by Doug Merlino
Twelve members of an evening jiu jitsu class—men and women, black and white, ranging from fifteen to fifty—rolled on the mats.
Straus hit mitts in a corner with his boxing coach, Lou Aldridge, moving across the same mats where he had once slept.
Sam, the mother of Straus’s daughter, had come to watch. Mikayla, the infant, squirmed on her lap.
Jason Laine, the gym’s owner, came over to say hello. He had a day job selling engineering equipment, and friends and family had thought he was insane to buy an MMA gym. For Laine, though, it served a deeper purpose.
The common strand among the fighters, he thought, was that they lacked a strong male influence. Though they might start MMA training with the desire to beat someone up, Laine saw it as a bait and switch: The more time a fighter spent training, the closer he became to the other fighters. Before long he would be pulled into feeling—perhaps for the first time—a sense of family.
The closest connection Straus had made at Vision was not with other males, but with a woman twenty years his senior. Martie D’Andrea had come to the gym for boxercise classes. Straus introduced himself and taught her how to wrap her hands.
Soon, they became close friends, and D’Andrea was Straus’s greatest supporter. Even though at times he didn’t believe in himself, she reminded him he was a great athlete and an exceptional human being, capable of more than he imagined.
In May 2010, D’Andrea’s twenty-two-year-old son, Adam, was killed in a car accident. Straus became her supporter in her time of grief, regularly calling or texting to check in. They sometimes stayed up all night on the phone.
Straus’s first fight after Adam’s death was also his inaugural fight in Bellator. At the time, D’Andrea was housebound by depression. But Straus told her he needed her there, and she agreed to go watch him in Louisville.
Straus dominated the fight, winning a unanimous decision, and immediately ran into the stands to hug his friend.
. . .
“We’re going to talk about how if you ain’t fighting you ain’t living.”
Straus, in shorts and T-shirt, sat on a stool in front of a black backdrop in a ballroom of a Holiday Inn in a Dayton suburb. The producer, a guy in a backward Yankees cap, was there to create a short piece that would run before Straus’s televised fight with Robinson.
“Okay, first off, talk to me about taking this fight. Do you feel that you’re not happy unless you’re fighting?”
Straus paused. “I’m not really happy unless I’ve got a fight inside the cage, or am preparing for a fight, you know, anything like that,” he said. “You know my job is fighting, so that’s what I’m always looking to do.”
“Give me one line: ‘I’m a true fighter.’ ”
“Um, I’m a true fighter,” Straus repeated.
“Okay, start over,” the producer said. “It just sounds like you got kind of awkward because I told you what to say.”
The producer continued. “You wanna use this performance as a direct message to whoever’s holding the title,” he said. “‘I’m coming for what you got’ … ‘I’m coming out to …’ Whatever you wanna say.”
“Um, this fight, I’m using it as a, you know …”
The producer paused in frustration. “What are you known for in the cage? People call you a grinder. I think you take the fucking heart out of your opponent. I think that’s what you’re known for, wearing guys down mentally and physically and yanking their heart out in front of anybody. What are you known for?”
“Um,” Straus said.
“You can even say, ‘People call me a grinder, but this is what I do, I break guys, mentally, physically, I take their fucking heart.’ ”
“Yeah, I’m known for, uh, you know, grinding on guys, but …” Straus stopped. “Say what now?”
The producer moved on. “Talk to me about the relationship you have with the team mom, Martie,” he said. “I mean, a lot of people see you after the fights going up to this white lady. People all the time think that’s your adopted mom, but it’s not, formally. What’s your relationship like?”
“Our relationship’s close,” Straus said. “I could go on for days, talk about just what we’ve been through with each other, her troubled times that I’ve helped her through, troubled times that she’s helped me through.”
“Is it safe to say that she’s been your rock through your career?”
“Um, it’s definitely safe to say that she’s been helping me get to the top, or helping me get to where I need to be.”
“How does it feel to go up to her and see after every single one of your fights, you go up to her, you give her a big huge hug after your hand is raised? How does that feel to see how proud she is of you and how happy she is?”
“It’s really good to finally have somebody be proud of me, you know,” Straus said. “And it don’t really matter who it is or what color they are, to finally have somebody proud of you it does feel good.”
“Just one last thing about Martie,” the producer said. “Do you feel like with her in your corner that you have the love and support that it takes to become a champion?”
“Um,” Straus said.
The producer fed a line: “With Martie in my corner …”
“With Martie in my corner, and my team in my corner, I feel like I have the love to be a champ,” Straus said. “I just feel like with the support system I have, you know, I have all the tools I need to be a champ.”
“Beautiful,” the producer said.
They handed Straus a photo of Martie. Straus held it and sat still while the cameraman circled him for several minutes.
I stood next to the producer.
“Daniel plays ball,” he told me. “That’s important. I know guys whose careers have ended before they even got started because they wouldn’t play ball.”
. . .
The next morning, Straus was in the bathroom in his room at the Holiday Inn. For several days he’d been eating very little, drinking distilled water to flush his system, wearing a plastic sweat suit and sitting in the sauna to cut his weight from 167 pounds. He was now under 150. With the weigh-in coming up in a few hours, he needed to get down to 146 (the limit of the featherweight division was 145, but fighters were given a pound of leeway).
Straus stripped to his underwear as hot water filled the bathtub. His chest and stomach were covered with a tattoo of a lion’s head. He opened a tub of Albolene, a makeup remover that opens pores, and smeared gobs over his body. He was helped with his back by Brian Furby, a lawyer from Lexington, Kentucky. Besides doing personal bankruptcy law, Furby also ran a sideline getting endorsements for fighters, who were responsible for lining up their own deals. For someone at Straus’s level, that could mean a few thousand dollars extra per fight.
Straus shut the tap and poured Epsom salts and isopropyl alcohol into the bathtub, unleashing an overwhelming smell of menthol. He climbed in to soak.
There are three main areas to sell space on a fighter’s body. Most valuable is the walk-out shirt worn by the fighter and his corner men as they make their way to the cage, and quickly put back on a fighter after the bout is finished—and, in cases when a fighter takes a beating, sometimes yanked down over his confused, bloodied face. As such, the shirt offers the potential of several minutes of television time, especially if a fighter wins and is interviewed post-fight.
The next most-sought slot is on the fighter’s shorts, the area of greatest visibility being across the ass.
Finally, there is space on the banner, which is carried behind a fighter as he walks to the cage and is then draped over it before the fight.
Furby had lined up a deal with an Ohio power-lifting gym for Straus’s walk-out shirt and had also secured a sponsorship from an MMA-clothing company.
Straus toweled off and stepped on the scale he’d brought with him.
“How much?” Furby asked.
Straus looked at the digital reading: 146 exactly.
. . .
In the hours before the fight, Straus surrounded himself with friends, those who had been there for him before his face was ever on television. They took their places around the two queen-size beds in his hotel room.
There was his best friend Rachel Lipson, an elementary school teacher. They’d met in high school and had dated off and on. When Straus was in prison, she had written several times a week and driven the five hours to visit when she could, one of the only people who kept him connected to the outside world.
Junior and Tracy were avid MMA fans and had seen Straus at one of his early fights on the south side of Chicago, where they lived. They befriended him, and when Straus returned to fight again, cooked him dinner. As Straus was driving out of town, one of his tires blew out. He was broke, and Junior gave him the money for a new tire, telling him not to worry about it. Straus never forgot it.
There was also Jay and Erin. Erin had been married to Straus’s brother. Jay, her partner, was a large man, well over six feet tall. He maintained a benign smile and emanated an overpowering smell of marijuana.
They were joined by Straus’s boxing coach from Vision MMA, Lou Aldridge; and Dominique Steele and Roger Bowling, two teammates from Cincinnati.
Martie D’Andrea had to attend a funeral but was rushing to make it in time for the fight.
An episode of Law & Order played on the television. Straus’s banner and walk-out shirts lay on the floor. The top of the dresser was strewn with boxes of coconut water, Tabasco sauce, plastic containers of spinach and fruit salad, a bottle of mustard, maple syrup, avocados, a mason jar of banana bread, Tiger Balm, Gatorade, a box of chicken broth, and a half-finished Chipotle steak bowl.
There was a knock at the door. Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal swept into the room, taking a seat on the bed opposite from Straus. Mo was Bellator’s new star.
After leaving Oklahoma State, where his close friend Kami Barzini had given him his nickname, Mo had narrowly missed making the Olympic wrestling team in 2008. He turned to MMA, with fast success, winning the light heavyweight title in the Strikeforce promotion—the UFC’s major competitor at the time—in 2010. His career took a turn in early 2012, when he tested positive for anabolic steroids after a fight in Las Vegas (Mo maintained he had unwittingly ingested the substance through an over-the-counter supplement). When Mo subsequently appeared before the Nevada State Athletic Commission, he bristled under what he considered to be patronizing questions and tweeted that the commission chairwoman was a “racist bitch.”
Zuffa—the parent company of the UFC, which by then had bought Strikeforce—summarily released him. But he was soon picked up by Bellator, hungry for the attention the charismatic fighter could draw. Viacom, Bellator’s corporate parent, also owned Total Impact Wrestling, the runner-up promotion to World Wrestling Entertainment. As part of his deal, Mo would compete in MMA for Bellator and also take part in the professional wrestling promotion in an attempt at corporate synergy.
Mo, in a talkative mood, took over the room, gossiping about living in Vegas, home to the UFC, several MMA gyms, and a large contingent of pro fighters.
“I’m twenty and four,” Straus said. “I got a record better than half the motherfuckers that’s there.”
“That don’t matter, dog,” Mo said. “It goes off what type of hype you got.”
“That’s the thing, it’s hard for me,” Straus said. “I mean, what can I say?”
“I’m the best featherweight around, ain’t nobody can touch me, nobody can train as hard as me,” Mo said. “And wait for somebody to call you out. Then, What’s up? I’ll fight you for free. One thing the pro wrestlers told me, ‘Mo, it’s a business.’ So you gotta sell your product. Even if you disrespect somebody, what’s worse, disrespect or being broke?”
“I’m broke as a motherfucker,” Straus said.
“Exactly,” Mo said. “So it’s time, you gotta run your mouth a little bit.”
The entourage erupted in chatter, encouraging Straus toward self-promotion. The suggestion had more power coming from a fellow fighter than a television producer—and as difficult as it was for Straus to push himself out in public that way, he conceded the logic.
Mo excused himself. Fight time was close. Most of the entourage followed him out.
Lou Aldridge, the boxing coach, who had been sleeping, sat up.
“Best career advice I got yet,” Straus said.
“What was he saying?” Aldridge asked.
“Pretty much, just talk shit.”
. . .
It was raining as Straus rode with his corners to the Nutter Center, the arena of Wright State University. They parked in back and used the freight entrance, making their way to a locker room with mats spread on the floor. Straus pulled on his headphones and scanned his iPhone, reading good-luck wishes that came in via Facebook and Twitter.
He warmed up, his hoodie pulled up over his head. For the prior few days, he had been solicitous to all those around him—me, the Bellator people, his manager, the entourage—almost as if it was his job to make all of us comfortable. He now focused down.
“I’m ready to punch someone in the face,” he said to no one in particular.
He was a deeply superstitious fighter. Two nights earlier, he had driven back to Cincinnati to get his lucky T-shirt, which he had forgotten. He wore the same underwear and cup for every fight. Earlier in the day, he had driven to several stores and beauty supply shops looking for the specific type of hair ties he liked to use to pull his dreadlocks into pigtails. He eventually settled reluctantly for another brand.
When his name was called, Straus walked through a long, fluorescent-lit hallway and into a darkened section of the arena, portioned off with black curtains. He jogged back and forth, bounding from foot to foot, and then disappeared through a blaze of red lights and a burst from the smoke machine.
Alvin Robinson, his opponent, was expected to take the fight to the ground, where his jiu jitsu skills might give him an edge. At the bell, however, Robinson came out swinging. Straus slipped the strikes and took him to the canvas, maintaining control for the first round, his wrestling overpowering Robinson.
Three minutes into the second round, Straus took Robinson down again and pounded him with a flurry of punches to the face. Robinson, shocked, reached toward his eye.
Straus felt Robinson soften, the familiar feeling of an opponent breaking.
Robinson was on his knees. Straus got behind him and slipped his right arm under Robinson’s throat, grabbed his right wrist with his left hand, and strangled him.
Robinson reached his hand up and tapped Straus on the shoulder in submission.
It was not an exciting fight. Straus had simply dominated Robinson, even on the canvas, where Robinson was supposed to have an advantage. Straus, methodical and relentless as usual, had ground down, dispirited and overpowered him.
Straus waited for his hand to be raised and then headed into the stands, found Martie D’Andrea—who had arrived in time to see the fight—and gave her a hug.
Later on, after midnight, Straus headed a long table at Buffalo Wild Wings. He’d pulled his groin and was walking with a limp. His hand throbbed. Still, for the first time in the week, he was relaxed.
Junior and Tracy, his first fans, were at his side.
“You ever think you’d see this?” Straus asked. “Twenty-one and four. I ain’t going to lie. It feels good.”
Just One More
A week after Straus’s victory, Jeff Monson and Paul Gavoni were working in the cage.
Monson threw a straight right at Gavoni’s body, swiveled, and followed with a left hook that he popped into a mitt Gavoni held near his chin.
“Beautiful hook!” Gavoni encouraged. “Feel that torque? That’s a dangerous punch, Jeff.”
Monson turned, shuffled back across the canvas, and did it again.
Monson’s headlining bout in Bangalore, India, had fallen through when the promotion decided to dump the high-priced foreign fighters from the card. So his
fight scheduled for the next week—once again in Saint Petersburg—would be his first in five months. He was facing Fedor Emelianenko’s younger brother, Aleksander, the second-best-known MMA fighter in Russia after his famous sibling.
Aleksander was a decade younger than Monson, but his fighting prime was also years behind him. He’d been popular in Japan, his celebrity boosted both by his name and appearance: an unruly mop of brown hair; eyes that conveyed either a depth of Russian soul or an impassive capacity for brutality; and a collection of Russian gangster tattoos across his body, said to have been acquired while serving several years in prison on armed robbery charges. Most striking of these was one that took up the entirety of his back: a Grim Reaper cradling a baby.
In 2008, Aleksander was scheduled to fight in California, but the state athletic commission refused to license him. The commission did not release the reason due to privacy rules; the whispers were that the fighter had tested positive for hepatitis C.
Gavoni had looked into these rumors and advised another fighter he trained to back out of a scheduled fight with Aleksander in Russia. He suggested Monson insist that the Russian promotion fly in a doctor from the United States to independently test Emelianenko, but Monson resisted making those demands. It wasn’t that he didn’t credit the rumors—he believed the Russian had the blood disease, but was going ahead, anyway. It was going to be a big fight, he was broke, and the Russian promotion paid well. When I asked him if he was worried about coming in contact with Aleksander’s blood, he told me that he figured that since he was a grappler, there was little chance he would cut the Russian open with a punch.
It was the first inkling I had of how reckless he was with his own well-being. And here he was working on his striking.
Monson and Gavoni finished the session.
. . .
We walked in the dark to the car. We had more than an hour of driving ahead of us. He reflected on his past as I drove.
Monson’s dad had died in a work accident when he was two. His mom remarried to a military man. From ages four to seven, Monson lived on an Army base in Germany, a hated time from which he remembered getting beaten up by other Army brats.
