introduce myself to Sarah to put me on their radar. I’d never been out of the U.S. except for Mexico, and getting flown out and put up to fight in another country as a lowly amateur seemed like a prospect not to be missed. How many people other than high level professionals get that type of chance?
Sarah and I spoke, she looked at my May fight tape and said she was definitely interested in including me on a card at some point. Perhaps if they had an event in the fall I could jump on board after training during the summer to improve. Canada would come a lot sooner than I expected, and would become the first stop on my summer travels.
Shortly after speaking with the Hard Knocks Fighting matchmaker I happened to meet a girl at a concert my friend’s band was playing at. Turns out he was a mutual friend of ours. She was passing through Chicago quickly to see his concert and would soon be heading home to California from school.
I’d seen her behind me at the concert. I stared. She smiled.
When she came up to me afterwards outside the venue asking to be walked to the after party, I ditched the people I was with and we walked in the rain towards the party. I got us a little lost but she didn’t seem to mind. When we finally got to the party I sat back and listened to her chat away, charmed. She was nerdy, gorgeous, and could sing.
She had an early morning bus to catch out of Chicago and I left her with a hug and my number. She’d soon be back in Cali. I’d been toying with the idea of going to either the West or East coast that summer to mix up my training and conduct interviews. The West coast had just jumped into the lead in my mind.
I still had no tangible travel plans, though. Then I heard from Sarah and Canada. Hard Knocks Fighting’s heavyweight champion, Devon Smith, was set to fight at light heavyweight in less than two weeks but his opponent pulled out with injured ribs. Smith was a rising star in the organization. He’d won the heavyweight title the month prior by submission and had won other fights by vicious KO.
The July 23rd event was built around him but now, without an opponent, the Hard Knocks main event was in question. They’d fly me up to Canada a couple days before the fight and send me back afterwards. I told them to include a flight for a coach and make my return flight to LA or Vegas instead of Chicago and I’d be in.
I’d get to fight in a televised main event in another country and at least get my first flight out West paid for. I did a little research — for some reason rental cars were twice as expensive in LA as they were in Vegas, and so I decided to get flown from Canada after the fight to Vegas, get a car and drive to LA. I’d be able to stay with my buddy Dave Doyle, visit with my friend Sam Sheridan, train somewhere new and see about a girl. Then I’d drive back to Vegas to train with and interview folks in the fight capital of the world.
Blood Tests & Layovers
Having previously only fought near my home I really couldn’t appreciate how many details top fighters have to take care of in order to travel and fight. I got a taste of it prepping to fight at Hard Knocks on short notice. For the first time, I was required to get blood work done in order to fight. I had also asked for a flight for a coach but now needed to find a coach who could actually get away on days’ notice and who also had a passport.
My head coach Dino already had a trip planned for himself so he couldn’t make it. My coach Lyndon didn’t have a passport. Same for my coach Ramiro and friend Cliff. Coach Said had a passport but couldn’t get away from his day job, especially since my fight was taking place on a weeknight — Thursday — as opposed to a weekend.
Knowing he had a passport and didn’t have a fight immediately coming up, I asked Clay Guida, who for a time years back used to train at our gym. Clay had existing coaching obligations. I then turned to one of my best friends and spiritual advisers, John Maye. John had a full time job at a bank and didn’t own a passport but he didn’t hesitate to say yes to traveling with me to Canada and being in my corner. John told — didn’t ask — his work that he would need Thursday and Friday off and then he went and ordered an expedited passport. Cole Miller ended up offering to travel with and corner me, coming all the way from Florida, if my coaches couldn’t but by that time John had said yes. I hadn’t even thought to ask Cole because I knew he was in the middle of training. I was very grateful for his offer and for John’s no-hesitation gameness.
As for the medicals, Sarah from Hard Knocks told me of a company that had labs where blood work was done all over the states. I saw that they had a lab downtown in a real nice area, made the order and then showed up to have my plasma drawn. I wanted to walk out as soon as I got there. I entered the office building near Michigan Avenue that the lab was housed in, rode the old-fashioned elevator up and was greeted by a sign on the lab’s front door asking patients not to “disturb other building tenants.”
That seemed strange. Evidentally there was a problem with the lab’s patients getting rowdy in the building so the sign was deemed necessary. I shook my head and walked through the door, signed in and sat down. Black soot and dirt stains marked the walls about a foot high. I looked away and saw a second sign. It was a visual one. There was a picture of a revolver, encircled and then crossed out.
Hand guns were not allowed in the lab. I hadn’t assumed they would be. By the time I sat down in the back area to have my blood drawn by the same woman who was answering phones moments ago, I was worried that the blood test might not just reveal a disease, but give me one.
I remember asking longtime heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko a question about his pre-fight routine once on a conference call. I’d heard rumors from people that had been around him backstage before fights that he didn’t warm up, but instead went from playing cards with his team to standing up and walking out to the ring to fight, cold.
If he didn’t warm up intensely before fighting this would have been further evidence of Fedor’s otherworldly talent. Getting one’s muscles, joints, ligaments, and tendons (to say nothing of one’s mind) warmed up before fighting by doing drills with your coaches that simulate fighting is considered the essential final preparation to competing.
It may seem strange to the uninitiated, but fighters ideally want to walk into the cage or ring already sweating so that they don’t start slowly or get injured from suddenly exerting themselves during the fight. When I posed the question to Fedor he chuckled before humbly demurring, as he often does.
No, it wasn’t quite like that, he said. He had to warm up like everyone else. Still, he didn’t offer specifics, and the people I knew still swore they didn’t see him do so much as a jumping jack before walking out and demolishing an opponent in total calm.
My coaches Said Hatim and Lyndon Viteri were taking no chances that I’d be capable of doing anything like Fedor, so they set to warm me up vigorously before my fight. I had just accepted a last-minute change of opponents about a half-hour before I was set to walk out to the United Combat League cage late last May.
I grappled with my cousin and teammate Gerardo, practicing moving from a front head lock to taking his back because Lyndon was sure that he would shoot in on me for a takedown. Said held Thai pads for me so that I could work my own jab-cross combo as well as countering his lead left jab.
I began to sweat and feel tired. But fatigue during warm-ups, even during the beginning of fights themselves, is a deception.
I remember asking longtime heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko a question about his pre-fight routine once on a conference call. I’d heard rumors from people that had been around him backstage before fights that he didn’t warm up, but instead went from playing cards with his team to standing up and walking out to the ring to fight, cold.
If he didn’t warm up intensely before fighting this would have been further evidence of Fedor’s otherworldly talent. Getting one’s muscles, joints, ligaments, and tendons (to say nothing of one’s mind) warmed up before fighting by doing drills with your coaches that simulate fighting is considered the essential final preparation to competing.
It may seem strange to the uninitiated, but fighters ideally want to walk into the cage or ring already sweating so that they don’t start slowly or get injured from suddenly exerting themselves during the fight. When I posed the question to Fedor he chuckled before humbly demurring, as he often does.
No, it wasn’t quite like that, he said. He had to warm up like everyone else. Still, he didn’t offer specifics, and the people I knew still swore they didn’t see him do so much as a jumping jack before walking out and demolishing an opponent in total calm.
My coaches Said Hatim and Lyndon Viteri were taking no chances that I’d be capable of doing anything like Fedor, so they set to warm me up vigorously before my fight. I had just accepted a last-minute change of opponents about a half-hour before I was set to walk out to the United Combat League cage late last May.
I grappled with my cousin and teammate Gerardo, practicing moving from a front head lock to taking his back because Lyndon was sure that he would shoot in on me for a takedown. Said held Thai pads for me so that I could work my own jab-cross combo as well as countering his lead left jab.
I began to sweat and feel tired. But fatigue during warm-ups, even during the beginning of fights themselves, is a deception.
You’re accustomed to training for hours on end but your nervousness and adrenaline make you feel worn out after just a few minutes. Then you start to worry if you should stop warming up because you don’t want to waste your energy backstage.
That is something that some fighters do as well. Luckily my coaches knew that I was no where near the point of actually being tired — my mind was just racing and making my body feel as though it needed rest when it actually needed to be pushed.
You may have heard of the concept of a “second wind.” The idea that after you are tired you and your body can rebound and then have energy to continue to run, push, fight, whatever it is that you do.
Lyndon and Said wanted my second wind to start right at the bell so they made me drill more, sweat more, get more out of breath, before stopping me.
Animal Spirit
The fighter wrangler came to the locker room and said our fight was up. Our warm-up area was in a lofted portion of the huge Chicago South Suburban bar we were in, Bourbon Street, so we had to walk down a flight of stairs to enter the arena portion of the building where the crowd and cage were.
To our left was the event’s sound guy. I was told to bring a song that I wanted to have blaring as we walked out to the cage. I’d accidentally left it at home.
Lyndon always had music with him and that music is always reggaeton . Coach gave the sound guy his iPod and chose a club hit for me to come out crunking to, I suppose.
Lyndon was in front of me, coach Said to my immediate left. I had about a dozen teammates behind me. I could see my friend Cliff and his wife Vero about ten feet away giving me thumbs up. The crowd was right in front of us and then would surround us as we walked a straight line through them to the cage.
I didn’t look for anyone and fixed my gaze on the back of Lyndon’s head. Our opponent was already in the cage. The music began and Lyndon told me to wait for him to begin walking.
Some fighters will tell you that waiting is the hardest part of fighting. They spar, kick ass and get their asses kicked every day, so that is nothing new or particularly scary. But waiting weeks, days, minutes, and moments before the fight can be agonizing and emotional because you are not yet at the point where you can control things — the fight.
I’d resolved to go out and fight but my mood and feelings were far from static and resolute. From the time of that decision to the opening bell my emotions would soar, dip, and rise again several times.
Coach Said called to me in his distinctive Moroccan accent. “Elias!” he shouted to me over the music.
“Elias!” he said again. He wanted me to look at him. I did.
“Be mean.”
Months back I worked the corners of teammates at an amateur kickboxing event my gym put on in Downtown Chicago at the ritzy Union Club and ended up being a scolded by Said afterwards for, essentially, being too mean.
Said was in a tough position as a matchmaker for that event because just about all of the guys from other gyms that he’d matched up with his own students pulled out on short notice so he ended up matching up people from our gym against one another. He tried to tell people that it would be glorified sparring.
I had three close friends fighting on the card and I did my best to convey the opposite to them – this was no sparring session, it was a fight. There were bright lights, referees, and judges, in some cases ones that actually officiated over UFC bouts.
I didn’t want any of my friends being the sucker that went in friendly against a guy who took the engagement deathly serious. I didn’t trash talk opponents or even celebrate that outwardly when my guys ended up winning, but I’m told that I had a death stare going the whole night.
Several guys ended up getting concussed that night, as often happens in kickboxing fights, and Said was torn up having students of his hurt other students of his. He told me I had taken the event too seriously when he wanted it to be a friendly one.
I apologized for contributing to his discomfort, because I meant no disrespect to him as my coach. At the same time, my only concern that night was my friends not getting hurt. One of them was replacing me on short notice because I’d injured my knee, against a much bigger opponent who ended up kneeing him in the groin twice during the fight, so I felt justified and vindicated in advocating for seriousness even though I understood where coach Said was coming from.
Said truly cares about his students and nothing is worse to him than seeing them get hurt. That’s why he was upset after the event and frustrated with me.
Tonight, however, I was the one fighting. Said wasn’t managing an event this time, he was coaching me. His shouting at me was the last thing he could do before I was on my own inside the cage and as he repeated the same phrase to me several times, his eyebrows raised and a worried fire in his eyes, I saw that the only thing he wanted was for me to come out safe. My opponent was not a human being — he was just an instrument that could potentially cause me harm.
There was no grey area now. Someone was getting hurt and it could not be me.
“Be mean, Elias. Be mean.”
I looked down the line at my opponent in the cage and saw someone who would hurt my coaches by hurting me. Who would hurt my friends and family by causing me harm.
Lyndon gave me my cue and we walked down to the cage, angry.
For me, it’s simple – there’s only so long I can watch something I find fascinating before needing to try it for myself. I saw the first UFC when I was ten and I began training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu when I was 15.
Growing up admiring the Gracie family and studying their history, I’d often wished that I didn’t have that five-year gap. More recently, however, I just wished I’d made better use of the time I had.
Less taking off for basketball seasons in high school and more drilling in class. Less time getting old in a chair at work and more reps in the ring.
Saulo Ribeiro, BJ Penn, and Gunnar Nelson all become elite black belt grapplers in just a few years. That isn’t me and no matter how much time I would have spent grappling I wouldn’t have been a BJ Penn.
But I could have been a lot better than I was at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, competed more and learned more about what I can and cannot do. That’s the thing with fighting – you find out what you know and who you are.
Technically, this is true. You may think you’re good in a position or with a move because you hit it on your friends in training, whose games you know and with whom you are comfortable. But wait until you are under duress against a decidedly non-friendly opponent in competition or a fight and see if you execute the same way you did in the gym.
If so, you trained well enough to say you really do know that position, that submission. But if you hesitate, if you freeze or if you’re sloppy because of the added adrenaline that hits you when you fight, then you weren’t exactly as good as you thought you were.
The fight brings that knowledge out about yourself and your technical abilities. It also brings out much more essential things about your being.
Who are you when you’re under attack? Who are you when you’re alone? Who are you when you’re afraid?
In 2010 I fought two amateur MMA fights. The first I took on three days’ notice and the second I had about six weeks to prepare for. I was tired of being an inconsistent Brazilian Jiu Jitsu student who, furthermore, had never tested himself in the type of competition that interested me in the martial art to begin with.
For me, it’s simple — there’s only so long I can watch something I find fascinating before needing to try it for myself. I saw the first UFC when I was ten and I began training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu when I was 15.
Growing up admiring the Gracie family and studying their history, I’d often wished that I didn’t have that five-year gap. More recently, however, I just wished I’d made better use of the time I had.
Less taking off for basketball seasons in high school and more drilling in class. Less time getting old in a chair at work and more reps in the ring.
Saulo Ribeiro, BJ Penn, and Gunnar Nelson all become elite black belt grapplers in just a few years. That isn’t me and no matter how much time I would have spent grappling I wouldn’t have been a BJ Penn.
But I could have been a lot better than I was at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, competed more and learned more about what I can and cannot do. That’s the thing with fighting – you find out what you know and who you are.
Technically, this is true. You may think you’re good in a position or with a move because you hit it on your friends in training, whose games you know and with whom you are comfortable. But wait until you are under duress against a decidedly non-friendly opponent in competition or a fight and see if you execute the same way you did in the gym.
If so, you trained well enough to say you really do know that position, that submission. But if you hesitate, if you freeze or if you’re sloppy because of the added adrenaline that hits you when you fight, then you weren’t exactly as good as you thought you were.
The fight brings that knowledge out about yourself and your technical abilities. It also brings out much more essential things about your being.
Who are you when you’re under attack? Who are you when you’re alone? Who are you when you’re afraid?
In 2010 I fought two amateur MMA fights. The first I took on three days’ notice and the second I had about six weeks to prepare for. I was tired of being an inconsistent Brazilian Jiu Jitsu student who, furthermore, had never tested himself in the type of competition that interested me in the martial art to begin with.
Street fights are one thing — and they are important — but there’s something extra daunting about fighting another person who’s trained specifically to hurt you for weeks or maybe months.
I did better in the fight that I had six weeks to prepare for than I did in the one I took on short notice. The ball was rolling for me and I wanted to continue fighting and learning in 2011.
Instead, I used work, injuries and laziness as excuses to not fight again and the whole year passed without my competing again. I had to do something in 2012.
This past summer, from May to September, I traveled through two countries, across five states and provinces – from West to East and places in the middle – trained at renowned gyms, fought three times (twice in MMA and once in boxing) and spent time with experts and legends like Randy Couture and Renzo Gracie to learn more about fighting and life through their experiences and philosophies.
I fought injured near my hometown, fought in the main event of a televised international card against the organization’s heavyweight champ. I drove across deserts and took long bus rides and many connecting flights.
I trained in the fight capital of the world. I had my hand raised by a UFC ref and had ribs broken.
I won, I lost.
What follows is a series about what I did this past summer — my effort at “doing something.”
Quick summary: Elias foregoes the glove tap like a gangster, lands first with a leg kick, then sprawls out on a takedown and puts Evans on his back. The fight is effectively over at this point; Cepeda eventually creates some distance and starts dropping bombs, then brilliantly scrambles to Evans’s back and finishes him with strikes from back mount. UFC veteran referee Rob Madrigal calls it at 2:02 of round 1.
Three cheers for Elias. Can anybody stop this man?
Quick summary: Elias foregoes the glove tap like a gangster, lands first with a leg kick, then sprawls out on a takedown and puts Evans on his back. The fight is effectively over at this point; Cepeda eventually creates some distance and starts dropping bombs, then brilliantly scrambles to Evans’s back and finishes him with strikes from back mount. UFC veteran referee Rob Madrigal calls it at 2:02 of round 1.
Three cheers for Elias. Can anybody stop this man?
(From left to right: Elias in writer-mode, Elias in beast-mode.)
You probably know Elias Cepeda as the respected MMA journalist and cuckhold-punker who has been regularly posting on CagePotato lately in Mike Russell’s absence. What you may not know is that Elias actually fights competitively. After making it through a couple of smokers with his ass intact, Elias will be fighting in his first official MMA match tonight at United Combat League’s debut show in Merrionette Park, Illinois.
I know it would mean the world to Elias to have the support of the Potato Nation at his back, and the good news is, you can cheer him on no matter where you live. The event will be streamed live on Facebook.com/unitedcombatleague, starting with Elias’s match against John Reid at 7:30 p.m. CST. Please watch if you can, and share your suggestions for Elias’s fighter-nickname in the comments section.
For more information about the event — including ticket info — visit UCLMMA.com.
(From left to right: Elias in writer-mode, Elias in beast-mode.)
You probably know Elias Cepeda as the respected MMA journalist and cuckhold-punker who has been regularly posting on CagePotato lately in Mike Russell’s absence. What you may not know is that Elias actually fights competitively. After making it through a couple of smokers with his ass intact, Elias will be fighting in his first official MMA match tonight at United Combat League’s debut show in Merrionette Park, Illinois.
I know it would mean the world to Elias to have the support of the Potato Nation at his back, and the good news is, you can cheer him on no matter where you live. The event will be streamed live on Facebook.com/unitedcombatleague, starting with Elias’s match against John Reid at 7:30 p.m. CST. Please watch if you can, and share your suggestions for Elias’s fighter-nickname in the comments section.
For more information about the event — including ticket info — visit UCLMMA.com.
