My first MMA bout—Throwdown Smoker Bouts, 2/7/09

When I started working at Stampin’ Up!, I made the decision to reverse the trend my body had been taking since I had returned home from my mission. That trend had been a perpetual weight gain, and not of the muscular type. So bad had my condition become that I found myself out of breath, out of shape, out of sync with all the things I loved to do, and—worst of all—I found myself at Khols, staring at the 40” waist-size pants, ready to purchase them so that I could have a pair of trousers that fit. I had let myself get up to 250 lbs, and I felt disgusting.

No more.

With the extra fundage provided by the generous salary from SU!, I decided to enroll in a gym that might actually do something about my physical situation. You see, I was already a member of 24-hour fitness, and I hit the weights about three times a week. The problem was that there was no motivation here. Oh sure, I could hire a personal trainer, but I really had no desire to have some toothpicked dude standing over me and telling me how to do exercises I already knew how to do. What I needed was an actual sport to train in. I needed a coach.

In February of ’08, I signed up as a member of LA Boxing, a little gym just up the road from where I lived, and began training under the tutelage of Tandi Ogden (now Tandi Schaeffer) in the art of Boxing and Muay Thai Kickboxing. The workouts were one-hour sessions that involved cardio- and strength-conditioning and then actual fighting skills. I recall that during the warm-up of my first session, I was ready to puke—and puke hard. Luckily, it never happened, but I sure took a lot of breathers. I still don’t know what motivated me to stick with it. Perhaps it was the ridiculous amount of money I was paying monthly for the gym. Finances are good for motivation. After about three weeks, the fatigue and soreness began to wear off, and I found myself returning to the athletic ability I had once enjoyed as a high-schooler. And then I stepped on the scale. In a very short time, I had lost 15 lbs. Not bad, but still not good enough.

I trained almost every morning before work for the next couple months. Then a little miracle occurred. Next door to LA Boxing, an even bigger, badder and definitely most-bodaciously-hardcorer gym opened up—Throwdown Elite Training Center. Tandi was moving over there to teach, and she took me and a handful of others with her. And I’m glad I made the move. For all the training I was able to do at the old gym, this place amplified it 100x. And I felt like I was not only getting in shape here, but was actually getting myself into a condition where I’d be able to use these skills in combat.

So by the time December of ’08 rolled around, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I had lost 45 lbs and was weighing in at the Light Heavyweight level—and I was ready to test my new body out in competition. Tandi was organizing a “Smoker” fight event at the gym (this is simply an amateur fight in which the rounds are shorter and the rules modified slightly to favor less-skilled fighters). I signed up, not really sure what I was getting into, but sure that I wanted to at least give it a try.

The fights were scheduled for February, so I tried to pack extra time into the gym with sparring and running and what not. The day of the fight came so quickly, and I found myself unable to sleep out of nervous excitement for days before the actual event. Perhaps that had an effect on the outcome. When I showed up for the pre-fight meeting that day, I learned that my expectations for the bout were a little bit erroneous. I was expecting to do a Muay Thai fight, which included head gear, shin pads, and 16 oz boxing gloves—all the stuff I had trained with. But something had gotten mixed up, and I was slated for Mixed-Martial Arts instead, which involved no pads whatsoever, and the gloves were much, much smaller. No big deal, I thought. I can do this. But then I learned that the guy I was fighting was not a 6-month amateur, as I had been told, but rather a veteran with 5+ years training and several fights under his belt. Still no biggie. I’m always up for a challenge.

(By the way, the guy I fought HAD to have been Mark McGuire’s long lost twin brother, as the two were spitting images of the other, except in height)

So, unprepared and unevenly matched, my name was announced, and I stepped into the cage.

THE FIGHT

I had been training for 12 months, and I felt I knew how to employ these skills in an actual fight setting. But when that bell rang and we approached each other, everything I knew went out the window as my nerves got the better of me. I’m not sure what fighting style I ended up using, but it likely resembled drunken-boxing or something like that. I definitely didn’t stay disciplined. And I paid for it.

After coming on strong with some combos and clinches, his experience began to show forth, and he exploited my mistakes. At one point, I left my face unguarded, and he got three good shots on my chin. I felt the blows, and my brain said, “this is going to hurt!!!!” Startled, I staggered back a bit and then thought to myself, “Hey… that didn’t hurt at all!” Excited, I thought I would be able to get back into the fray and come back at him with some good combos of my own. But I had spent too much time thinking about being hit, and took too long to realize that I wasn't hurt. By the time I was ready to go back at him, he had me in a Guillotine chokehold. Panicking for the lack of jiu-jitsu skill and still a bit dazed from his punches, I tapped.

All in all, it was a great experience. I’m glad I was able to get in the ring with an experienced fighter and get schooled. The guy worked me, and it was the best thing that’s ever happened to me—sportswise, anyway. I learned more in those 90 seconds that in the previous 12 months of training. And now I know how to improve.

I may do some more in the future. And I may not. Who knows. But I’m glad to have this badge on my resume. Win or loss, I stepped into the cage and fought. And it was amazing.

More pics/videos to come on this.