Ken Pavia is the owner of MMA Agents, a full service sports agency that represents over 50 elite level MMA fighters. The firm has more clients in the UFC, Strikeforce, and Bellator then any other agency. Ken will be contributing bi-monthly to Versus.com. In the meantime, you can follow Ken on Facebook or Twitter, or visit his agency’s Web site at http://www.MMAagents.com.

By way of formal introduction, I am Ken Pavia. I am “The Pav” — and I make dreams come true. Please indulge me in my stories…

THE GENESIS

Sport encompasses so many elements of beauty in life: power, grace, courage, speed, agility, flexibility, personality, etc. No sport puts all of the elements together like MMA. As an avid collector of hockey fight tapes I thought I found love. But like my first marriage, it was all cast aside when I watched UFC 1 and discovered what I believed to be bliss from a fan’s perspective.

Upon graduating from law school in 1991 I opened an agency and began representing professional athletes. On May 9, 2005 my career path changed dramatically when former UFC Heavyweight Champion Ricco Rodriguez walked into my office and in front of my staff grabbed me by the leg and throat and pinned me to the ceiling. He looked up at me and informed me that I was to be his new agent. Less then two months later I was in Hawaii cornering my first fight along with former WEC champ Razor Rob McCullough and WEC and UFC veteran Tiki Ghosn. While sitting in a living room watching a fight event may have been bliss, this was a new level altogether. The emotion before a fight when you have a vested interest with one of the combatants mirrors the feeling in your stomach as you ascend down the first steep slope on a roller coaster. The anxiety as the bell sounds and the pugilists begin to circle would laugh at a Xanax. And the adulation you experience when a fighter you have a personal relationship with wins is indescribable. I don’t do drugs, but I understand them. I had found my heroine.

THE HOTEL LOBBY

For fifteen minutes of glory cage side while your client fights for a payday, there are hundreds of hours spent emailing, texting, talking on the phone and traveling. Being on the road three weekends a month I get to see where everyone prefers to meet and conduct business. Some prefer the night clubs, some restaurants. While I frequent the former and latter, my office on the road is the hotel lobby. You can learn so much about the game, the fighters, local fans, the organization, etc, bysitting and watching.

As I sat with Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker in the lobby after the event last week, Frank Shamrock came and joined us. Not being a big fan of Frank given his actions toward my client and good friend Phil Baroni, I took the opportunity to ask a question with a dig. I asked Shamrock who hits harder, Phil Baroni or Nick Diaz. Frank actually gave me an insightful answer. He said, “No question, Phil hits much harder.” He went on to explain that “Every time you get hit in the head you flash and Nick is so accurate and busy that you flash a bunch of times until you are disoriented. Then he cracks you.” With Phil he said “When I got hit I literally felt his knuckles penetrate all the way to my bones.”

During a break from the lobby networking I checked in with Phil to give him updates as his college buddy, training partner, and homeboy Jay Heiron had just fought on the Strikeforce undercard. Baroni later reminded me that he never caught Shamrock clean. He didn’t get to display the “one and done” power that he showed in knocking out his opponents in Cage Rage in England and in Icon in Hawaii in 2008. They say the last thing to go is your power and as an agent you have to remind your power punching clients of that sometimes, particularly when they are down coming off a loss as Phil has been.

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