The Laws of the Ring

by Urijah Faber

  When I finally met Bas for the first time, I was on set with him in Japan for an interview on the Dream fight organization. During the interview, I paid homage to my Dutch heritage on my dad’s side and told Bas, “My pop is full-blood Dutch, and my grandparents were immigrants from Holland.”

  Bas looked at me with a big smile and said, “Uh-oh!”—then turned directly to the camera and, with a cocked eyebrow, said in a deep voice, “Party time!”

  When I got home three days later, my pop picked me up at the airport; as he swung the car door open to let me in, he was smiling ear to ear and all he said was “Party time!” We both started busting up laughing and then I gave him the lowdown on the Japan/Bas Rutten experience.

  Bas’s charisma and easy way of dealing with people struck me as impossibly cool long before I had actually decided to pursue fighting as my sole vocation. He loved the sport and the fans, and they reciprocated his love by forming a community around him. It’s no surprise that Bas’s demeanor and attitude helped him become a commentator after his fighting career was finished. To me, Bas is a perfect example of someone who invested in his passion and had it pay him back many times over, even— especially—after he stopped fighting.

  Another one of my heroes is the great Randy Couture. Randy and I had a mutual friend in Sacramento who brought Randy to my second fight. This may have been in the early days of MMA as we know it, but it was still a big deal to me, because Randy was already a major, respected talent in the fledgling fight community. To have him present at one of my early fights is something I’ll never forget.

  After the fight, my friend told me, “Hey, we’re going with Randy to the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas to watch the Tito Ortiz–Chuck Liddell fight. Randy says whoever wants to come is welcome—and you’re coming.”

  Of course, I didn’t protest. In a very short amount of time, I’d gone from someone who was begging for a chance to fight at the Colusa Casino to someone who was being invited to hang with Randy Couture before the first epic Ortiz-Liddell fight.

  We ended up with eight or nine people piled into Randy’s room. My high school sweetheart Michelle came out for a day and hung out with us. And here we were, hanging with not only a world champ, but the biggest name in the sport—in my eyes, a living legend—and simply being among the tiny posse was far and away the coolest thing ever. But it didn’t stop there. Scott Smith was one of the other fighters who were on the trip. We went down to the pool at Mandalay Bay and hung out with Randy for a while. Randy was balding and wearing a Speedo, lying in his chair. Scott turned to me and said, “I’m not sure if I should feel cool because I’m hanging with Randy Couture or weird because I’m hanging with a forty-one year old in a Speedo.” We both laughed hard.

  Randy was so engaging and easygoing and not only took the time to answer every silly question I had, but encouraged my fighting pursuits. I picked his brain about the fight game, but what affected me most is the same thing that drew me to Bas. There wasn’t any one specific piece of advice he gave me, but he was so simple and real. Randy, to my surprise, had a son who was only three years younger than I was. I remember asking him details about his son, as well as realizing that this guy who I was so happy to be hanging with was almost old enough to be my dad. Randy was so down-to-earth.

  “Yeah, he wrestled for a while growing up, but it wasn’t his thing like it was for me. He’s just a good kid. Not sure if he’s gonna fight,” Randy said frankly. “Ryan [his son] just turned twenty-one not long before my fight with Tito [Ortiz] a few months ago and he came out to the fight. I get back up to my hotel room and he’s passed out right in front of the door!” He laughed his hearty laugh, then went on: “I just picked him up and brought him in the room, don’t think he’s used to Vegas yet.” It wasn’t anything intense talking with Randy, he was easygoing and kind—but his willingness to simply include me meant more than I could express. For the first time I felt like my passion was being taken seriously by someone who was in a position to know. My presence in Vegas, in Couture’s suite, was all the validation I needed at the time. I hadn’t arrived, per se, but I felt I belonged to a brotherhood that understood where I’d been and where I wanted to go.

  I was becoming more observant. By being around successful people who shared my passion, I was able to gain a better sense of myself. In any profession, you learn things along the way. You take the best qualities from people and try to emulate them. You forget the rest. And I remember looking at Randy Couture and thinking at the time, If I ever get anywhere near that level in the sport, I’m going to be as supportive and cool as this guy.

  I was determined not to take the opportunity for granted. I had a good time hanging with Randy, but I considered it work to an extent; I had the unique opportunity to observe how someone in the upper heights of the sport handled himself, and to learn from the experience. This wasn’t about telling people about an awesome evening with Randy Couture; it was about learning through observation from one of the top performers and best role models my profession has ever known. The main lesson that I took from Randy was that he was just himself. His image as public figure was consistent with who he really was.

  Find people who inspire you in everyday life and learn more about them. It could be a teacher or a family member, even someone you have never met. You can always search the Internet, buy a book, or simply introduce yourself. Be creative when you are pursuing your passion and relentless in your pursuit.

  The 16th Law of Power

  Eyes Forward

  You can’t be timid if you’re going to put yourself in position to allow passion to run your life. Big changes demand big thoughts and big actions. But this doesn’t mean you should quit your job immediately to pursue your passion of raising goats; you can’t begin to do this until you’re ready to move toward that goal on a creative, consistent basis. You should at least know how much goats cost, and how much land it will take to raise them. There are practical aspects to living the life you dream.

  We’ve all heard countless stories of professional athletes who have made a ton of money, saved none of it, and ended up with very little to show for their careers. The disease is easy to diagnose: Athletes consider themselves invincible, and they never foresee a day when the money is going to stop flowing and the cheers are going to stop ringing in their ears. Even those who understand how fleeting success is in the profession often believe the fame will continue. These are the ones whose plan for the future is something vague like “become a movie star.” They don’t bother with acting classes, of course, because their athletic fame will automatically compel directors to cast them in important, lucrative roles in big-budget films.

  How often does this actually happen? Seldom enough to qualify as never.

  It’s no different with nonfamous people. Stuck in careers that pay well and provide all-important security, many people live for the promise of a comfortable retirement. They prepare financially but ignore everything else. With nothing but years of soul-crushing work on their résumés, they mistakenly believe they can be rid of the job and suddenly find themselves content and fulfilled. Their passions are either gone or buried under layers and layers of neglect, and by the time they realize this, it’s too late. They might try to take up golf or another of the traditional leisure activities, but they find they don’t have the patience or the physical ability to pick it up at a late age.

  In a sense, they didn’t take the acting classes either.

  When I started fighting, I knew I would never have the earning power of someone like Mike Tyson, but I always had my future in mind. I wanted to maximize whatever opportunities were available to me, and the exposure I would get fighting would simply be a means to another end. I wanted to set myself up for a future career while I was competing in my present one.

  With that as background, it might be easier to understand why I started a clothing line after my second professional fight. Very few people knew who I w
as, but that didn’t stop me. I got the idea for a line of clothing called Alpha Male Clothing and I set about trying to make it work. I didn’t know the first thing about starting a clothing line. I was a guy in a pair of mesh shorts that I put ALPHA MALE on the front because I thought the name was cool. Once I saw that people liked it, I figured it might be a fun and relatively easy way to make a few extra bucks.

  Getting back to self-knowledge: I wasn’t trying to compete with Nike. I didn’t envision a multinational conglomerate. But I did think I could start small, create some small-scale buzz, and see where it would take me.

  My first investor was my buddy Dustin Soderman. I convinced him to plunk down $250 to help me get started making T-shirts. Because of my coaching gig at UC Davis, almost immediately everyone on the wrestling team was sporting Alpha Male T-shirts. They were walking billboards for me, the best kind of free advertising, and then one of my friends on the UC Davis football team, Marc Manfredda, asked me how he could get one. I made it a point to learn the ins and outs of the clothing business, so when Marc asked for the license to produce the T-shirts and take a cut for himself, I saw an opportunity and obliged. It wasn’t long before most of the football team was wearing them.

  There wasn’t a lot of money in those T-shirts by Nike standards, but there was enough to make a difference in my life at the time. I was busing tables at Ink, making eight grand a year as an assistant coach at UC Davis, and training for fights that were never guaranteed. So anything extra to help pay my $220-a-month rent was valued.

  More than that, the experience taught me that I could be successful with an offshoot of my chosen profession. Later, I developed FORM Athletics with an incredible businessman named Mark Miller. We quickly sold it to K-Swiss for a significant amount of money. But without the baby steps I took with the built-in customer base for Alpha Male, the idea of FORM Athletics might have seemed daunting. Instead, I had the knowledge and experience of putting together a product and marketing it with minimal risk. Perhaps more important, I had the knowledge to partner with someone who had the business savvy to make it happen. But more on networks later.

  The 17th Law of Power

  You Never Know Who’s Watching: The Power of Personal Credit

  By now, you at least know there are two things you must do to live your passion (after adopting a positive attitude, of course): (1) identify your strengths; and (2) be brutally honest with yourself about your weaknesses. Once you come to terms with the results of your personal inventory, you will come to a conclusion: You can’t do everything yourself.

  When I first started fighting professionally, I didn’t have an area of expertise, but there was one thing I knew that I loved and that was fighting. Surprised? I didn’t think so. I wasn’t much of an expert on anything else, but I knew wrestling and had a love for all forms of martial arts. When I wasn’t training, it’s what I read about and thought about. Then I started to have business ideas that required not just a set of skills to implement, but money I didn’t have. The only thing I had to fall back on was a fanatically positive mentality that anything was possible, and, just as important, a willingness to learn from people who knew more than I did.

  The $250 investment from my friend Dustin for Alpha Male clothing was the first step toward broadening my horizons and making my community a part of my profession. We started something, and it worked in a small-scale way. It planted a seed in my mind that I needed to be open to opportunities that would help me achieve my goals. At this time that meant finding ways to make outside income so I could keep fighting. I was heading into uncharted waters; there was no union for guys who fought in Indian casino ballrooms, no salary scale that told me what I’d be making in five years if I reached a certain level or won a certain belt.

  That’s why I was intrigued when I came into contact with Jeremy and Sidney Dunmore, two brothers who owned a construction company called Dunmore Communities. The Dunmores had taken a unique path to wealth, and they took a unique path into my life. Their father and grandfather were immensely successful homebuilders in the Sacramento area. Jeremy and Sidney split from their father’s company, Dunmore Homes, and started Dunmore Communities with a piece of property and funding from their grandfather. They put a subdivision on that piece of land at a time when Sacramento was growing and the housing market was booming. It was low risk, high reward, and they got filthy rich in a big hurry.

  Part of being rich, in the Dunmores’ world, was enjoying it. Jeremy, the more flamboyant of the two, bought a stretch Suburban and hired a driver named Claude to drive him around. One of the Dunmores’ financial advisers was Coach Dave, the head wrestling coach at Sierra College, a community college near Sacramento where I had trained in the past. I was two fights into my pro career when Claude was driving Jeremy around with the financial adviser, and my name came up around the topic of the fight game. Coach Dave said, “I remember Urijah: hardest-working kid I ever saw.”

  Claude, who by coincidence was friends with one of my UC Davis teammates, Adrian Garcia, chimed in.

  “Urijah’s the man,” he said, looking in the rearview mirror. “You should look him up.”

  Jeremy, who was a fan of combat sports and a fitness buff, was intrigued.

  “Good enough for me. Ask Urijah if he wants to meet up for dinner.”

  Jeremy was pitched to me as this young, hip multimillionaire, interested in the fight game, by my buddy Adrian Garcia, so when the Suburban pulled up on the day of our lunch, I wasn’t terribly surprised. Claude stepped out of the driver’s side and led me into the backseat of the long black machine. There was Jeremy, with a welcoming grin on his face.

  “What’s up? I’m Jeremy.” We shook hands. “Let me see your abs,” he said just as soon as Claude shut the door. Okay, this was a little weird. I complied unenthusiastically, keeping a sharp eye on him, making sure he meant no funny business.

  “Nice,” he said, in a way that suggested I’d just showed him a shiny watch he was thinking of buying. I breathed easy. Apparently he was just assessing a potential investment.

  Then he lifted his shirt. “Here, check mine out,” he said, like he was showing off a new toy. But something in his tone suggested that, for him, this really was just part of casual banter.

  “That’s not bad, dude,” I said, a bit weirded out by the exchange. Satisfied with my reply, he engaged me in a discussion about fighting and my “career” (which, again, had spanned a whole two fights).

  “Your name keeps coming up from different people,” he told me. “People we trust. And I just wanted to meet with you to see if there’s any way we can help you out.”

  I learned over lunch at a local Davis restaurant called Fuzio’s that Jeremy was a former competitive Jet Skier. He was now way into working out and wanted to be around the fight scene.

  Jeremy was rich, living big, and he was looking for different ways to use his money to open doors, particularly for his peers. He was only four years older than me and, despite the obvious financial discrepancy, made it perfectly clear that I was a peer.

  Despite my initial reservations sparked by the abs show, Jeremy and I built a friendship over the following weeks. I was struggling financially and, with just two fights under my belt, not exactly established professionally, and because of Jeremy’s guidance and generosity, I got to have a glimpse into a far more luxurious lifestyle. We were establishing a rapport that suggested to me that he was indeed interested in supporting my endeavors, but the subject of money had not yet come up.

  You’re Always Selling Yourself

  One day, during one of our meetings, I offhandedly mentioned my Alpha Male clothing line, which was really nothing more than a handful of T-shirts and workout shorts at the time. But I was serious about moving this forward and let Jeremy know it. It wasn’t just something to which I was lending my name—which at that point wouldn’t have really helped anyway. I had a sharp vision for the art and the commun
ity that would buy it.

  And Jeremy loved it. The name, the idea, the market analysis, everything. After my pitch (I’m not even sure I realized it was a pitch at the time) he proposed paying me eighteen hundred dollars a month to train and, at the same time, to run the clothing line.

  I really wasn’t mentioning the clothing line to show off how well rounded I was, but apparently Jeremy was looking for that added spark in order to sponsor me—something that separated me from other athletes. The clothing line provided him with the opportunity to do just that.

  I struggled to keep my eyes from popping out of my head. Not counting the money I’d earned in my two fights, I was killing myself working three jobs—coaching, busing, and fighting—to make slightly less than that. The whole world opened up in front of me at the prospect of being paid eighteen hundred bucks a month to do what I was currently doing in my spare time anyway (of course I didn’t see my fighting career and fashion ambitions as such a frivolous hobby, but that was the reality before meeting Jeremy).

  In return, I agreed to wear a henna tattoo—DUNMORE COMMUNITIES—across my back for my upcoming fights. “It’s not like you’re going to be selling a lot of houses for me,” he said, “but it’s just another way for me to market.”

  Jeremy’s investment in me worked for both of us. The more we hung out, the more Jeremy saw that I was enthusiastic and passionate about training and fighting. But he also saw the way I saw my career giving birth to other enterprises. I wasn’t obsessed with just the act of fighting, but with the culture it bred and the passionate community it engendered. I wasn’t concerned just with winning, but with participating and contributing to this movement. Jeremy had a lot of money and wasn’t afraid to spend it—private jets, wild vacations, out-of-control shopping sprees. Now he wanted to give back. But he didn’t just want to donate to an organization that would spend the money as they saw fit. He wanted to see where his money was going. And in me he saw a struggling fighter with big dreams and a practical way to implement them. More important, he could attach himself to me and my goals.