Inside the Octagon: Nothing like it

Ultimate Fighting is unlike any other sport, but fighters are just regular guys

BY JOE FERNANDEZ | Newsday Staff Writer

July 13, 2006

Once and a while, we regular people roll out of bed at 2 in the morning and head to the kitchen for a bowl of cereal. Most of the time, we arrive safely. But every once in a while, during that dopey 20-foot walk in the dark, we bang our shin on the coffee table. The pain, though not life-threatening, leaves us cursing the table and furiously rubbing our shin. Tony the Tiger gets put on the back burner.

There was no obtrusive piece of furniture in the Octagon at UFC 58 in March, but during his last title defense, UFC middleweight champion Rich Franklin knew he injured something against David Loiseau.

"I think what I did was I threw a left cross, he bent down and I hit him on top of the head," Franklin said. "I stepped in to throw another punch and when it hit, I knew my hand was messed up. At one point, I reached into my glove to feel the bone scraping back and forth."

That was about two minutes into the second round of a five-round championship fight. That meant Franklin had to endure the pain and defend his title for another 18 minutes with what turned out to be a broken second metacarpal in his left hand.

"For most people the initial thought would be, 'Oh I broke my hand, how am I going to win this fight?'" Franklin said. "For me it was just, I broke my hand and I got three more rounds to go."

The focused Franklin retained his belt in a unanimous decision.

The point? The point is that there is no standing-eight count. No timeouts. No respite for a mixed martial arts fighter, aside from the less-than-a-minute break between rounds. These are different human beings. These are different athletes.

Whether it's a broken bone or a broken spirit, an MMA fighter can't milk a knockdown, can't call a 20-second timeout and can't writhe on the floor like a fallen hungry guy in the middle of the night. Their only salvation is a clinch. Their only timeout is a tap out.

Yeah, but these guys are belligerent Neanderthals, right? Wrong!

Rich Franklin graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a double bachelor's degree in mathematics and education, and eventually earned his master's degree in education. From there, the Cincinnati native became a math teacher at Oak Hills High School in Ohio. During his four years as an educator, he continued his amateur-fighting career and eventually became a professional mixed martial artist.

So wouldn't it be easier to enter the faculty lounge instead of the Octagon every day?

"You got to take that stuff in stride," said Franklin, who had surgery on his hand in March and should be ready to defend his title by October. "I loved my job, so don't get me wrong, but imagine being stuck in a corporate job you don't like. Imagine the kind of stress you have to go through every day. Imagine the health risks that kind of stress puts on you. When you sit back and think about something from that point of view, really, what's worse for you? So maybe I'm going to have arthritis when I'm 60, but you know what, because I'm not so stressed out, I won't be having heart attacks."

The UFC has evolved and so has its fighters. Gone are the days of no rules, no weight classes and no technique. Today, it's a rock-n-roll chess match where many of the multi-disciplined fighters have some wrestling, jiu-jitsu, muay thai, boxing and kickboxing backgrounds.

Don't misunderstand, though, there are still displays of barbarity. But these men aren't barbarians.

"I had the same perception about these guys," UFC President Dana White said. "When I got to meet them and I got to know them, these guys are some of the classiest, most well-educated guys you'll ever meet. They're real good people and real good athletes, and that's what attracted us to the sport."

In the Octagon, it's not the style, it's the athlete. Light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell is known for his vicious strikes and titanium chin, but he wasn't always just a puncher.

"I was a Division I wrestler in college," said Liddell, who graduated from Cal Poly with a business degree. "I'm a lot better in jiu-jitsu than most people give me credit for. I don't think I have great submissions skills, but I'm really good at positioning and other parts of the jiu-jitsu world."

Liddell will defend his title Saturday, August 26th against Renato "Babalu" Sobral at UFC 62 in Las Vegas. After being knocked out by Liddell at UFC 40 in 2002, Sobral, a member of the Gracie Barra Combat Team, won his last three matches all by submission.

Unlike Franklin, Liddell is single and has taken full advantage of being a rock star with a right cross.

"We don't do bad," Liddell said of the lady situation for a UFC fighter. "It wasn't always like this, some of the stuff surprised me. One time after an event there were a bunch of us hanging out in my room. There was this girl that came up to my room, and I was hanging with some other girl. She said: 'Hey, you invited me up here to party. If I stick around am I going to get some action?' I was laying on my bed with some girl. It was one of the beds that was in the party room, like a big couch. There were 30 or 40 people in the room. So I was like 'Sure. I'm hanging out with this girl right now, but relax.' She said 'OK' and went inside and waited."

Liddell smiled through the phone.

"Some girls say: 'Oh, it's not because of who you are,'" he said. "And I say, 'OK, come on. If it was me three years ago, you didn't know who I was, you wouldn't have put up with that.'"

E-mail Joe Fernandez at joe.fernandez@newsday.com.