Got Fight?

by Griffin, Forrest

  “Never mind. I got my story. Thanks, kid.”

  I seriously hope that this is the way it went down. If the reporter actually did his homework (which I highly doubt, considering the journalistic integrity of Philip Glass), and busting up your ears has truly become a trend sweeping the male youth of America, there are a lot more fake-ass, Poindexter douche bags out there than I thought. First off, you don’t need cauliflower ear to be a fighter. Kale Sanders, a world-championship wrestler, doesn’t have cauliflower ear, and he’s one of the biggest badasses on the planet.

  If You’re a Little Pussy but Want to Appear Tough, You Don’t Have to Go So Far as Busting Up Your Ears. You Only Need to Accomplish Six Things

  1) Get some letters shaved into your hair, all the way down to the scalp, and then have your stylist, Roy, finish off your do with a fabulous multicolor dye job! (Happy Ending optional? [fighters love emoticons].)

  2) Acquire a number of those really cool tattoos that everyone has: barbed-wire armbands (you know, the ones that chicks got in 1995?), a really scary skull, or simply have your name (or the nickname that your gang gave you when you jumped in on the supermean streets of Malibu) inked on with that really hard-looking calligraphy-type stencil stuff. The grenade on the side of the neck is always good, but putting one on your biceps is just as good as long as you wear a Tap Out tank top. FYI, biceps tattoos look really cool when your gunboats are all swollen from blasting out curls.

  3) Some sort of fight-related T-shirt. If you don’t have one, then you need a T-shirt that has something to do with guns—HK, PRO-TECTED BY GLOCK, something that will most definitely strike fear into the hearts of men at a glance. As an added bonus, you might want to throw in some leather wristbands, or at least something wristband-looking, like a watch with a really wide strap—a Swatch on a wristband! There ya go.

  4) A number of noticeable body piercings. (If they are unnoticeable, like a Prince Albert, then you are gross.) Although the majority of real fighters don’t have piercings because they get ripped out during training, the fans don’t take the time to think of this occupational hazard, allowing you (the would-be contender) to sport these tantalizing, first-strike targets to any of us who might actually engage you in a brawl.

  5) Make sure you write the word fighter as your occupation on ALL legal documents. This includes lease agreements, health plans, or the application for your brand-new job at Jiffy Lube. Word to the wise: only NON-posers write self-employed.

  6) This book, Got Fight? (available now online and in your favorite local bookstore, including, but not limited to: Amazon.com, Borders, Barnes & Noble, Fred’s Deli, Xandi’s fish market on the corner of Thirty-third and Twelfth near the old rusted Dumpster, you know the one…where Sheila works? Ahhh…Magic Lips Sheila…Anyway…), must be in your hands at all times, and when in public, you want to open it up and pretend to read. This will cause hot, really dumb chicks to come up to you and ask if you fight, because these fine specimens are overly dumb and will sleep with you. If you can indeed throw down, you should clap my book shut, throw it aside, and say, “That guy don’t have nothing to offer about fighting I don’t already know. Wanna see my grenade tattoo?”

  7) Finally, and perhaps the most dangerous of all, make sure to pronounce the word jujitsu in your fanciest Portuguese accent. (Sarcasm aside, because you bought this book, I like you and will maintain that position until you do some stupid homoerotic prank shit like they do on The Ultimate Fighter, so a serious word to the wise—and the stupid: when in the presence of a true Brazilian, do NOT try to pronounce this sacred word in such a fashion, as you will receive an expeditious ass-whoopin’ that you had not previously thought physically possible—I present Mr. Wanderlei Silva, the Axe Murderer—get it, Fuck Face?)

  8) Even if you say you’re going to list six things, like I did above, always list more. The fact that you’ve lost your ability to count is verification enough that you are a fighter. And if your list mixes numbers and letters in the way it’s organized—as in item 1, item b—most people will think you once held a championship belt of some sort.

  If you are indeed capable of accomplishing all eight of the requirements on the above checklist, I guarantee with absolute certainty that you will realize the look and notoriety of a professional, Richard Grieco–class douche bag. At such point, your value as a human being will solely depend upon your ability to actually convince people you are a true badass. Back in the day, this could only be done by the big guys, but no longer. Thanks to the weight divisions added a few years ago, it doesn’t matter how small you actually are. Hurray! If you weigh a buck ten, just tell people you compete in the WEC.

  As you now know, there is no reason to mangle your ears. The only reason you’d want to do this is if you fear another fight poser fucking with you in a bar. In such a case, the fatter your ears, the less likely he will be to punch or kick you. My point is, why stop there? If your goal is to intimidate, you might as well develop cauliflower face. I doubt you’ve ever seen me up close, and that is a good thing. I have an extra bump on my nose, scar tissue above and below both eyes, tic-tac-toe marks all across my face, and two massive cauliflower ears that protrude off the side of my head. When you get up into my grille, there is only one thing that crosses your mind: Man, this goofy bastard has got the shit beat out of him before. And here he is walking around with a smile on his face like he owns the joint. Maybe I shouldn’t mess with him.

  Developing cauliflower face, like me, is a lot harder than developing cauliflower ears. If you’re unwilling to actually receive these facial scars and markings through training, it requires you to repeatedly run that stupid face straight into the corners of various walls and doorways. So I would suggest just checking off the eight things above and leaving it at that. Just don’t forget to carry around my book—that part is superimportant. As a matter of fact, tell all your friends to also pick up a copy. By now, it’s probably on the five-dollar rack, and what’s five bucks?

  Treating That Ear

  If you end up getting cauliflower ear through legitimate means that can be verified by the guy or guys who did it to you (i.e., through training) and don’t give a shit about looking like an ugly-ass professional fighter, you will want to drain those kumquats before they get too big. If you don’t have an idea of what too big is, take a look at the Cage Rage fight between James Thompson and Kimbo Slice. Thompson’s ears were so large it looked like shaved bulldog balls were stuck to the sides of his sweaty head (and when they exploded midfight, they looked like—no, no, it’s too painful to say, and brings back many bad memories). There are a couple of ways to drain cauliflower ears. The safest method is to go to the doctor, but this doesn’t always work out. One time (God, I feel like I’m confessing STDs or something), I went to the doc to get my ears drained and he was a major fuckhead.

  “Are you going to quit wrestling for a month if I do this?” he asked.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then you might as well go.”

  Thanks a lot, asswipe.

  The second method is the good ol’ DIY, which requires a few supplies: a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a bottle of drinking alcohol, Neosporin, and a syringe—a clean syringe (i.e., not used by junkies). Back in the long-time-ago time, my training partners and me all used the same syringe. We’d burn the tip with a lighter, dunk it in some rubbing alcohol, and call it safe. Seriously. We’d seen junkies do it in the movies, so we figured it had to work. Sometimes I am as stupid as I look.

  Anyway, if you don’t have a clean syringe, you’ll want to use some type of knife—hopefully not one you’ve recently used to clean fish, but one you’d imagine being perfect for draining, say…bulldog balls.

  Once you have all the supplies, put the rubbing alcohol on your ear, poke a small hole in your cauliflower, and then squeeze the pus out with your fingers. You won’t want to cover it up afterward, because over the next several hours you will continue to experience leakage. However, it is essential to smear on a heap
of Neosporin to prevent infection caused by the syringe (which, despite my warning, was probably used by a heroin addict or two) or the bulldog-ball-splitting blade.

  The Smack Attack

  When you get into a confrontation on the street, talking trash can be a very valuable tool. This is especially true when you know your aggressor will most likely smash your face in, should you come to blows. The crazier you sound, the less likely he will be to throw a punch. Below, I’ve included a few examples of how to verbally strike your opponent for intimidation purposes.

  1) “Be careful, son, I’m bathed in the devil’s menstrual blood!” (An oldie, but goodie.)

  2) “You creeping up on the 963, sucka?” (This has a very gang-sterish feel and, for this reason, should not be used when your aggressor is a gangster. If you do, you will probably get shot. The numbers are not important—but there should always be three to represent an area code. However, you do not want to use the area code that applies to your current location or the thug staring you down will know you are full of shit and proceed to pummel your face.)

  3) “I lick a dog’s ass with guys like you.” (This has many levels of intimidation. First, it’s confusing, and anything that is confusing tends to be a little scary. Second, it involves a dog’s ass. It will lead your attacker to wonder if you like dogs’ asses, and if you do, are you going to rape him after you beat him. It’s more than a sane mind can handle.)

  4) “Naw, naw, naw. You don’t get to fight me. You got to fight my bitches first. If you can get through them, you get a piece of me.” (This makes you sound really cool. If you have more than one chick, you’re a pimp or a player. Either way, no one will want to beat you up. They will want to make you their friend.)

  5) “I fuck guys like you in jail.” (It helps to drool while screaming this.)

  It is important to learn these types of verbal attacks to avoid confrontations on the street, but when it comes to professional fighting, talking trash serves very little purpose. It doesn’t matter if you call your opponent the son of a crack whore or praise the ground he walks on—come fight night, he is going to try to knock your head off your shoulders and break your arm just the same. If anything, trash talk will only motivate your opponent during training. Repeating your words over and over in his mind, he might find the juice to stay in the gym an hour longer than he otherwise would have. Remembering the nasty shit you said about his hygiene or his mother might encourage him to spend more time reviewing your tapes. I could see doing it if you got something on your end, but you don’t. Unless you’ve received trash-talk training from professional wrestlers in the WWE, the majority of the time you come off sounding mildly retarded. With that said, I have to admit that I’ve seen a calm, cool, matter-of-fact form of trash talk work on one occasion, but it really was more of a sign of utter confidence than a form of shit talking. It was at the press conference before Chuck Liddell took on Babalu Sobral. There were more than a hundred people there, all staring up at these two fighters.

  “How do you see this fight going?” a reporter asked Liddell.

  Liddell looked out over the crowd, and without a trace of emotion or an ounce of cockiness in his voice, he said, “I’m going to knock Babalu out.”

  The way he said it made it sound as if it had already happened or he had somehow looked into the future and seen the outcome. Half the crowd immediately began nodding their heads, confirming the knockout. The other half glanced over to Babalu, and judging by the look on his face, he, too, was convinced. Although he didn’t come right out and say it, you could almost hear him thinking, Yeah, he’s probably going to knock me out. It was psychological warfare at its finest. It probably wouldn’t have worked so well if Chuck had never won a fight, but at the time he was KING at knocking people out. If it’s your first fight, don’t talk trash. It will only make you look like a jackass if you should get beaten in the first four seconds. It will also inspire your opponent to cackle as he does a victory dance around your fallen body. Not good for your highlight reel.

  Things Not to Say Before a Professional Fight

  1) I’m going to kick his ass.

  2) I’m going to beat his head in.

  3) I’m gonna mess his face up so his mama don’t recognize him.

  4) I’m gonna whoop him so severely his girlfriend’s ovaries fall out.

  5) I’m going to man up!

  You get the point—basically any of the ass-kicking clichés. If you need more examples of what not to say, just watch a WEC fight. Those guys are absolute masters at how to trash talk poorly.

  If the Interviewer Is Forcing You to Say Something, Instead of Talking Trash, Use a Generic Sports analogy

  1) I’m going to give a hundred and ten percent. I don’t know how that’s humanly possible, but I’ll find a way.

  2) I’m going to do my best, give it all I got.

  3) I won’t quit until the bell.

  4) He’s going to know he’s in a fight.

  Let Me See That Big-Nut Strut

  Mixed martial arts is a difficult sport to judge due to its complexity. For each round, the judges must observe and absorb a huge amount of information, including strikes, takedowns, submission attempts, and Octagon control, which, in total, is a fancy way to say aggression. If it’s an extremely close fight, at the end of a round an inexperienced judge (of which there are many) will likely be unable to compute all the data, causing him to refer to the fighters’ appearance and general attitude when filling out the scorecard. As a result, you must pay special attention to how you behave after each round.

  Personally, I use the system created by the renowned Cleveland Brown’s running back Jim Brown. When he played football, he got up slow after every play, casually handed the ball to the referee, and then walked gingerly back to the huddle. It didn’t matter if it was the first quarter or the fourth—he had the same expression on his face and walked at the exact same speed. His coach eventually asked him why he didn’t pop up and put a hustle in his stride, and Jim’s answer was simple.

  “Then what happens after I’ve carried the ball thirty times and can no longer hustle back? I’ll tell you what—the other team sees that I’m walking, that I’m weak, totally done. I’d be giving away my ace right there.” (My editor asked me if these were the exact words that Jim Brown used, and my answer was, “Haven’t a fucking clue.” I was just trying to tell a story, you know? I think I remember him saying something kind of like that, but things tend to get a little funny in my head. Thanks, Adam Korn, for completely breaking up this little tale. Way to go, buddy.)

  It’s quite genius if you think about it. By hiding his energy and enthusiasm when he had it, he could make people think he had energy and enthusiasm when he didn’t. People watching him for the first time might look at his sluggish movements and think him either lazy or exhausted, but after seeing him climb back to his feet in a calm and collected manner a dozen times, they get used to his speed. It begins to appear normal.

  Although Jim Brown devised this tactic for the game of football, it works just as well in mixed martial arts. It can be used to mask your weakness from your opponent, your opponent’s cornermen, the fans in the crowd, and, most importantly, the judges who are scoring your bout. If a fight ends and I’m in a dominant position, I’ll casually disengage and walk nice and easy back to my corner. This is often difficult to accomplish after the first round because my adrenaline is through the roof, but I’ll force myself to slow down in order to set a standard in the minds of those watching. The only way I’ll increase my speed is if a round ends and I’m stuck in a bad position. In such a case, I will pop up quickly to show the judges that I’m physically all right, and then walk casually back to my corner. By the end of the fifth round, when walking is all I can manage, I appear just as fresh as when the fight started.

  While it can certainly make a positive impression in the minds of the judges if you rush back to your corner and choose to stand rather than sit, fights are generally determined by how the
y end rather than how they start, so you better rush back to your corner and stand after every single round. If you no longer have the energy to do both, it tells the judges that you have been broken. It doesn’t matter if your opponent is also too weak to stand—if he’s been walking back to his corner and sitting between every round, there is no way to determine if he is tired or not. So take my advice and relax the instant the bell sounds. Even though no points are being scored during the intermissions, you’re being judged. Consistency is the way to prevent that judgment from working against you.

  Consolidation Prevents Constipation

  When I went out with a group of guys from the Hardcore Gym in Athens, Georgia a few years back, I made a bet that I could eat a hundred Buffalo wings at a local dive bar. Now, I’ve always thought training for fights was rather easy, so I figured the eating challenge would also be easy. And, for the most part, it was. I consumed fifty wings down to the bone, and felt Massengill fresh! We had all sorts of cool stuff planned that night, but I figured I would polish off the remaining fifty before we headed out. However, the batch of twenty-five wings the waitress put before me were spicy. I don’t do well with spicy things, and my friends knew this. To help me wash down the fiery meat, they began feeding me pitchers of New Castle, which is one of the thicker beers. After I had downed two pitchers, they began purchasing me chocolate martinis, thinking the sugar would wake me up. I had three of them. By the time I made it to seventy-five wings, I no longer felt Massengill fresh. With pounds of meat swimming in a soup of beer and chocolate martinis, there was no way I could consume the rest or even head out for our debaucherous night on the town. I was so sick, I had to lie down on the floor of the bar for several hours. I kept mumbling over and over, “Oh God, I made a mistake,” and vociferously promised sweet baby Jesus I would never ever accept an eating challenge again.