Iceman Page 16
In the fifth Tito came out swinging again, but it was no use. Randy had him on his back by the middle of the round. As soon as Tito got back up, Randy threw him down again. It was unbelievable how much Tito was dominated in this fight. He spent the entire match either trying to escape Randy’s grappling moves or on his back, protecting himself from punches. In one final, drastic move Tito rolled over and attempted a kneebar. But Randy avoided the hold, and with Tito’s butt exposed, Randy pretended to spank him. He actually pulled his hand back and acted as if he were punishing a child. It was hysterical, as though the Hall of Famer were giving the young punk a lesson. This is how you act before a fight. Bam. This is how you win a fight. Bam. This is how you completely demoralize an opponent. Bam. So keep your trap shut and, from now on, focus on fighting. Setting yourself up for embarrassment like that is one more reason why it never pays to mouth off.
Tito must have learned something. After the fight was over and Randy was declared the winner by a unanimous decision, Tito grabbed his belt and wrapped it around the waist of the new UFC light heavyweight champion.
The only question for me was, what would my next fight be? A rematch with Randy? Or a grudge match with Tito?
CHAPTER 30
NEVER LET ’EM BREATHE
BUT, BEFORE EITHER OF THOSE FIGHTS, I HAD TO finish my business with Pride. After beating Overseem in August, I was scheduled to fight Quinton “Rampage” Jackson in Japan in early November, just six weeks after the Tito-Randy fight. As a fighter, Rampage had a style pretty similar to mine. We were about the same size. And he began as a wrestler in high school. He even planned on becoming a pro wrestler when he finished school, before moving over to MMA. And while he was good on the ground, he liked to stay on his feet and trade punches. Or, more accurately, throw punches and knock the snot out of whoever was standing in front of him.
Rampage had never fought in the UFC. He claims it was because he was such good friends with Tito and didn’t want a potential fight to get in the way of that. At least Tito had been able to convince one potential opponent that being buddies was a good reason not to fight. Instead, Rampage came up through these small MMA tournaments such as King of the Cage, which used to take place almost entirely at casinos on Indian reservations. That’s another way we were similar: The way we came up, we clearly just wanted to fight; against whom, for whom, in front of whom didn’t matter. If it took place on a street corner with no one watching, that would have been fine with us. Getting paid was a bonus.
Rampage’s big break came when he was invited to fight in Pride in Japan. He was matched up against one of the country’s most popular wrestlers, who was a Pride veteran. Rampage was raw, but he was tough. For most of the first round, no matter how many times he was taken down or how many joint locks were attempted on him or how exhausting every choke attempt was, he kept wrestling his way free, often lifting his opponent off the ground and slamming him back down. Finally, he submitted to a choke. But by then he had won over the crowd and earned a deal with the Pride execs to fight for them full-time. Over the next two years he fought in six of the eleven Pride tournaments. He had battled and beaten such guys as Kevin Randleman and Murilo Bustamante, just as I had. As far as fighters went, we were as evenly matched as two could be.
Pride Final Conflict, which is what they were calling this round of the tournament, took place in the Tokyo Dome. More than sixty-seven thousand people were in the audience. For some perspective, that’s more than most baseball, basketball, or hockey games, and even heavyweight title fights in boxing. It’s about how many people pay to see the Super Bowl in person every year. From the last row of the dome we looked like two action figures moving around on a place mat. But people didn’t care, as long as they were inside. The enthusiasm for MMA was unparalleled.
While I was the bigger name in the UFC, this was Rampage’s home turf. And you could see that just from the introductions. I was lifted on a platform through a hole in a stage, like some pop star elevating above the crowd before a show. But my intro music was generic, the lights stayed on, and I had no entourage with me. I walked pretty casually down the steps of the stage toward the ring. I even smiled for the camera that was tracking me the entire time. You’d think there’s no way you can be fighting in front of that many people and, at least at first, not be jacked up with adrenaline. But I felt calm and relaxed. I just walked around the ring shaking my arms, trying to get loose.
Walking into the ring with the crowd going wild really gets my adrenaline pumping.
Rampage, however, had an entrance. For him the lights went down, a rap song he had picked out blasted through the dome’s loudspeakers, colored beams of light filled the stadium, and the crowd roared. I was wearing flip-flops, shorts, and a jersey when I came into the ring. Rampage had on a black T-shirt and camouflage pants, with his entourage dressed to match. He also wore his signature heavy chain around his neck. This wasn’t a silver necklace, but a real chain, the kind used to keep big rigs from separating. It hung to his belly button. But the best effect was on his face: It was a leather mask with plastic flames flaring out from the sides.
When he was finally at the top of the stage and had the crowd’s attention, he pointed his lips to the ceiling and let out a yelp, like a wolf that was howling at the moon. He slowly made his way toward the ring, and every few feet he’d stop to howl. I had gotten to know Rampage that week while promoting the fight, and we liked each other. But I wasn’t really expecting this. It was interesting. Even if it did take him a while to finally get to the ring.
While I slipped off my shoes and peeled off my shirt, it took him another few minutes to get undressed. Tonight he was wearing camouflage shorts. But, as an American fighting in Japan, he’s also been known to wear Uncle Sam shorts, like the ones that Apollo Creed wore in Rocky. You could tell he was pumped to fight. Instead of slipping through the ropes, he jumped over the top and into the ring.
I had worked with Dana a lot before this fight. I actually spent a month at a training camp in Vegas rather than working out at The Pit. It was a big fight for us. Plenty of fans thought Pride was a tougher league than the UFC because it had longer rounds and fewer rules. Because of that rivalry, we were anxious to prove we had higher-quality fighters. There’s a great story that Dana was so sure that I—and the UFC—would win that he bet Pride’s boss $250,000 on me. The real story is that he bet $250,000 I would beat Wanderlei Silva, because that’s whom he expected me to fight. No one thought I’d be going against Rampage.
While I was training, Dana and I did a lot of scouting on Rampage. For a lot of guys that means going to their fights in person or watching them on pay-per-view. But when I’m doing that, I like to go as a fan. I get to as many UFC cards as I can, and when I’m watching, it feels as if I’m just a guy lucky enough to be in the crowd. I can feel my body twitching with the moves, then I start to throw punches at the air. It’s easy to get pumped up from the music and the action. I can understand why the crowd is so frenzied when I’m on the other side in the cage. It’s fun at home, too. And for a lot of fights I’ll have some buddies over to watch. But I rarely sit still long enough to see the whole card.
My scouting is done by watching film. For Rampage that meant watching film of his previous fights. We put together a pretty detailed game plan. In his fight against Bustamante that August, he got caught in a lot of submission moves. He escaped, but it showed that he was getting better as a fighter. Also, because of the trouble I had had against Couture, we felt Rampage would rather take this fight to the mat than stand and strike. So I wanted to get in a lot of low kicks and do some damage to his legs, making him more fatigued and making it harder to lunge the way it’s necessary when you want to grapple.
When the fight began, we exchanged a lot of jabs in the center of the ring. Surprisingly, he didn’t shoot for my legs at all. He was standing around, happy to make this a boxing match, which wasn’t what we had expected while training. We both tagged each other early. I got in a st
rong high left kick, and he got me on the head with two lefts. Then he came with another left hook that knocked me on my heels. It definitely stunned me. It’s when I get hurt or surprised that I’m at my most dangerous. I’ve got a strong chin—which comes from years of fighting on the street—and I don’t get my bell rung easily. Most fighters hesitate, just for a moment, when they think they’ve tagged someone pretty hard, as if they are waiting to see if the guy falls. That’s when I take the chance to attack. So when I fell back on my heels a bit, I immediately came back with a combination that got the crowd into it.
* * *
MMA FIGHTERS I LIKE TO WATCH THE MOST:
Matt Hughes
BJ Penn
Georges Saint-Pierre
Glover Texeira
Antonio Banuelos
* * *
I wasn’t throwing any leg kicks and had basically abandoned our game plan. He caught me with another combo and I almost fell walking into the ropes. Then he followed up with a right that landed smack on my face, and it stopped me in my tracks. We were both just throwing wild punches. Since the fight began there hadn’t been many jabs, but rather a lot of knockout blows that didn’t knock anyone out. Already, I felt exhausted, which was one reason why I couldn’t kick. I was too tired. I couldn’t get my leg up with any force. It felt as if for every combo he delivered, I’d follow up with just one good punch.
Rampage may have won, but not without getting a little roughed up.
The first five minutes of the fight came at a slower pace than anyone had anticipated. And neither of us had tried going to the mat yet. At the midway point of the first round he had me in the corner and was delivering a lot of knees and punches to my body. That’s what you want to do when you’ve got the upper hand in the corner, especially as a fight nears the end of a round and an opponent is fatigued. Never let ’em breathe.
Then he tried to pick me up and slam me down, but I escaped. To that point, no one had got the upper hand physically after a lot of trading punches. But after I wiggled out of his grasp, he caught me with three big hooks to my face and body that had me backpedaling all the way across the ring. Then he got me leaning the way he needed and lifted me up into the air for a body slam. You could already hear the crowd before I hit the ground. It had been waiting for a move like this. While the impact was huge, the damage was minimal. I slipped away and was standing again within moments. And the crowd, appreciative of all the MMA skills, cheered just as loudly when I got back on my feet as it did when I landed on my back. But now he was on the offensive. At the end of the round he knocked me down with a left. Rampage moved in for the kill and had me in a vulnerable position on the mat. If the round hadn’t ended, there’s no telling if I would have escaped again.
I was breathing heavily, bleeding, and looked exhausted as I made my way back to my corner. Meanwhile, Rampage, who had been winning at the end of the first round, was so tired he knelt for a few seconds with his hands on the ropes before getting up and trudging back to his corner. It was truly a back-and-forth with two evenly matched fighters. Pride couldn’t have asked for a better battle. Former UFC heavyweight Bas Rutten, who was announcing the fight on television, said it already ranked as one of his top three favorite fights.
I hadn’t done any damage to his legs at all in the first round and needed to find a way to tire him out. Early in the second round, I had him in position in the corner. My arms were locked around his head and I tried to work a guillotine, but I couldn’t get the right grip. Instead I leaned my weight on him, trying to make him use his energy to hold us both up. I heard my corner yelling, “Stick to the head, stick to the head,” but I wasn’t following their instructions. I didn’t do enough knees to his body to take his wind away, either. He escaped and we ended up in the middle of the ring trading punches. But mine were lacking any snap. It’s hard to respect a guy’s punches when there’s no power at the end of them.
From the middle of the ring he threw a nasty uppercut. It didn’t connect, but came close enough that I fell back. He mounted me and had me facedown with my arms spread. I moved into position to get back on my feet—which drew another round of applause—but he immediately lifted me and threw me down again. That drew even more applause. Now it was a crazy pace, with him coming after me and me just trying to ward him off. When I went down again, he pounced. He was throwing body punches and punches to my head. He had one hand on my neck and chin, pushing my head back while I lay flat on my back, and with the other he was going to town. With more than two minutes left in the round, I had no defense. My guard was down, my arms were providing no resistance. He threw close to thirty punches, all of them connecting with my head or my body. Then the ref ended it.
I wasn’t sure why. I hadn’t tapped out and wasn’t unconscious. Then I realized, Hack had thrown in the towel. From his point of view, I was getting pummeled, wasn’t improving my position, and had nothing left. Even if I had gotten out of the trouble I was in, the result may have been the same.
Looking back to before the fight began, I had already made a fatal mistake. I should never have worked out at the camp in Vegas instead of The Pit. It might have felt as if I were getting a good workout, but it couldn’t compare to what I’d have been doing if John was kicking my ass every day. Of course, I didn’t know this until it was too late. I wasn’t in the right shape and I pretty much ran out of gas.
But something good did come out of the loss. I think seeing me lose gave Tito some confidence that I wasn’t so tough after all. Maybe he thought he could beat me because, by the end of the year, he had finally agreed to fight me.
CHAPTER 31
IT’S NOT ABOUT STRENGTH, IT’S ABOUT STRENGTH OVER A LONG TIME
AT LAST, IT WAS ON. THAT’S EVEN WHAT THEY WERE calling the card that Tito and I were set to headline in April of 2004, UFC 47: It’s On. At this point, I didn’t care that he no longer held the light heavyweight title. I’ve always fought for more than titles, anyway. And I didn’t care that he was slated to make more just for fighting—$125,000 (plus a $50,000 win bonus)—than I would make for fighting and winning ($50,000 for each). And I didn’t care if it was because my stature was diminished in his eyes after I’d lost to Rampage. I didn’t need him to respect me or fear me. In fact, both of those things might have got in the way of setting this thing up. If he thought I was a chump and that got him into the cage, fine by me. After nearly two years of his bullshit; after nearly two years of his ducking me; after nearly two years of his claiming we’re too good of friends to fight and that I was stabbing him in the back just because I was willing to get in the cage with him, we were finally going to settle it. The time for talking was over. At least I thought it was.
One of the great things about the UFC bosses is how well they create drama around a fight. The postfight interviews are usually as full of fury and emotion as the fights themselves. It’s not just the fighters doing the talking either. It may looked staged, but at times UFC fighters with bouts coming up will jump into the cage, grab the microphone, and start talking smack about their opponent, firing up the crowd, themselves, and those watching at home. That’s part of the culture Dana has created, for the better. We’re fucking fighters, and if we’re moved by the passion of a fight to get into the cage in street clothes and start talking about beating the crap out of someone, we can do it. It’s good for us, it’s good for the card, and it’s good for the UFC.
I love pointing at the crowd after winning a fight and hearing them get all fired up. The UFC is all about the fans.
Of course, plenty of other times postfight confrontations are staged, or at least planned, as with me and Tito after UFC 46 on January 31, 2004. We were both in Vegas to watch Randy put his light heavyweight title on the line against Vitor. (To give you an idea of how much the Randy fight had cost me—and how much I lost by fighting for the interim title instead of the real title against Tito—I was making $80,000 less in guaranteed money than Vitor was to be paid for fighting Randy. I’ve never bee
n about the money as a fighter, but if I were looking for one more excuse to want to bash Tito’s head in, there it was.)
The fight didn’t last long, with Vitor winning by a TKO after he caught Randy above his eye and Randy couldn’t stop bleeding. The doctor called it. Afterward, Joe Rogan called me and Tito into the Octagon. As soon as Tito walked out, people started booing. The guy had not only lost his title but, by avoiding a fight with me, had lost the respect of a lot of MMA fans. Meanwhile, I was still an underdog, the workingman’s fighter. I hadn’t been given my title shot yet. And now that Vitor had won, Randy would be in line for a rematch before I’d get my next chance. I honestly think people were rooting for me as much because of the way Tito acted and because he had shafted me as they were because they liked my fighting style. So while they booed him, I got some cheers.
When we got to the center of the cage, Joe said to Tito, “There’s been a lot of talk, a lot of emotion. Tito, tell us what is going to happen on April second.”
Tito answered, “Iceman, what’s up? With your belly it looks more like Snowman. I can’t wait for April second. This fight is finally going to happen. I am going to give you a beating. Let the beating begin.”
Then Joe looked at me and said, “Chuck, what do you have to say?”
“This guy has been talking crap for a long time,” I said. “He’s the one who has been talking crap. He stepped in the ring after I beat Vitor and started saying he was going to kick my butt. Well, he better have been practicing his wrestling because I know he is not man enough to stand in the middle of this ring and strike with me. And if he is, I’ll announce to everyone here, if he is man enough to stand in the middle of this ring and strike with me, I’ll knock his ass out. And he knows it.” Then I pointed right at him. The crowd went nuts. Tito tried to respond but was drowned out by the cheering and the booing. Finally he just walked away and flashed the crowd the finger as he left the cage. The whole confrontation lasted nearly as long as the Couture-Vitor fight. And it may have been more exciting. Even though no title would be on the line, there wasn’t a more anticipated fight in the UFC at that moment than Tito and me.