Aside from last Saturday night, the last fist fight I was in was in third grade after some kid cut me in line as we waited to go back into school after morning recess. I protested against this slight and he immediately sucker punched me three times in the nose without warning, causing me to instantly cry and for the old female teacher to run over and to break it up.
Since then, I have always had an awkward relationship with conflict and violence.
My suburban, domestic, Christian upbringing, for instance, had a lot of pacifistic, ‘turn the other cheek’, ‘be the bigger man and just walk away’ elements to it. However, at the same time, there were also many elements in that same subculture of fighting for one’s country and fighting for what’s right.
In high-school, I was one of the straight-A, honor roll kids, who intentionally avoided a lot of social conflicts and altercations that I was certain would jeopardize my entire life’s future if I ever got in trouble in the slightest bit whatsoever. However, when I was on the wrestling mat, I wrestled like a wild animal who wanted to rip the other guy’s head off.
When I deployed to Iraq, much of my time there was a bizarre, muddled mix between aggressive policing, combat ops, and ‘peace-keeping’ operations.
After I got out of the military, the majority of my philosophy writing in academia had to do with military ‘ethics’ and the justified use of violence.
And in my adult life overall, I’ve still been in zero actual street fights to date, but I’ve probably physically jumped in between two men who were about to fight in order to de-escalate the situation maybe somewhere near a dozen times by now.
Not a hyper aggressive wolf and not a fully-domesticated chihuahua, my life, personality, and constitution, time and time and time again, has always fallen into this sort of restrained sheepdog, peace-keeper role.
And Saturday night’s fight was almost the physical embodiment of that ethic and form playing out once again but in real time.
The plan for the fight was simple.
I was a 41 year-old, 95% wrestler with a bit of anti-jiu jitsu knowledge and a bit anti-boxing/anti-kick-boxing movements going up against a 23 year-old, hyper-aggressive, kick-boxing brawler from Brooklyn who had 9 prior MMA fights and a handful of kickboxing fights as well.
The game plan was essentially to rush forward, throw a punch, double-leg him to the canvas and then smother him with pressure wrestling until I could secure a dominant position and then overwhelm him with a volume of undefended punches until the ref stopped the match.
And that’s pretty much exactly how it played out.
I took him down in the opening 2 second of the fight off of a caught kick and then slowly advanced my wrestling positions.
There was a brief moment where he somehow kicked me off of him but I dove back on him and dragged him back down to the canvas into a modified ‘Dagestani Handcuff’ situation where I ended up in top half-guard with one of his arms chicken-winged behind his back and leaving my free, non-dominant hand to rain down punches to his face.
I got to that position probably within the first 90 seconds of the round and had 90 more seconds to just volume punch my way to victory. I started out trying to wind up on these punches but he was a lot squirmier than I expected and was able to get his one free hand up in front of his face often enough to stop me from getting a barrage of punches off. I was also so worried about losing the chicken-wing/Dagestani Handcuff grip that I elected to just throw shorter, rabbit punches hoping enough unanswered ones would get the ref to intervene.
Three separate times I heard the ref telling my opponent that he needed to defend himself or that he would stop the fight. It felt like an eternity passed while I was in this position trying to thread a succession of punches through my downed opponent’s one arm defense.
All of a sudden, I realized the clock was ticking down to the last 20 seconds I thought he was actually going to survive the round!
This was the only moment during the entire fight where I felt any sense of nervousness or panic. Everything up until that moment; the walk out, getting in the ring, the announcements, the stare down, the opening exchange, all of it just felt like another day in the practice room. It was only during these last 20 seconds where I now feared punching myself out and the round ending with him escaping it and me then having to take him down all over again next round without the element of surprise, did I begin to experience what I would describe as a sense of ‘nervousness.’
My shots weren’t getting through frequently enough as he was using that one free hand well enough to defend his face.
I suddenly heard my head coach yell ‘fake a punch’, so I started to do that. I let my hand go for about a 1/4 feint aimed high at his forehead, enough to bait a reaction, then I threaded it underneath and actually connected on his chin. Then I feinted towards his chin, got a reaction, but then redirected towards his forehead. I did this a few times and got that succession of 4 or 5 un-interrupted hits off that I had been looking for the entire time and the ref finally pulled me off with about 10 seconds left in the round.
It was an odd feeling when the ref ended it.
I didn’t feel ‘happy’ at all, but ‘relieved’; relieved that everything went according to plan and that I didn’t totally embarrass myself or my team.
Still huffing and puffing, before I knew it, my hand was being raised, my coaches were in the cage congratulating me and taking photos, and then I was suddenly getting medically cleared and doing the post-fight media interviews. Then that was that.
Mission accomplished.
In chatting with some of my friends and teammates afterwards and getting their analyses, and also in listening to the promotion’s announcers dissect the fight on video later on, I feel like the way I fought was once again a bizarre expression of that restrained-aggression, sheepdog, introverted wrestler personality of mine. I didn’t come out looking to swing for the fences to take this dude’s head off, nor did I get into a fire fight of trading punches. I didn’t go for any high-light real slams, or limb-snapping submissions.
Rather, I literally turned the fight into almost a pure wrestling match and then used a high volume of non-destructive punches to get the win and to get out completely unscathed.
I’m not sure what that means really, other than it seems to fit my personality as well as my ongoing relationship with managing violence.
7 months ago, I was at a sedentary 206 pounds; restless, listless, completely disconnected from my body, and depressed. I was lucky enough to be inspired by a friend to come back to my wrestling roots and to get back on the mat and to begin to re-awaken the old warrior inside of me. Now, I just won my first amateur cage-fight at 160 lbs at almost 42 years old against a dude that was far more seasoned and nearly half my age.
That said, it’s pretty cool when you realize what you can do when you set your mind to it.
Makes me wonder what else is possible.
*Thanks to https://m.facebook.com/MRGphotography/
For these excellent pics of my fight!
In a search for "Amateur Mma" on Linkedn I come across this philosopher, Robillard, who goes beyond academic boundaries and makes a parallel with practical life...soon I, a philosopher and newcomer to MMA as well, find an adventurer, or "madman" like me! The world is ours!
Otávio
Congrats!!! Inspiration history!
By Otávio!