Pain Don't Hurt

by Mark Miller

  The entire second round was akin to running naked through a hailstorm. I like to think that Jason would say the same. The back-and-forth was unrelenting and brutal. From the stands, “Oooaaayyyy,” over and over, as punch after punch was delivered. Sweat and oxygen were sacrificed; the ring was wet with it. My shins were purple; Jason had small bruises dotting his head. Ding ding. Back to the corner.

  “Mark, he’s getting tired”—squirt water, slosh spit—“he’s tired now.” (No he isn’t, dude, look at him, he’s over there thinking about dinner later.) “Mark, you need to capitalize on that, he’s wearing down.” Ice bag on the back of the neck, pat pat. “He can’t keep up, he’s wearing down.” (He isn’t wearing down, this is going the distance, and who the fuck would’ve thought that would happen in this fight?) “Use that length, and stay out of the corners, stay out of the corners.”(You don’t got to tell me twice, man, no part of me wants to be backed into a corner with this big unkillable fucker on top of me. No. Thank. You.) “Mark, think of your son, fight like he’s behind you, fight like he’s standing right behind you.” (That’s the violence button right there. Thanks for that.)

  Third round I came out fast. Last round is do-or-die time. You’d be amazed at how much you can do in three minutes if you know that after those three minutes, it will end. Dig into your reserves, keep your chin down, and don’t . . . back . . . down. I felt like I was out of my body. Nothing hurt; it was just survival. Jason and I collided fast and hard. He grazed his gloves over the top of my head, an attempt at a clinch to pull my head down and slam into my face with knees. I shook him off and shot back. Two minutes. He kept circling, trying to walk me down, but I held my center. Give and take, body shots and leg kicks; tomorrow was going to be one of those “stay in bed” type of days. One minute. Sixty seconds left. That big bear stared at me over his gloves; sweat and hot lights stung my eyes. I started to throw, just throw. Jason met me and threw back. Thirty seconds. Just keep throwing, and don’t forget to protect home base. My left hand returned to block my jaw after every single jab I threw, my left shoulder taking shot after shot; he wanted me to fall so bad. Ten seconds. This is it. Swing from the fences. The last seconds are the hardest, for you can see the shore is close, you’re almost out. My left shoulder ached from throwing, from blocking. Let your hands fly and what happens happens, just fight. Ding, fucking ding. It was all over.

  Fights are always kind of a blur. Like the morning following a drunken evening, you find yourself asking others, “What did I do?” after the fact. During the fight it’s all skill and instinct. After, it’s adrenaline dump, exhaustion, and back to reality.

  I crossed the ring to Jason, clasped his glove between mine, and thanked him. He nodded and said through his thick New Zealand accent, “Ya hit me hard there!” We walked to the center of the ring to hear what the judges would say. I prayed. Closed my eyes and just silently asked whatever, whomever, Please, please give it to me. Give me the win. The decision came through. It was unanimous. I had lost.

  I can’t speak on what a knockout loss feels like, as I’ve never suffered one. Decision losses are hard enough. The first thing that goes through my head is, Why the fuck did I just go through that? Why did I go through that entire thing just to lose? What was the point? Regret, anger, disappointment, self-deprecation. I’d be willing to bet that every fighter directly following a loss has that brief line of questioning go through his or her head that asks, Why do I do this?

  Jason stood with his hands raised. After waving to the crowd, which was now so drunk and loud I wonder if they even remembered who was who (though we look nothing alike), Jason walked over to me, pausing to tear some of the tape from his hands, and said, “Eh, fuck all this, all right, let’s go get a beer, yeah?” Yeah.

  Back at the hotel we sat in our tracksuits crowding up a large section of the bar. First we just hashed out the fight itself. He complimented me, said I was strong. More than that, he said my will seemed “uncompromising.”

  “Man, I hit you with what I had, you know? I never let up on you; most guys don’t have the heart for that kind of a fight. You just wouldn’t fall down!” Jason shook his head, peppered in bruises, and sipped a lukewarm Thai beer.

  “Yeah, well, fuck. I’ve never had anyone, not anyone that I’ve hit with my right that stayed upright.” I clinked my bottle feebly against his.

  Drunk locals filtered in and out of the bar. Women leaned up against us for a while, then left when we didn’t afford them the attention they wanted. There have been plenty of fights where I crowded myself with booze and girls, but oftentimes it’s the company of other fighters at that time that means the most, as they understand what it feels like to survive those compressed minutes inside a ring or a cage.

  Jason talked about growing up on the streets, defending himself against street gangs who came at him with weapons. He pointed out his scars, explained where they came from. From his birth, the world had whittled him into a fighter, carved into his flesh what he was to be. I didn’t share my stories. Stories about your dad being the enemy, taking the harshest beatings in your life starting from when you are young, but always from the same guy, just don’t have the same veneer as fending off tons of Samoan street thugs.

  At the end of the night, which was more like early morning, I lay on my bed in my hotel room, every bruise, cut, and welt now firmly standing out. As bad as losing is—and it is a bad feeling—I got to thinking about the one feeling, win or lose, that followed every fight. The feeling that brought me back to fighting every time. The minute my opponent would fall or the final bell would sound, a feeling of immeasurable relief, as though the clenched fist my heart often felt like had opened up, if only for a moment. It was a feeling that let me know I had come through it and was still standing.

  I started to drift off, thinking of a boat. When I was a kid, the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, flooded. Johnstown was about thirty miles from where I grew up. I used to play baseball on a field there. The flood was captured all over TV, images of people pushing cars through mud and water that was quickly rising, while houses stood nearby on fire and befuddled firemen watched from dry patches, helpless as the homes burned. I remember seeing two workers in a boat with giant boxes covered with the Red Cross insignia on the sides, paddling toward what looked like a hospital. I asked my father what was in the boxes, and he told me, “It’s blood. For people who need more of it.” I remember thinking about what a relief it would be to those people in that drowning hospital to finally get that blood, and how comforting it was to know that even in the middle of a storm, there was someone with a boat coming if you could just grit your teeth through the sticking point and hang on a little bit longer. . . .

  chapter seven

  Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

  —VINCE LOMBARDI

  After returning from Thailand I really hoped to try to rematch Tommy Glanville. The opportunity arose promptly, and I was offered the rematch on May 5, 2001. Mo was going to be fighting on the same card, only he was going to be fighting in an eight-man tournament. What this meant was that he would have to fight three times in one night, if he was to win. Eight men are matched into four fights; the four winners then are matched into two fights, and then finally, the last two winners fight each other. K-1 hosts tournaments like this all the time, and they are so fucking brutal. A single injury accrued in the first fight could mean a loss in the second or the third. Small injuries that a fighter would normally think nothing of risking in a single fight have to be considered more carefully. A cut above the eye in the first fight could mean the second fight getting called off due to swelling. Never mind the third. Each fight becomes a balance of trying to win and trying to not take so much damage that the next fight is lost. It’s a whole other ball game. I was going to help Mo get ready, and he was going to help me. We both took this card very seriously. Mo had the tournament to win, and I needed to avenge my loss. You see, losing to Suttie wasn’t something I felt so urgent a
bout “fixing.” Jason was a hurricane; he was a violent, dangerous fighter who had respected me. Our rapport was good before and after the fight, and I felt that he had thrown everything at me. He was the better fighter that night, fair and square. I was satisfied with that and glad that I had survived. I had earned my stripes just for that. But Tommy, Tommy was different. I knew I was better than him, and I needed to prove it.

  Something else had happened before this camp. . . . In January of 2001 I became a father for the first time. Amy, my wife, was a nurse in a ward that dealt primarily with small intestine surgeries and transplants. She dealt with a lot of very sick children on a daily basis. Despite our problems as a married couple—and there were many from the beginning—I knew she would be a good mother, so I had no problem going ahead with planning for a child. At least, not until he was here. Then I was scared to death. This changes any and every human being who is fortuitous enough to be blessed by parenthood. Some for good, some for bad. It shifted my insides around and put a new kind of love, and a new kind of fear, in me that I had no idea I could feel. I was simultaneously more in love with my tiny son, Ben, than I had ever been with anyone or anything ever, and scared of him. The entire reason I fucking existed suddenly was there, in his eyes. I was also petrified of screwing it all up. I was afraid of being a bad father, afraid that somehow I would inadvertently repeat or reuse my father’s “parenting techniques.” The mixing of this incredibly deep love with this horrible crippling fear and desperate need to protect him made me feel so lonely and sad. I became convinced I wasn’t good enough for him. It was as though I had been handed the greatest gift on earth, and yet I knew if I touched it I would break it. The day of his birth I received a call while I was in the hospital. I was offered a fight against Kakuda, a Japanese fighter. I had accepted right away since I just wanted to get away to think, to feel safe in how much I loved my newborn son. That fight was pulled, just like the last Japanese fight I had been offered, and replaced with the offer to fight Glanville again. With the opportunity to train again with Mo, who was already a father, and hopefully glean some sage wisdom on how to do this dad thing, I jumped at the chance to leave, even though it killed me.

  Because of these things, I went to dark places for this camp. I used to sit during drills and visualize the crowd booing me as I walked out, throwing things at me, hating me as I entered, loving Tommy and his comical bravado. I visualized them shouting at me, and all of that irascible moxie would just fuel me, make me want that much more to tear him down in front of all of them. As I would push further into these bitter thoughts, Mo would suddenly quip, “Hey, man, focus!” Or something similar. Then he would make the “So what?” face. That would yank me right out of my anger pothole and back to reality. Vengeance is one of the roads one walks to avoid focusing on the immediate moment, and Mo, armed with his halcyon strength, was committed to bringing me back to that focus. He did his best to force me to abandon my pursuit of retribution, which was as much if not more aimed at myself and my failure than it was at Tommy. Obsessiveness is one of the less dazzling traits you’ll find in most athletes. This is doubly true for me.

  Mo was facing possibly fighting Duke Roufus (Rick Roufus’s brother), Paul Lalonde, Pedro Fernandez, Tomasz Kucharzewski, Michael McDonald, Jean-Claude Leuyer, and Gunter Singer. Mo wasn’t worried, as Mo doesn’t get worried about fights ever. But the greatest concern for us as his teammates was Duke. Duke wasn’t at the level of his brother Rick, but he was still a talent. So we worked to prepare Mo for all possible matchups and focused on what might be the most difficult, imitating their styles as we went along.

  I had elected my friend Jason Johnston to be my cornerman. Jason is exactly the kind of man you want in your corner, literally and figuratively, and this could be plugged into really any circumstance in life. He is the ultimate in backup. Jason was a recon marine before he went into kickboxing. He dabbled in Ironman competitions and fitness figure modeling, alongside being a talented heavyweight kickboxer. Jason had an absurdly sunny disposition, and he was honest to a fault. The guy just leaked positivity and calm. He never buckled under pressure, and he never got heated when things got tense. He was also bullshit-proof. He would tell me exactly what I needed to do in between rounds, without sugarcoating it but without shouting at me. I knew that if I couldn’t have Mo in my corner, I needed an equally cool and honest head there to talk to me. Jason was perfect. A few days before the fight, I flew out. Jason and Mo met me there. This time I was fighting at the Mirage. While we in the lobby, Jason commented, “Do either of you act any different before fights? It’s bizarre how calm you both are!” To this Mo responded, “Just another day at the office, right?” And promptly flashed the face.

  A mutual acquaintance of ours, another cornerman, saw all of us standing together and came over. He smiled up at Mo and said, “You still doing this? You’re an old man!” to which Mo deftly responded, “Yeah, but I’m a bad old man.” Maurice Smith was almost forty at this time, which is practically primordial for a kickboxer. He had accrued no injuries in his time as a fighter, looked not a day over twenty-eight, and he moved exactly like the twenty-eight-year-olds, so not only was this not an exaggeration, it was possibly a downplay of just how fucking bad he really was.

  The days leading up to the fight were standard. K-1 treated us very well but also put us through our paces when it came to promoting. Back then everything in kickboxing was run by Japanese businessmen, with Kazuyoshi Ishii at the helm. Ishii was the epitome of what you would expect from a high-level Japanese businessman and martial arts master. He was always well dressed, and he always presented himself with maximal class. He demanded the same level of poise and gentility of the fighters he brought to fight in his organization when they were not in the ring. You were required to show up at all press appearances on time, well groomed and in a suit. You were expected to behave yourself. Speak when spoken to, answer the questions asked of you to the best of your ability, and never interrupt or shout either at a journalist, at other media personnel, or at another fighter. Ishii frowned on clownish behavior. He didn’t value shit-talking or bashing between fighters. He valued fighters who put on a show worth watching. You didn’t have to win, but you had to show fighting spirit. Like the Japanese fans, Ishii wanted to see your heart.

  One night on the evening of May 4, Ishii had requested that all of the fighters come to a nightclub in Las Vegas located inside of the Hard Rock Hotel. We were there to do promoting for the fights, meet with media, do some TV interviews for networks, and just generally be available. I was less than thrilled by this, as it was the night before the fight, and all I wanted to be doing was resting. At one point I looked over and saw that Ishii was sitting by himself. My bravery rose and I approached him and sat beside him. He turned to me and smiled. “Mr. Miller, are you enjoying yourself?” His English was a bit broken, but he spoke enough to be a true gentleman and ensure the comfort of the fighters he was employing at any given moment.

  I responded, “Yes, sir. I just wanted you to know, I am the American fighter you are looking for, and tomorrow night I will prove it.”

  He smiled and grasped my hand firmly in his. He seemed pleased with my self-assurance. I stood, bowed to him, and bade him good evening. As I walked away, I felt the bag of bricks I had just harnessed to myself pull at my neck. I had promised Ishii I would win. Fuck it. All the more reason. Now I really had to.

  The next day at the venue I sat listening to the announcers call the fights. Mo fought his first two fights before me, so I was partially distracted, paying attention to how his fights went. Mo fought Pedro Fernandez first. He won, in a unanimous decision. I didn’t get a good look at him when he came in the back. I was still focused on myself and what I was going to do. A win was what we wanted obviously, but with a decision it meant he’d spent more time in the ring and in the fight, so there was a possibility that he might have taken damage. It was unlikely, as Mo’s style was to take little damage, but the potential was still the
re. I wasn’t sure if he had, so I waited and listened. A half hour later he fought Gunter Singer. At the beginning of the second round, Mo crushed Gunter with a right-hand. The crowd roared. Mo came into the back and glanced at me. I was warming up at this point; I caught his eye just for a moment, just long enough to see that he was unmarked and to see him make solid eye contact and give me a thumbs-up. A few more fights passed and someone from the organization came in the back and called my name. “Mr. Miller, we are going to have you and Mr. Glanville walk out at the same time. So you will meet in the hall and enter the ring together.”

  Uhh. What the fuck?

  That is never how it’s done. This threw me. Typically you walk out at completely different times. I mean, you don’t even come near each other until the first bell. Fuck this. I didn’t want to see him before. I didn’t want to nod and fucking half-smile and be forced into either uncomfortable silence or fake pleasantries before I went to beat this guy’s ass; no thanks. That’s for after the fight. At the end, when it’s done, it’s a job, and whoever wins wins, and you buy each other beers and it’s all water under the proverbial bridge, but before? No.