Quitters Never Win

by Michael Bisping

  ‘Michael, for you to prove your loyalty to me – today – you will sign this contract.’

  ‘I am loyal, Paul,’ I said.

  ‘If that’s true – sign this document.’

  He pushed a typed-up agreement across the table to me. The pupil/sensei dynamic kicked in, and I didn’t feel like it was appropriate to read every single line on each page. This was my mentor and I was loyal and grateful for the opportunities that were now becoming a reality. Even if I had read every word, it was written in the intentionally protracted manner of practised legal jargon. Among his many talents, Paul Davies was a lawyer.

  ‘You either trust me, or you don’t,’ he pressed. ‘You will sign that now, or you won’t. You will prove to me that you are loyal right now or you tell me that you aren’t loyal.’

  He didn’t expect me to sign it in blood, but he wanted it signed there and then.

  ‘Of course I’m loyal,’ I stressed. ‘I’ll prove that right now.’

  But he wanted a witness. Paul virtually frog-marched me next door to his neighbour’s house, where a baffled fella who clearly had never met Davies served as a witness to me putting my signature on paper. That crazy piece of business completed, I began trying to talk to Paul about my upcoming fight. Paul demurred and said that he’d be moving to New Zealand reasonably soon.

  I shook hands with the man who’d coached me off and on since I was a child. I climbed back in my car for the journey back to Clitheroe and put my seatbelt on. I waved as I pulled away, but he didn’t.

  I wouldn’t hear from Paul Davies again for five years.

  In my first fight without Paul in my corner, I defeated Miika Mehmet in the first round (strikes) to defend my Cage Warriors title. After three minutes and one second of fighting, I was declared the winner and was now 8–0 as a professional mixed martial artist.

  But I didn’t get the chance to defend my Cage Rage title again. The promotion had a major falling-out with the Liverpool gym over a payout for Bigfoot Silva’s purse. Threats were exchanged and Cage Rage immediately banned all fighters associated with the gym from competing on their shows. With Paul Davies having left the hemisphere, that meant I was also a banned fighter from Liverpool, too.

  I was bummed out. Cage Warriors wasn’t yet at the level of Cage Rage and, of course, I wanted to appear on Sky Sports rather than on taped delay on the Wrestling Channel or whatever rinky-dink station Cage Warriors was on at the time. Andy Geer – Dave O’Donnell’s business partner – was the one who called to tell me I was no longer the Cage Rage champion. Geer sounded positively thrilled about taking a title off a northern fighter and, for years afterwards, I couldn’t stand anyone associated with Cage Rage.

  But my time on the UK circuit was coming to a natural end anyway. I made two more defences of my Cage Warriors belt, beating Jakob Lovstad and then Ross Pointon in one round apiece on shows in Coventry.

  I was 10–0 with all ten fights coming inside the distance. And that’s when the UFC came calling.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER

  While I was fighting for recognition in the UK, UFC boss Dana White and his team hit upon a Trojan Horse approach to get UFC fights on American television.

  Part Big Brother, part the best bits of Rocky, The Ultimate Fighter took 16 of the best unsigned fighters in the US and put them in a Las Vegas mansion together before dividing them into two teams of eight. The two teams were coached by an established UFC star and his staff, giving the contestants access to world-class training. In every episode, a fight would take place in the gym, with the losers eliminated from the show. The final two fought on an actual UFC event in Las Vegas and the winner would be awarded a life-altering contract with the UFC.

  The show attracted a huge audience, mostly comprised of people who were seeing the amazing sport of mixed martial arts for the first time.

  What TUF had done for the sport on US television, the UFC reasoned, it could do on British TV, too.

  Everyone and anyone connected with combat sport in the UK got the email from UFC matchmaker Joe Silva: an open audition for The Ultimate Fighter season three would take place in London in December 2005. Prospective fighters needed to have had at least one professional fight, be able to fight as a middleweight or a light heavyweight, own a valid passport and be able to travel to the United States for one week immediately to complete the final audition process.

  The entire UK scene was buzzing on the day of the audition inside a leisure centre in central London. About 30 hopefuls, plus their trainers, piled into a large hall and soon the gunshot sounds of Thai pads getting kicked bounced off the wooden floor and into the air. Rumour had it the UFC were going to take only one light heavyweight and one middleweight, so we were all sizing each other up, big time.

  An American woman stepped into the middle of the mat, welcomed us and informed everyone that Joe Silva and the UFC President himself, Dana White, would be there shortly along with the producers of The Ultimate Fighter. She directed us to the other side of the floor, where there was paperwork to be filled in. I took especial care to boldly and cleanly list my undefeated record and titles won.

  Then the lady told us to warm up and be prepared to grapple soon.

  The doors opened again, and in walked Dana, Joe Silva and several others. A cyclone of energy and swearing, Dana wasted no time letting us all know what an opportunity we had in front of us. As if to demonstrate just how much winning TUF could change our lives, the UFC boss had brought Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar with him. The two light heavyweight Americans had fought in the finale of season one of TUF earlier in the year and were already superstars of the sport.

  ‘These two guys are now two of the hottest fighters in the sport,’ White roared. ‘This is it! You guys over here have been asking, when’s the UFC coming back? How do I get into the UFC? How do I get the UFC to notice me in England? We are here! You have our attention right now! This is fucking it! Show us what you fucking got!’

  Then Joe Silva, a short guy whose jet-black hair hinted at his Puerto Rican ancestry, reiterated what they were looking for. He said he was familiar with who most of us were and our records, but we shouldn’t assume that. ‘Tell us why we should pick you and not someone else here today.’

  The final big decision-maker was the tall and artificially tanned Craig Piligian. He was the executive producer of the series.

  ‘Dana and Joe care about finding the next UFC champion,’ he said in the most American of accents. ‘I’d like to see that happen, too, but what I care most about is making great television. After Dana and the guys look at your fight skills, we will sit you down and interview you – but I don’t want to hear “yes, sir – no sir” answers. I want to see personality.’

  I took note.

  Piligian, Dana and Silva sat down behind a desk while Forrest and Bonnar walked around as smaller groups of us were paired off to grapple. Then they held target and kick pads for us. Forrest held pads for me.

  I heard Forrest speaking to Joe Silva a few minutes later, saying something to the effect of ‘That guy over there is the best one here,’ and Joe, who prides himself on a) knowing more about every fighter in the planet than anyone else and b) letting everyone know he knows more, replied with something like: ‘No shit. He’s the champion of every promotion in the country.’

  Those that got through to the next round were all then invited back inside the hall individually for an interview.

  This was Piligian’s forte. He opened up with: ‘It says here your name is Michael Galen Bisping —’

  ‘Yeah, you can keep your gay jokes to yourself, mate,’ I shot from the hip, ‘I’ve heard ’em all before.’

  Dana let out a chuckle and Craig smiled before pressing: ‘You’ve not heard my jokes before …’

  ‘Oh, yeah, I’m sorry. I’m sure they will be completely original and absolutely hilarious. I mean, you do look like a very funny guy …’

  Everyone laughed. My gambit of insulting
the exec producer had paid off.

  Dana then asked what I thought about ‘my competition’ – the other guys who’d shown up looking for a spot on TUF 3 that day.

  ‘I’m so happy they are here,’ I answered. ‘Thrilled, really.’

  ‘Yeah? Why?’

  ‘Because I’ve beaten every single one of ’em in MMA, kickboxing or BJJ,’ I stated to laughs from Dana and Piligian. Dana turned to Joe to confirm my record.

  ‘He’s ten and zero with all ten by stoppage. He’s won the Cage Rage and Cage Warriors belts.’ Joe Silva seemed to be a ‘yes’ vote for me. (When I got to know Joe over the years, he’d tell me I was about to be called up to the UFC anyway, based on my record alone, but he and Dana thought I’d be perfect for the TUF series.)

  ‘Who’s here today that you beat?’ Dana asked.

  I rattled off Alex Cook, Ross Pointon and several other names and added, ‘I’ll beat everyone you’ve got waiting for me in America, too.’

  ‘See,’ Dana said to Piligian. ‘What did I tell you about this guy?’

  We were told our flights to Las Vegas for the final interview would be booked that night, and we should report to Heathrow Terminal 1 the following morning at 8am sharp. Paul Kelly and Ross Pointon were among the six or seven of us who’d made it through to the final interview process in Las Vegas.

  As soon as you land in Las Vegas, it bombards your senses and reaches for your wallet. The airport hummed with the noise of big-screen commercials for the Blue Man Group, Penn & Teller, and nightclubs open until 9am.

  We were staying in a smaller hotel a few miles away from the Strip. When in the hotel we were told to not leave our rooms, full stop, unless we were sent for – or we’d be disqualified from consideration for the show.

  ‘So … we’re like prisoners, yeah?’ Ross asked.

  ‘Pretty much,’ said one of the UFC producers. ‘We don’t want you guys seeing who the American fighters are – if that leaks out, it hurts the show. Plus, if you make it to the show, you aren’t allowed to leave the TUF house during the entire seven weeks of filming. You will be driven to the TUF gym to train and back twice a day. It is not for everyone. We need to see if you guys can hack it. But that’s to come – tomorrow you’ll be driven together to do your medical.’

  Even though ‘doing medicals’ doesn’t sound thrilling, the first day in Vegas was a blast. We weren’t on holiday, but you couldn’t have known it from how we were acting. We clowned around in the doctors’ offices, in the van and in the restaurants we ate in.

  After the blood tests (Hep B, HIV etc. – anything that can be transmitted by blood during a fight), eye tests and the rest were done we were taken back to the hotel and sent to our rooms like naughty kids.

  Halfway through the next day I was so bored. The hotel room was closer to what I’d seen in Leaving Las Vegas than Casino. The television was unwatchable – there are so many adverts on American TV you actually forget what it is you’re watching. My sweaty, bland meals were delivered three times a day in black plastic boxes that creaked.

  On day three I was so bored I sneaked out for a walk. I was still bored when I got back, so I decided to have a little fun with Ross and Paul.

  ‘Mate,’ I began the call to both their rooms, ‘the UFC producers are here in my room and they want to film us sparring. You’ve gotta come here in fifteen minutes – they will take us together to a ballroom or something where we’ll spar.’

  I pretended to be talking to someone in my room for a second, then added, ‘Mate – the producer says warm up in your room so you look sweaty for the camera. They are pretending we’ve been working out in a gym or something. You’ve got to come in wearing your fit gear. Shorts, gloves, no shirt, barefoot – and ready to spar right away. Fifteen minutes, mate, be ready!’

  Both Ross and Paul showed at my room up 15 minutes after I called. They’d both walked the hallways and rode the elevator with beads of sweat rolling over their stomach tattoos, looking like proper dickheads.

  ‘No way, man, no way,’ Ross protested when he found out he’d been had. ‘I was in the lift with a mum and her two kids. Daughters, like. She was pulling them close to her like I was gonna kidnap one of ’em. I was trying to tell ’em I was a UFC fighter, like, but I was too out of breath to talk proper. I just sorta breathed at ’em like a horny bull. That really freaked her out, man.’

  On the fourth day of captivity, there was a phone call to be ready for the final interview. An hour later came a knock on my door and I followed the producer down the hall, a few floors up in the elevator and into a suite.

  There was a circular wooden table with chairs around it. I sat on one side; Dana and the producers were on the other. The final interview went pretty much like the first one, with me giving the producers as good as – or better than – I got.

  ‘Get the fuck outta here!’ Dana laughed, telling me I’d aced the final hurdle and was now going to be on season three of The Ultimate Fighter.

  I went back to my room and called Rebecca.

  ‘I’m in,’ I told her. ‘Fighting on American TV to get a UFC contract!’

  ‘I knew it,’ she said. ‘I knew you’d get in – but I’m not sure America is ready for you.’

  Paul Kelly didn’t make the show. Dana knew he wasn’t a real middleweight and the producers didn’t know what the hell he was saying in that Scouse accent. He was told to keep winning – as a welterweight – and he’d be in the UFC sooner or later. Paul seemed happy enough with that.

  Ross, though, did make the selection. He was told to report back to Vegas as a middleweight. He was childlike in his excitement.

  I spent Christmas 2005 at home and trained like a maniac. I was going to be ready to fight on day one of filming. I made the return journey to Vegas just a few days into 2006.

  You’ve probably seen on the show that I was dropped off outside the big Vegas mansion. Most of the other fighters were already in the house and overcome with excitement to be unpacked at a $5million, seven-bedroom house with a snooker table and swimming pool.

  My opponents – and that’s exactly what I viewed them as – hadn’t showed up with the mentality I had. Some of them weren’t in condition to spar, much less fight. Others were more impressed by getting on TV than the chance to break into the big leagues of mixed martial arts. We weren’t there to ‘help each other get better’ or ‘push ourselves to be the best martial artists we could be’, as I heard some of them repeating back and forth to each other like they were in a Nike commercial.

  This was prize-fighting! And the prize was a literally life-changing contract with the number-one organisation in the sport. There was one of those for the light heavyweights to fight over and one for the middleweights – and the light heavyweight one was going to be mine.

  The ones who were there to actually fight stood out. Ross, of course, is the epitome of a scrapper. Then there was Kendall Grove, a 6ft 6in tattooed Hawaiian with a great sense of humour who, somehow, fought as a middleweight. Ed Herman, also a middleweight with a neck as red as his hair, wasn’t there to make friends either.

  The one light heavyweight I noticed was Matt Hamill, an ox of a man from Ohio with menacing physical strength and impressive wrestling credentials. Hamill was profoundly deaf and clearly used to smashing through life’s obstacles.

  The other 15 contestants and I were driven early the next morning to the TUF gym. We were told to bring our gear. The gym was located at the end of a long cul-de-sac about a ten-minute drive around the I-15 freeway that orbits Las Vegas and its surrounding suburbs.

  From watching the first two seasons on British television, I thought the TUF gym was right next to the Palms Casino. It was actually over a mile away, at the end of a lane in a business sector.

  Were it not for the big production truck parked outside, the TUF gym would not have stood out at all from the rest of the white commercial units that surrounded it. Inside, though, was a different story.

  The main space was part TV
studio with rigs throwing dramatic light and shadows from the rafters 30ft up; part high-tech MMA training facility with rubber-covered mats, brand-new punching bags lined against one wall along with raised platform treadmills, bikes and stepmasters; and, finally, part fight arena – the Octagon, the real, UFC-approved Octagon – was at the far end of the rectangular room.

  The walls were stark yellows and deep blues – colours that ‘pop’ for the cameras. There were banners hung from the walls featuring images of legendary UFC fighters past and present.

  There were cameramen pointing metal and glass tubes at us from every angle. The producers needed to capture every interaction and word spoke by all 16 of us.

  Dana was there and gestured to two men walking towards us: ‘Meet your coaches, Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock.’

  Dana informed us that light heavyweights would immediately train with Shamrock and his coaching team. Then we’d be back the day after to train with Tito and his people. From those two evaluation sessions, Shamrock and Tito would get an idea of who they wanted on their specific teams.

  ‘Middleweights? Get outta here!’ Dana yelled. ‘Light heavyweights – warm up!’

  Ken Shamrock was one of the OGs of the sport. Already a UFC Hall of Famer, he had competed at the very first UFC event in November 1993. He was action-movie muscular and had parlayed his early-era Octagon success into a big-money run with the WWF pro-wrestling circus. He’d yo-yoed between wrasslin’ and MMA for the next decade, absorbing the worst kind of injuries associated with both. By the time of his fourth – and final – return to the UFC in 2006, he was 40-something. A faded force as a fighter, out of touch as a trainer.

  ‘I don’t do no BJJ stuff,’ he said, with the complacency of a man who’d decided there was nothing more to learn. ‘I am a brawler and a leg-lock guy.’