For 20 years UGer ix3623 spoke with fighters and gathered facts, with an eye towards publishing an ebook of no-filler MMA facts to sell on Amazon. Unfortunately, he was told by an Attorney friend that books like these, where you make money and talk about other people, even if they are fact, can get you sued. Since he doesn’t want to be sued, he is posting everything he was going to put in the book here for the UG, for free!

Two weeks ago the UG Blog published 99 facts for the diehard MMA fan, Part 1 and last week another 99 facts in Part 2 were published.

This is Part 3. As the pieces are longer, this week only has 33 facts.

200. Hermes Franca on what led him to fight Manny Reyes, jr. for only 1 dollar :

Cage Potato: One of your most beloved fights came against a not so great fighter. Tell me about Manny Reyes, the man you fought for one dollar for the fans on The Underground Forum at MMA.tv.

Hermes Franca : That’s funny. I actually go on The Underground like 1-3 times a year to post but I love MMA.tv, it’s one of my favorite websites. I go every day to check things but not to write. But when I did go there and leave some messages they think it was funny and they love that. So this guy Manny Reyes was writing some trash around 2004 and if you remember the UFC was not doing the lightweight division anymore at that time. Euphoria was doing shows and for some reason they were going to have Manny Reyes fight. He was saying he was the UFC champion and I thought this guy is crazy. He was challenging me for some reason and one of the promoters said, Ok Hermes you want to fight? I say I don’t want to fight this guy, he’s nobody.

The promoter said that the fans want someone to kill him. I had already accepted a fight with Phil Johns but I accepted the fight. Right before the fight he was saying that he wanted his own rules – one round of ten minutes and that it could only be KO or submission. He created his own rules and they were selling a lot of tickets so he wanted like $2-3,000. Because he was so expensive the promoter asked me if I would fight for one dollar. I said, What the fuck? The promoter said, Come on, do it for me, you’re a good friend. Ok, let’s fight for one dollar.

And the arena was crazy. Everyone was waiting for it like I was fighting Gomi or BJ Penn (laughs). It was packed! And then when we’re in the ring I can hear the promoter shouting to me, Kill him! Kill him! I said, Bro you cant do that, you’re the matchmaker! (laughs)”

Hermes went on to Knock out Manny Reyes with ease.

video of fight:

insult to injury pics:

201. Shonie Carter was a defendant on the tv show “Judge Mathis”. He was being sued by Big House Boxing for not showing up to referee a fight and canceling 2 seminars. Carter won the case. Shonie was also a coach on BET’s mma tv show “Iron Ring”.

202. Drew Fickett was also on a court show (Judge Judy) as a defendant. He was being sued by a woman for damaging her car. Fickett allegedly hit golf balls off the top of her car. He lost his case. Fickett was also in a band called Cock Sandwich with fellow mma fighters Kurt Pellegino, Kevin Roddy , and James Terry.

203. Drew Fickett on being banned from ADCC :

“ADCC: Now the drama. What happened on Saturday night between you and some of the other Brazilian competitors?

DREW: We were all having fun and one thing led to another and their was a lot of ruckus in the hotel. You can’t go to that environment and expect to be everybody’s friend. I learned that it’s better to leave the post fight festivities at home or with the comfort with my close friends that I know and love to party with.

ADCC: It appears as though you have been banned from competing at ADCC for 10 years. Does it even matter or would want to appeal and compete in two years?

DREW: Whatever makes everyone more secure. I got to meet my hero Marcelo Garcia and get a picture with him. He’s a really down to earth guy and a gentleman, not a Terrel Owens. He’s an amazing competitor, therefore my whole world is not shattered and I can go on living. As for the experience of ADCC, I just wanted to have a good time. I look at anything where I’m not getting punched, elbowed, kneed, kicked etc. a good time. It was a pro-bowl for me and I had a blast. I apologize that some people are just angry, but hey you can’t expect to go to downtown Trenton, New Jersey, the top three murder capital in the U.S., and expect everyone to be able to find their comfort zone. I wish the best of luck to all the submission grapplers that look to compete in ADCC and I hope the tournament is still around after FILA takes the sport over. I would like to thank Miguel Itturate for his adeptness at handling every situation and being very organized with a plethora of grapplers.”

the following is the story about the altercation that got Fickett banned as told by his friend Jamie Walsh :

“This is what happened that weekend. Yer Drew was drunk and had been drinking all day so what. We all had been drinking all day but drew is a hell of a funny drunk. We were all laughing and making jokes all day. I didn’t see Xandi kick drew but that was bull shit. Drew could hardly walk let alone fight. All Drew wanted to do is buy everyone drinks. When I walked back into the lobby I saw that drew was arguing with Miguel. I told him to sit down in the chair because you don’t argue with the promoter. Rani Yarbro came over and said hey my friend’ to drew. Got close then started punching him in the head. Santiago tried to stop him and about 15 Brazilians Surround us. I just picked up Drew and walked him out the hotel due to the fact that I felt that I thought that drew was going to get jumped. It was funny when Drew shouted out Rani you hit like a little girl. All I have to say is yer Drew is wild one when he drinks but he also funny as hell and if you didn’t think so please get a sense of humor. Yer he was drunk but not an angree drunk that would want to fight. You call your selves Pro Fighters well act like Pro’s We should all be getting paid for fighting not starting fights with drunks that can’t fight back.”

204. Shane Carwin and Brock Lesnar wore size 4xl mma gloves. This is the same size gloves Hong Man Choi wore.

“Brock Lesnar is only the second man in the history of combat sports in Nevada to wear size 4XL gloves, the other being South Korean giant Choi Hong-man, who is 7-3 and 367 pounds.”

-Dave Meltzer

205. MMA fighter Justin Levens and his wife were found dead at their home in an apparent murder suicide. Both died of gunshot wounds. No suicide note was found. A handgun was found close to Leven’s body. There were no signs of a struggle.

“Initial evidence suggested that Justin was the shooter. It was a chest wound that penetrated her heart and killed her, and his was to the head, said O. C. Sheriff Coroner’s Office spokesman Jim Amormino.

Amormino confirmed that painkillers and anti-depressants were discovered in the Levens’s home, along with the handgun Justin allegedly used to end their lives. Police had visited Justin and Sara at least twice in the previous month, once to investigate a possible drug overdose.”

Nearly a year prior to this incident, Justin Leven’s very close friend and fellow mma fighter Jeremy Williams had committed suicide by shooting himself as he sat in his car.

Leven’s training partners have stated that he had never been the same after Williams committed suicide.

206. Igor Vovchanchyn :

“People in my village would ring the town bell every time I was in a bad mood to warn everyone away from confronting me.”

” I did OK in my studies. Fought a lot. Beat everybody up. I was naughty, a bit of a hooligan! (smiling) We had a track and field athletics section in the school, so I joined. I trained there for five years and was the fastest runner. And then I was invited to join a boxing section, where I started my training under the trainer Oleg Ermakov. Then eventually I was invited to join kickboxing: they were looking for a heavier guy. I agreed to. Was swinging my legs already during the training.”

“I’m a businessman now. I won’t come back. Sure I think about it every once in a while, but I’m 35, you know. The main problem is the injuries. I can’t even strike with my right hand. I got three screws in my right elbow and one in the left. I’m about to undergo an operation on my nose as I can’t breathe right. To sum things up, there is no sense in my comeback.”

207.

Igor on the demise of Pride :

“Well, it’s bad. Americans trampled down pretty much everything there, and they pay too little. Monopoly is not good in this case. It would be for the best if Pride stayed alive.”

208. “On December 25, 2008, MMA fighter Justin Eilers was shot during an apparent domestic dispute by his stepfather, 48-year-old James Robert Malec, at Malec’s and his mother’s residence in Nampa, Idaho. He died from a single gunshot to the chest. Malec, a former correctional officer, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. Eilers left behind a son, who was also in the home that night. Malec was convicted on the lesser charge of manslaughter and sentenced to 15 years in prison.”

209. “On December 15, 2007 at 7:00 am Ryan Gracie was found dead in a jail cell in Sao Paulo, Brazil. A few hours earlier, at about 1:30 am, Gracie had been arrested for stealing and crashing a car, then attempting to hijack a motorcycle to flee from police officers. The owner of the motorcycle hit Gracie on the head, and he was detained by several cyclists until police arrived. The victim of the stolen car was 76 years old and received cuts on his fingers from Ryan Gracie’s knife. A toxicological examination at the Medical Legal Institute was conducted, after which he was transported to the police station. While in jail, Ryan Gracie’s wife called psychiatrist Dr. Sabino Ferreira de Faria to attend to him. The psychiatrist was later accused of negligence by over prescribing medication and causing the death of Ryan. He was later sentenced to two years of community service for recklessness. The doctor was with Gracie most of the night, and was notified of Ryan Gracie’s death as he was driving home. Gracie was found alone and slumped into a corner when police were checking the cells.”

210. Chael Sonnen trained at the WCW Power Plant, but never actually joined the company, choosing to focus on MMA instead. Sonnen : “The WCW used to have a training camp that was all strength and conditioning. When I was in college I went through it to get good exercise in. I was never there to become part of the pro wrestling business, just getting workouts during the off season.”

211. Rowdy Roddy Piper’s son Colt Toombs is a pro mma fighter.

212. Star Wars director George Lucas’s daughter Amanda Lucas is also a pro fighter that won a DEEP women’s open-weight championship.

213. Alberto “Dos Caras Jr.” Rodriguez, who is best remembered by mma fans as the masked fighter who lost by a headkick against CroCop at Pride Bushido 1, wrestled in the WWE without his mask under the name Alberto Del Rio. In preparation for his mma career, Dos Caras trained under Marco Ruas. “In 2003, Japanese MMA organization Pride Fighting Championships put out an open challenge for anyone to face their top star Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovi? in a match. Over 50 competitors stepped forward, including a couple of Japanese professional wrestlers, out of the group Dos Caras, Jr. was chosen since he had an MMA background and also a “name” due to his and his father’s association with professional wrestling. “

214. Some other professional wrestlers that transitioned from wrestling to mma and vice versa :

Anthony Carelli (Santino Marella), Takao Yoshida (Taka Michinoku), Mike Polchlopek (Bart Gunn), Brock Lesnar, Sean O’ Haire, Batista, Tony Halme (Ludvig Borga), Nathan Jones, Keiichi Yamada (Jushin Thunder Liger), Ken “The World’s Most Dangerous Man” Shamrock, Don “The Predator” Frye (New Japan), Tank Abott, Paul Varelans (ECW), Kazushi “The Gracie Hunter” Sakuraba (UWFI) , Kazuyuki Fujita (New Japan), Kiyoshi Tamura (UWFI), Volk Han (Rings), Bob “The Beast” Sapp (WCW,etc), Justin McCully (UPW/New Japan), Sylvester “The Predator” Terkay, Ron “H2O” Waterman (OVW) , Tokimitsu “Kendo Kashin” Ishizawa (New Japan), Paulo Cesar “Giant” Silva (WWE) , Craig “The Pitbull” Pittman (WCW), El Canek (CMLL), Yoshihiro Takayama (All Japan), Tom “KGB” Howard (AAA),Daniel Puder, Frank Trigg, Anthony “Pitt Bull #2” Durante (ECW), Scott “Bam Bam” Bigelow (WWE), Bas Rutten, Brian Johnston, Michiyoshi Ohara (New Japan), Josh Barnett, “Lightning Foot” Jerry Flynn, Naoya Ogawa, Nobuhiko Takada, Bobby Lashley, Mark Coleman, Kevin Randleman, Alexander Otsuka, Tim Sylvia, King Mo, Tito Ortiz, Quinton Jackson, Butterbean, Yoji Anjoh, etc …

215. Japanese pro wrestling superstar Nobuhiko Takada had been calling out the legendary Brazilian fighter Rickson Gracie, who did not even acknowledge him.

Yoji Anjo, a famous pro-wrestler back in Japan, headed down to LA to challenge Rickson Gracie to a fight. Yoji showed up at the academy while Rockson (Rickson’s eldest son, RIP) was there, asking where Rickson was, and refusing to leave if Rickson did not fight him. The students called called Rickson who was at home, and Rickson arrived soon after. There were tons of Japanese reporters outside, and Rickson did not allow them inside his academy.

Anjo then questioned Rickson’s honor and the two went into a room.

Rickson famously said later If we fight for money, I’ll stop hitting you when you ask me to. If we fight for honor, I’ll stop hitting you when I feel like it.

Only one of his students filmed the fight, which has never been available.

Anjo was a bloody mess after the fight.

The only copy of the tape is held by Rickson, and he has never released it. However, long timer UGer Gordon Hester (Momentum) has watched the tape with Rickson, and offers a narrative of what happens.

MMA.tv member ‘Momentum’ watched the tape and he give a detailed account of what happened on the message forum :

I watched the video, the lead up video where Anjo announced in a large stadium he was going to LA to fight Rickson to the death and also the video afterwards where some small guy who was a reporter showed up with a sign reading I want to fight Rickson Gracie. I watched them with Rickson at his home.

As for the lead up, if I recall there was bad blood between Rickson and some fight group in Japan called Rings. Rickson beat their top fighter and they sent Anjo to avenge that fight. I would guess he made the announcement at some Pro Wrestling event since there were probably about 10,000 people at the event. If I recall, Rings did Pro Wrestling and MMA.

As for the fight, Rickson was home when Anjo and a big crew showed up at his school. Rickson got the call and drove over. The kicked all the media out of the room and then Rickson’s group filmed the fight. Anjo was bigger than Rickson. No refs and a real fight. Rickson traded some kicks and then eventually went in and got the clinch. He immediately went to the mount and never lost that position. From there he just beat up Anjo with punches. One time Anjo turned over and Rickson kept pounding him in the neck instead of choking it. Rickson told me he wasn’t done punishing him. He rolled back over and took a massive beating including one shot that looked like his nose split in half. He rolled over again and Rickson choked him unconscious and left him in a pool of blood. Rickson didn’t have a scratch on him.

I remember discussing the violence of the fight with Rickson. I felt like he really gave that guy a much bigger beating than necessary. He explained to me that when he let the media back in, there needed to be no doubt who won. Anjo went to the hospital. Rickson celebrated with his students. I was told this was big news in Japan and there were certainly lots of pictures that floated around of Anjo being a beaten mess. If I recall, he later sent Rickson a gift to apologize, sort of a Samuri thing.

As for the small guy that showed up afterwards, it was just a goof. Some reporter came to Rickson’s school and was meet at the door by Lemon and Rockson. The funny part of the video is Rockson telling the little reporter he had to beat him before he got a shot at his dad. As usual, Rockson had to be controlled because he was always ready for a fight. I think Rockson would have destroyed the little reporter since he was not a fighter. RIP Rockson. I miss you.

I do hope the video comes out some day. It wasn’t like an MMA fight. There were no rules and no refs. It was basically a street fight in a dojo. People and fans of MMA today don’t realize that this is how Rickson and many fightr of his time grew up. Vale Tudo fighting is way different than MMA.

I also remember Rickson having absolutely no emotion about the fight. He was sort of odd to see someone in that situation or talking through the fight when we were watching it and explained it without the least bit of emotion. He also showed no emotion before or during the fight. It supported my belief that one of Rickson’s greatest gifts was his mind. He sorted reminded me of a socio path when he fought, only thought and no emotion regardless of the situation. Anyway, that is the story as I remember it.”

how Anjo looked after the fight:

how Rickson looked after the fight:

For those that are unaware, Rickson’s son Rockson died of a drug overdose. Rickson has mentioned on more than one occasion that his son’s loss was by far the hardest thing to overcome in his life and that he didn’t train for almost 3 years when going through his grieving process.

216. In an attempt to recreate the inoki vs Muhammad Ali fight, Nobuhiko Takada planned to replicate it by setting up a fight against former WBC heavyweight boxing champion Trevor Berbick who happened to be the last fighter to face/defeat Muhammad Ali. The fight was set and in 1991, he went to the UWFI in Japan to fight Nobuhiko Takada in a “boxer vs. wrestler” bout. Berbick claimed that he had been double-crossed and that he had expected the fight to be like American kickboxing, but it turned out that the rules allowed Takada to kick Berbick below the belt. Berbick refused to mount any offense, instead repeatedly complaining to the referee as Takada kicked him repeatedly in the legs. Takada claimed victory by default when Berbick exited the ring.

217. After boxers began trashing MMA, Din Thomas put out a challenge to any boxer. A challenge that former WBA/WBC boxing champion Ricardo Mayorga accepted. The mma fight was set to take place and even had a press conference where Mayorga seemed to daze Thomas with a back hand when they got into each other’s faces. Don King later came into the picture when he found out about the fight and pulled the plug. ” Judge Marc Gold granted Don King’s injunction just hours before the fight. Shine Fights officials have conceded defeat in the matter and Mayorga vs Din Thomas was pulled from the card. “

Thomas vs Mayorga Press Conference where Mayorga seemed to daze Din Thomas with a backhand when Thomas stood up towards him (incident happens 9:12 into the video):

Mayorga went on to fight in his first mma fight where he faced Wesley Tiffer. The fight ended in a no contest when Mayorga kneed Tiffer in the spine to get out of a submission. Mayorga fought 3 more times in mma, losing every fight.

218.

The first sanctioned mma fight in the United States was a fight between Milo Savage and Gene Lebell in 1963.

story behind the fight:,br>

Gene Lebell on the fight :

“BLACK BELT: Would you call your match with Milo Savage America’s first MMA bout?

Gene LeBell: It was the first televised MMA match. It was billed as pitting a judo, karate and wrestling guy against the No. 5 light-heavyweight boxer. I was known mostly for judo because I’d won the Nationals a few times, but I’d also done boxing, wrestling, karate, taekwondo and kenpo, mixing them together before it was popular.

BLACK BELT: Why were you chosen for the match?

Gene LeBell: A fellow who did kenpo karate, Ed Parker, a great teacher and a great human being, came to my school and said a guy named Jim Beck had called us karate and judo bums and offered $1,000 to anyone he couldn’t beat. The karate guys were emotional about it, and they had a big meeting. They wanted someone to fight Beck and decided on me. I said, Why me? I’m not known as a karate or kenpo guy. They said, Yeah, but you’re the most sadistic bastard we know. They said, If you win, you get $1,000. I said I’d fight my grandmother for $1,000. But she’d have beaten me. …

BLACK BELT: Did anything out of the ordinary happen before the bout?

Gene LeBell: Well, they did a bait-and-switch. I thought I’d be facing Beck, an amateur fighter, but they put in Milo Savage, a great boxer with a wrestling background.

BLACK BELT: Did that bother you?

Gene LeBell: Not really. I’m no mental giant, so I viewed it as more of a challenge: The tougher your opponent is, the better you look if you beat him. The only thing that bothered me was what happened later — instead of boxing gloves, he wore what amounted to speed-bag gloves with metal inside.

BLACK BELT: The fight was held in Salt Lake City. Why not Los Angeles, where you were based?

Gene LeBell: They tried to get it in LA, but the California Athletic Commission said no because it was against the law. They said it would be categorized as a duel. We ended up in Utah.

BLACK BELT: What was the lead-up to the bout like?

Gene LeBell: The day before, they told me to go to the offices of a big TV network in Salt Lake City to see a guy who did a sports show. The host was obviously for the boxer, who was from Salt Lake City. During the interview, he was articulate and used every two-liner he could to put me down, but I wasn’t sharp enough to say anything. Then he asked, How are you going to win? I said, I’m going to strike him, freeze his body and hammer him into the ground. Of course, I was showboating. My manager told me to stop fooling around. Then I said, I’ll leave him in the ground until summer, defrost him and pull him out, then choke him out.

The host said, Those chokes don’t work … show me. I snatched him, choked him out and dropped him on his head. He dropped the mic, and I picked it up and said: Our commentator went to sleep. I guess he’s quitting. Now it’s the Gene LeBell Show! Come to the arena tomorrow night and watch me annihilate, mutilate and assassinate your local hero because one martial artist can beat any 10 boxers. The place sold out — they all wanted to see me get killed.

BLACK BELT: You won in the fourth round, right?

Gene LeBell: Yes. When I choked him out, the ref, who was also the doctor, didn’t know how to resuscitate him with katsu. After he’d been out for 20 minutes, my coach went in and revived the guy. The next morning, the newspaper headlines said, The Savage Was Tamed.

BLACK BELT: Was there a big reaction in the martial arts world?

Gene LeBell: There was because — it sounds like I’m blowing my own horn, and I don’t mean to — I represented all the martial arts. I never said I was doing only judo or karate or kenpo. I never said one art is better than the others. They’re all good. You should learn everything. You’re not a complete martial artist unless you do everything.

BLACK BELT: Why do you think it took so long for MMA to catch on?

Gene LeBell: Well, it was against the law in many places. Also, the karate guys didn’t want to do MMA because the wrestlers would tackle them. The wrestlers didn’t want to because the boxers would hit them between the horns and the karate guys might kick them.

BLACK BELT: If you were 30 years old now, would you be an MMA fighter?

Gene LeBell: I probably would. But if I had the brain I have now — I’m a lot smarter than I was when I was 30 — maybe not. I do stunt work, and when you’re making $200,000 or $300,000 a year doing stunts and collecting residuals, why the heck should you get beat up? There’s only 1 in 1,000 MMA fighters who make money. Same in boxing. A lot of fighters are broke. The only thing I have against MMA is they don’t have a retirement plan. In the stunt world, I get a pretty doggone good retirement from SAG and AFTRA — and I can still work.

BLACK BELT: Overall, what do you think of the direction MMA is taking the martial arts?

Gene LeBell: I think it’s wonderful. All my life I’ve pushed people to do all the martial arts. You don’t have to be a fighter. Just learn the techniques and the defenses. If you don’t use it, you lose it.”

219. Dan Severn was an extra in the movie Rudy:

220. At a team punishment party, Josh Burkman and Phil Baroni both got into a physical fight with each other that ended with Tito Ortiz choking out Burkman’s brother. According to Baroni, the entire incident started when Burkman grabbed Baroni’s girlfriend’s ass. Below is Josh Burkman’s side of the story :

“FB: I heard you had an altercation with Phil Baroni, What Happened?

J B: Well Team Punishment got together to do a meet and greet with the fans. Everybody was there Kendal, Tito everyone from Team Punishment and Phil Baroni was there too. And I mean from what I hear Phil Baroni is a real hot head. So we’re all just doing our thing that day. So later were at the club. Tito got a couple of tables at Sutra. You know and I wasn’t partying I was just kind of hanging out screwing around and there was like twenty-five people packed into a small little area, and we’re all dancing and I got bumped a little bit, and Baroni was next to me with his girlfriend and she was standing there with her hands around Phil. Nobody is trying to pick up on her or anything and I bumped into her, and my hand might have smacked her hip, or her thigh or something I don’t know. The next thing I know Phil’s tapping me on my shoulder and he’s like, did you touch my girlfriend’s ass?(In Josh’s best Phil Baroni accent) And I was like, no, I didn?t touch your girlfriend’s ass. come on. And then I look away and my brother is like what did he say? So then Phil taps me again And he’s like, are you sure you didn’t touch my girlfriend’s ass? And I was like dude I got more respect then that, I didn’t touch your girl’s ass. And then he grabs my shoulder again. And I’m like dude don’t ****ing touch me again. So we start to get into it back and fourth, and he starts to run his mouth a little bit, and now I’m getting pissed off, and I start making fun of him saying how he’s such a bad ass and what not. Basically I wasn’t trying to calm the situation down lets just say that.

So Tito grabs me and he’s like, hey bro what’s the deal? And he was like, just apologize. he is such a ****ing hothead. And I was like I’m not going to apologize dude, I didn’t do anything. He’s like, dude, just don’t get into a fight! And I’m like no worries I won’t get into a fight.

So I go over to Phil and i am like, no worries bro, I got no problem with you lets just drop it. And Baroni’s like **** you I never like you anyways, so he goes to smack me in the head right over Ken Pavia. (Phil’s manager) So right when he goes to smack me I hit him with a right hand and at the same time my brother hits him, and you know when we’re at the club, my brother has got my back always. So my brother hits him with like three right hands and puts his head down. Soon as he puts his head down Tito grabs my brother, and I was still there and I hit him with a couple of shots, and you know his head is still down, so I Thai clinched him and hit him with about three knees. Then somebody grabbed Phil and somebody grabbed me. And I was standing there with my brother and I was like you alright bro? And we were laughing. Tito comes up and is like what the **** man? I told you not to get into a fight! And I was like dude I was just standing there and he slapped me, what did you want me to do? Next thing you know whoever was holding Phil down on the couch let him go. And he jumped up from behind me and nailed me with a left hook. Totally blind sided me.

FB: Where did he hit you?

JB: Right in the chin dude. Right below the ear he hit me hard. I mean I felt the hit, but we have been training for weeks, so I was good you know. So then I turn around and my brother is already blasting him, so then Tito again grabs my brother. So then I start hitting him and they let me and Baroni go at it for like 45 seconds, and I had his head down on the couch and I was hitting him in the face and I got him good a bunch of times, so then I go to look for my brother and Tito has got him in a rear naked choke hold. So I’m like, Tito, let him go dude, that’s my brother. So he lets him go and he’s out cold.

So my brother is laying on the couch and I’m trying to wake him up, and then I felt something and I look down and Phil is trying to lock on an ankle lock on my brother, and not like a straight ankle lock, he’s got a heal hook in and he’s trying to break my brother’s ankle, so I reached down and hit Phil a couple of time to get him off. And my brother’s ankle was all swollen the next day because he had a good little lock on him. I mean how hard is it to put an ankle lock on someone who is passed out.

So the next thing the security guard is grabbing me and is like lets go, and I’m like, I’m cool man. I’m not trying to do anything, I just got cheap shoted and that’s all there is too it. So we go outside and Phil and Ken come walking out and Phil’s like, you ****ing pussies, you know in his little accent, and my brother is making fun of him, so the dude is just a hot head whacked out of his mind. So Ken Pavia comes over and is like, be the bigger man, you got a fight with Karo coming up, and I didn’t want to deal with it later, so I was like let me go over there and just apologize to him and bury this, and Ken was like just you, not your friends, so I walk over there and I’m like Phil, lets bury this, I got no issues with you. So I go to shake his hand, and he acts like he’s going to shake my hand, and then throws a big ass left hook at me. He missed because he wound up so far he was trying to kill me. I was like, bro, you’re a coward, and then security came out and broke it up again and that was pretty much it.

FB: Were you injured in the fight?

JB: Oh no. we have been over here training; you know the guys are all worried about my jaw. I mean he got me but I’m good.

FB: What did he look like afterwards?

JB: He’s going around saying nothing happened, but I bet you money nobody see’s him for a week. His manager Ken Pavia called me and was like, the UFC will really look down upon this and let’s just try to keep everything quiet. And I said, bro, I already talked to Dana and they’re not going to look down on me cause I got cheap shoted and defended myself. Just because your guy is an idiot doesn’t mean I’m not going to tell my side of the story. You know, we just beat him up for being an idiot. It was quite the little may lay. I’m just glad nobody got hurt. hopefully were all good for our fights. “

Phil Baroni responded to Josh Burkman’s side of the story with nothing more than “He is as truthful as he is good looking. “

221. The following is Tito Ortiz’s side of the story concerning his street fight with Lee Murray :

“thaFormula.com – What exactly went down with you and Lee Murray?

Tito Ortiz – I’ll tell you exactly what happened. We’re at a club, we’re all drinking and everything and it was an open bar and we were hammered. I’m in an Armani suit with dress shoes that are slippery on the bottom. We come out of the club, one of my friends jumps on Pat Militech’s back just playing around with him. Pat throws him off and Pat’s all “come on man get off me,” and one of the guys with Lee Murray said something and my friend ended up getting punched in the face and he got knocked out on the concrete and he was out. So Lee Murray and all his friends started hitting him in the head. So I came walking out of the club and I see this happening, I’m like “what the hell, who’s getting pummeled on the ground?” I look and it’s my best friend. I’m like “you got to be fucking joking me.” The first person I grabbed was Lee Murray. I clinched him and kneed him a couple of times and then Chuck Lidell comes out and he swings at one of the guys and it was mayhem, it was on. Then Lee took off running so I went to go chase him and he turned around and put up his fist and I went to go stop and I slid right into him and he hit me with a one-two and kicked me in the head. He said he knocked me out…he never knocked me out and I guess it all started from then. ‘Cause he kept talking about “oh I knocked Tito Ortiz out in England.” He rode on my coattail the whole time and that’s the only reason he’s fighting in the UFC right now is ’cause of that. It’s like now I’m gonna squash the kid just because of how much smack he’s been talking. I can’t wait! “

And here is a more recent interview of Tito talking about the incident:

This was Lee Murray’s response

“(Laughs). He’s not even a man. He can’t even admit to what happened. He has to come up with all this bullshit lies, saying, I had slippery shoes on. Hey, next time he comes to fight me, make sure he doesn’t wear dress shoes. He ain’t even man enough to say what happened. He said he got jumped by five guys or ten guys. The guy comes running at me, the guy comes at me. Must have thought I was an idiot and come running at me throwing punches and thought I wasn’t going to do nothing about it. What did he think, I was gonna run away? On the street, I got two, three, four hundred street fights, I’ve been street fighting all my life and this guy’s got ten or twenty fights in the octagon and thinks he’s gonna scare me off.

Lee Murray explains the sequence of events leading up to the altercation with Tito Ortiz: “I was speaking to him at fight, in the club, we was chattin. Pat and a few other guys were talking. We went outside and there was some commotion. I couldn’t really see what was going on. Me and my friend were trying to break it with Pat and a few others and it kicked off. One guy tried to hit my friend and I jumped in and that’s when Tito jumped in on me. I think the guy I stepped in on was one of his friends. Then he is coming to me. Pat and three other guys stepped between us. Then, his friend got knocked out cold. I was laughing, he seen me and took his jacket off. I took my jacket off, my watch off and put it in my pocket. He come running at me throwing punches and I smacked him up.”

Lee Murray comments on Tito’s excuse that he was drunk during their street fight: “We was both drinking. Tito was drunk, what about me? I was drinking vodkas and champagne all night. I was drunk as well. What does he think, I was sober and just finished a couple of rounds of shadow boxing and was ready? I was drinking all night and had dress shoes on as well. Dress shoes, what kind of excuse is that? If he was half a man, he’d come up with a better excuse than that. If that was me, you know what I’d have said? I’d have said, ah yeah, I was drunk, I scraped with a fighter and got a whaping. I wouldn’t say I had dress shoes on and got rushed by ten guys.”

222. Frank Shamrock talking about the 2 seperate altercations he had with Tank Abbott and Tank’s best friend Big Al :

“Bloody Elbow : Were you a part of that big rivalry between the Lion’s Den and Tank’s guys?

Frank Shamrock: Mostly that was between Tank and Ken. They were two ego guys that didn’t mix well. And we were all under Ken so we were organically connected to all of that. I was always trying to remove myself from all those things but I did get into a fistfight with “Big Al” that giant guy that used to shadow Tank around. He attacked me in Mobile, Alabama. Someone threw a hamburger and I had to beat him down.

Bloody Elbow : You fought that guy? That guy was enormous.

Frank Shamrock: He was like 6-8. (Laughs) I creamed him. We pull up at the hotel at the same time, at 4 AM in Mobile, Alabama. I get out of a cab and he gets out of his cab and he looks at me. The night before we had all been hanging out and having fun, but he looks at me all drunk and says ‘You’re the one who threw a hamburger at me’ and comes after me. I look at his guys that I know are egging him on and say ‘The guy is drunk and you’d better get rid of him.’ Finally he grabs me by my shirt and yanks it over my head. I give him a hockey punch and then I gave him ten of them. From 6-8 he got really, really short after that and I kicked him in the face a few times. He was done. I said ‘Take your guy and I’m going to bed.’ He was really messed up. The next day he comes up, his face was all butterfly stitched together and said ‘Frank, I’m really sorry. I was drunk.’ I was like, ‘It’s cool, but your friends were the guys that egged you on. You should be mad at them.’

It was a really weird situation but not as weird as the one in Buffalo, New York. I was there with my then girlfriend Tiffany. Now as then she was very hot. Tank was hanging out at the bar there and wraps his arm around my shoulder. He said ‘Hey cowboy, if she doesn’t get down tonight, I’ll take you home and suck your dick.’

Bloody Elbow : (Laughs)

Frank Shamrock: At this point him and I get in a little bit of a wrestling match and then security comes in and the whole thing gets broken up. Those were my two experiences with Tank and his guys. Neither of them were very fun.”

Pic of Tank and Big Al:

223. Excerpt from the book NHB by Clyde Gentry :

“At a topless bar after the fight, Paul Varelans and Bas Rutten got carried away and Rutten threw Varelans through a glass door. “We were just playing around,” admitted Rutten, though he claimed Varelans started it by biting a chunk out of his back. Later that evening, Rutten got so out of control that when a Ukrainian guard, machine gun in hand, asked him to calm down, the Dutchman slapped him across the face. In Holland, Rutten had a reputation for being a tough customer and had paid the price in jail on numerous occasions. The guard left and returned minutes later with 8 other armed men, only to find that Rutten had joined the ladies up on stage. Andy Anderson punched Rutten, grabbed him, and carried him away, knocking Rutten’s head through another glass door by accident. Varelans ended up in the hospital while Rutten was taken to jail.”

Bas Rutten’s version of the incident ;

” I threw Paul Varelans through a window. He attacked me from the back; he was drunk, I was drunk, you know. He started playing around and he bit a hole in my back. His teeth went through my back, through my skin. I said, let go man, you’re hurting me, so I slapped a Kimura lock on him and I threw him, WWHUUUHHP! And he flew away through a glass window. He went to a hospital to get a few stitches, but it was all in good fun because we’re friends.

Then this security guy comes to me and says I have to take it easy. I told him to fuck himself and he pulls out a machine gun. I grabbed the machine gun, pulled it away from him, and slapped the guy in the face. I mean, I was drunk, I was so lucky to leave that country alive.

He goes away, he comes back, now I’m on the dance floor with the strip girls dancing around the pole. Now there were the two of them [bouncers], and then the owner of the club who invited me there said, no, no, no, leave the guy, he’s with us. So I was very, very, fucking lucky there. How many angels I have, I don’t know, but I have a lot of guardian angels.”

224. Ronda Rousey was given her nickname “Rowdy” by her friends. She originally opposed using the nickname her friends gave her, feeling that it would be disrespectful to pro wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper. After meeting him through Gene Lebell (who helped train both), Piper gave her his approval.

Rowdy “Rowdy”Piper : “I was trained by, at the time, the toughest man in the world. Not according to him, either. His name is Judo Gene Lebell and he trained Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris. He’s the godfather of MMA. He’s about 80 years old. He still has a dojo in Burbank. When I was 17, 18 years old [wrestling] in the Olympic Auditorium, I ran into him. I was getting beat up pretty good and he took me under his wing.

So then maybe a year ago-ish (my timing’s not great), Ronda and Gene called me. She was so, so excited and so beautiful, saying, Would you mind? I’ll make you proud and I’m giving it everything you got. And I said, You go, gal. You go!

Somebody asked me, What would you think if ‘Rowdy’ Ronda Rousey would become the face of the UFC? I said I think it would be great. I think it would be a really great thing.

And Judo Gene Lebell, I don’t know if you know him. He got me in the very first movie I was in, too. He’s like my dad. I’ve been choked out many times by him.”

225. Phil Davis on how he got his nickname “Mr. Wonderful” : “I had a cat in college and his name was Mr. Wonderful. So I decided to name myself Mr. Wonderful, well not necessarily me, my friends decided to name me Mr. Wonderful after my cat after just after I started fighting.”

226. Marcus Davis on how he got his nickname “The Irish Hand Grenade” : It started in 1994. An elderly man who use to come into the boxing gym I trained out of started calling me [the Irish Hand Grenade]. He said he knew someone with the same moniker and I looked and fought like him. One night I fought and they announced me as the Irish Hand Grenade because my manager had them do it. Stuck ever since”.

227. Rashad Evans on how he got his nickname “Sugar” : Mike Van Arsdale gave it to me. We were training and the way I was moving and sparring one day he was like ‘Man, you know you kind of look like Sugar Ray Robinson. And he just kept saying it, and kept saying it and it was kind of like – it kind of stuck.”

228. Mirco Filipovic’s nickname “Cro Cop” is short for “Croatian Cop”, which comes from his membership in the Croatian police’s Anti-Terrorist Group ATJ Lucko.

229. Spencer Fisher on how he got his nickname “The King” : “My mother was an Elvis fan. My sideburns and nickname are in memory of her. I even used to do the Elvis salute at my fights – that’s how I got the nickname.”

230.

Lee Murray interview where he talks about a street fight where he was stabbed multiple times and almost lost his life :

“MMAWeekly: Lee, first of all, it’s nice to talk to you. That’s something that I think a lot of people didn’t think would ever happen with everything going on with you. Talk about your situation and what happened to you in the streets of London.

Lee Murray: I was at a nightclub. I was with a few of my friends…went to a casino and gambled and went to the club. Did a bit of partying. Come out of the club and there was a big fight that broke out outside the club between a group of guys and some guy that was with a friend of mine. One of my friends got involved in the fight. I tried to help him because about six or seven guys was on one of my friends. That’s when I got stabbed. I got stabbed in the head first. I thought it was a punch. When I felt the blood coming down my face, I just wiped the blood and just continued to fight. Next, I looked down at my chest and blood was literally shooting out of my chest. I looked down, and I knew I had been stabbed in the heart by the way the flow of the blood was coming out of my chest. It was literally flying out of my chest like a yard in-front of me.

MMAWeekly: You just thought you were getting punched? You didn’t even realize you were stabbed until you saw the blood just pouring out of your body?

Murray: Yes. I didn’t feel nothing. I didn’t feel nothing at all. When I saw the blood on my head, I thought someone had punched me in the head because there was about four or five of them on me, and one of them obviously had a big knife. When he stabbed me in the head the blood just came racing down my face. I wiped the blood out away from my face to get it out of my eye and just continued punching. It wasn’t until I looked down at my chest that I see the blood squirting out of my chest that I knew I had been stabbed in the heart. I took my shirt off and put my shirt in the hole and tried to stop the bleeding. I just run off down the road and jumped into some car. I think there was two girls getting into the car leaving the club, and I just jumped in their car and said get me to a hospital quick. I’ve been stabbed in the heart. I didn’t know these girls, and these girls just drove off. These girls saved my life. I went to jump into a taxi first, and the taxi driver, he locked his doors and just raced off. He wouldn’t let me get into his car.

MMAWeekly: So you get with these two girls, you have no idea who they are. They take you to the hospital, and you actually died. Correct?

Murray: Yes. I died three times. What happened was when I jumped in the girls car, they didn’t take me to the hospital because they didn’t know where the hospital was because because they were in central London. What they done, they rung up for an ambulance and the person on the end of the phone said you’re going to have to get to somewhere where we can pick him up from. The girls said they worked in a casino in central London, I’ll take him to the casino and just meet me there. The ambulance met at this casino. The police turn up, and the police were there. The ambulance turned up and they got me out of the car. I was out at this time. I lost so much blood that I was out. I couldn’t remember being there. Then I remember waking up in the ambulance with masks on my face, and I tried to rip the masks off. I didn’t know what was going on. I blacked back out again, and then I woke back up in the hospital on the operating table. One of my friends come charging through and they were shouting at him to get out because the danger of getting an infection. The next minute I was out again, and I woke up in intensive care about two days later.

MMAWeekly: Unbelievable. So, you told me the longest you were dead was for four minutes.

Murray: Yes. I think it was the last time I died. I died three times. The last time I died I was dead for about four minutes. The surgeon said to my family and stuff, he said look because he’s been dead for longer than three minutes, I think, if he recovers there’s a good possibility that he’s going to be brain damaged.

MMAWeekly: Man. And here you are, seriously, weeks later talking to us. The recovery is unbelievable. I mean somebody is looking out for you man because you shouldn’t even be talking to us right now.

Murray: I know. They said to me, if it was the average person they’d be dead. They would have never survived it. They said because you’re an athlete and all the training you put your body through, that’s what saved your life.

MMAWeekly: Usually when you go through something like that you have a life changing, you know, mentally you start seeing the world in a different way. Have you changed your ways now because I know you’ve had hundreds of street fights?

Murray: I think it’s made me stronger mentally. I think it’s made me stronger as a person. I think when I comeback, people were thinking he ain’t going to be able to fight again, and he ain’t going to be as strong as he was. I think I’m going to comeback stronger from this. I think it’s going to make me train harder. All this time I’ve trained, I never put 100% in my training. If I had a fight coming up I’d train eight to ten weeks before the fight, and after the fight I’d go out partying for two months and I wouldn’t train…I never put 100% into my training. I think now, once I’m recovered and I can train properly, I’m going to put 100% into my training. And I think I’m going to comeback as a stronger fighter and a person.

MMAWeekly: We knew you coming into this. You were kind of a legend on the streets being known as a street fighter. Does that keep you away now? I mean are you going to have anymore fights on the street?

Murray: I’ve done that a lot. That’s me. That’s how I was brought up. It’s going to be hard for me to change that.

MMAWeekly: Even after all of this? I mean you almost died. That still doesn’t change you?

Murray: The day is written for when I’m going to die. My day is already written for when I’m going to die, and that’s the way I believe. It’s not changing what I do in my life. I think my day is already written for when I’m going to die and that’s that. I don’t think I can change the way I am. That’s me. If I wasn’t like that I wouldn’t be the fighter I am, and I wouldn’t be who I am.

MMAWeekly: Lee, what does your body physically look like right now? I mean what kind of scars do you have?

Murray: I look like Frankenstein. I look like I’ve been put back together. I’ve got a scar all the way down my chest. I’ve got another scar down from my abdominal muscles. I’ve got like a big round hole, it looks like a gunshot hole, underneath my armpit. I’ve got one on my nipple where I got my nipple cut off. I got stabbed outside the club the week before.

MMAWeekly: Did you just say your nipple got cut off?

Murray: Yeah. I got into a fight outside the same club the week before and got stabbed twice.

MMAWeekly: Lee, what the heck are you doing man? We need your manager to step in, lock this guy up and not let him into nightclubs. You got stabbed twice the week before?

Murray: I got stabbed outside the same club the week before. When my mom heard that I went back to the same club, she went crazy. She went, you got stabbed outside the week before and you went back to the same club? She went, you’re nuts!”

231. Mark Hunt had no intention in becoming a professional fighter until a late night altercation outside a nightclub, just after getting out of jail for the second time in Auckland, changed the course of his life. The brawl did not last long, and Hunt knocked out multiple people. Sam Marsters, one of the bouncers at the door was impressed by Hunt’s knockout power and invited him to his gym to take up formal training.

232. Dean Lister on how he got his nickname “The Boogeyman” : It was given to me after my first fight because the guy I was supposed to fight got injured, and they went through a list of eight replacements before they got someone. My trainers said I scared them all away like the Boogeyman. The only reason I allow myself to be called that is because it’s goofy and there isn’t another one. My guys wanted to call me The Machine, but I don’t think the tough sounding nicknames do anything for a fighter.

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TO BE CONTINUED