Days from his UFC Fight Night 77 main event vs. Dan Henderson, Vitor Belfort recounts the first fight of his career, 19 years ago, in an exclusive with Elias Cepeda. Belfort’s ‘First Blood’ was vs. the 295 lbs. Jon Hess at T.Jay Thompson‘s Superbrawl 2 on Oct. 11, 1996.
Hess was coming off his first fight, a win over Andy Anderson at UFC 5. The UF had maybe three prohibitions at the time – no biting, no fishhooking, and no eye gouging. Hess broke the eye gouging rule, twice, and was fined $2,000.
Hess lost in 12 seconds, and never fought again. He has however continued in the sport coaching sporadically.
“They wanted to pay me almost nothing,” said Belfort to Cepeda for FOX Sports. “We had no contract. It was just a handshake deal. So I told them, pay me $10,000 if I win, and nothing if I lose.”
“He wanted no rules. He wanted nut punches allowed, all these things. I put my hands over my nuts and said, ‘I want to be a dad someday!’ I had always thought of myself as a sportsman. I wanted to be a professional and I wanted fighting to be a sport.”
“They wanted no rules and I remember Carlson told them, ‘OK.’”
“Carlson said, ‘Tell him he can also go get a knife. He can go get a gun. We’ll still fight him.’”
“You cannot be afraid of dying. Usually, that’s what causes injuries and death in a war zone. You’ve got to be willing to die.”
“Being a dad or a mom, you have to be willing to die (for your kids). You can’t think about yourself. In marriage, you have devotion to one person. You stick with them for the rest of your life. If you cannot keep your word, you surrender to fear.”
“Fear can be found in any place, and fear is the opposite of faith. (The Bible) says to walk by faith, not by sight. What you believe is important. You cannot feed fear. God gives us not the spirit of fear, but the spirit of love, and of power, and of a sound mind. When you put fear ahead, you lose all three. With my son, I can’t teach him to be afraid. I can’t be afraid of how he may get hurt. I have to teach him that it’s OK to fail, then pick him up and tell him to move again.”
“Man,” he says, suddenly slowing his speech.
“You’ve got me going back to that tunnel. Am I still here? Is that really me? I’m so thankful that I’m still healthy and in fighting condition. I look back at that fight, and it’s still me, today. I’m able to be here today because I was always willing to take the hit. I was always willing to take the risk.”
“It is unexplainable. If you never had the feeling, I don’t know that I could ever explain it with words. But, you feel accomplished. It’s joy. It’s joy. That was the beginning, and I thought, ‘I can’t wait to do it again!’ Then it happened again, and I had the same feeling — ‘Let’s do it again.’”
Vitor Belfort fights Dan Henderson on Saturday, in the main event of UFC Fight Night 77. And Dan Henderson has his own First Blood story. Elias Cepeda is about to write it.
