Iceman: My Fighting Life Read online

  After that freshman season, Coach Archer made us play another sport to stay in shape. I chose wrestling, and while I knew I wanted to play football in college, I was a much better wrestler than I was a football player. I wasn’t so technically sound, but I could scramble well and was in great condition. I was still doing karate nearly every day, and during breaks in school I would run the stadium steps to get in a good workout. And while I grew up and filled out between my fifteenth and sixteenth birthdays—jumping from five-nine, 155 pounds, to six-one, 186—I knew it wasn’t my strength as much as my wind that would help me outlast any opponent. My junior year I finished third in the CIF Tournament, which is the California version of state regionals. At one point during a match I was close to finishing a guy when he scored a cheap point. My coach ran onto the mat and began arguing it. I yelled at him to get off the mat and not to worry, I’d finish the match if he’d stop fighting with the ref and letting the other guy rest.

  I was a badass when it came to conditioning. That junior year the wrestling coach, who competed in my weight class in the local police league, challenged me to a match. If I won, the entire team could take off that day’s conditioning drills; if he won, we had to do double the work: an extra set of sprints, an extra set of rope climbs, an extra round of wrestling without breaks. Everyone always felt sick to their stomach after one round of conditioning drills. Two would have been brutal. Then I pinned the coach in the first round, and while all my teammates were cheering, I yelled, “Screw it, we’re doing the drills.” That’s how I was winning, and being in that good of shape didn’t come easy.

  The bigger and more painful the physical challenge, the more I want to do it. Or at least prove to someone that I can. In high school—and even now—when I’ve got a strength coach giving me a hard time, challenging me to get something done, acting as if he doesn’t think I can do it, my response will be “Why?” ’Cause screw him. Why finish the workout? Because screw him if he thinks I can’t. If I’m told to do somewhere between five and ten lifts on a bench press—as if I’m being told to do whatever I can handle—I’ll do the ten to spite anyone who doubted me. I know my coaches are just baiting me, but I couldn’t, and can’t, let them beat me or they’ll have that over me.

  One year John Hackleman, my trainer now, got me out of bed on New Year’s Day to train. By the time I got to the gym, I think I was still drunk, but no way was he going to get the best of me. Fuck it if I’m hurt or tired, I do not want you to beat me.

  CHAPTER 6

  DON’T ALWAYS FOLLOW MOM’S ADVICE

  HEADING INTO MY SENIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL in 1988, I was still hoping to play football in college. I knew I wasn’t going to get a scholarship. But, I was the best player and leading tackler—not to mention the most reckless hitter—on a team that improved every season we were together. The varsity team was 0-9-1 when I was a freshman. By the time we were juniors, after the core group of guys had been together for a couple of seasons—we had made the play-offs.

  I had two great games to open my senior season. Then I rolled my ankle. I could barely run, I couldn’t make it upfield with any speed, I couldn’t make cuts or jump on those screen passes. It didn’t take long for the coach to realize I was useless as a linebacker. I was moved to defensive end, but I still was just a split second slow rushing the quarterback. It was even hard to play center because we ran a slide-protection blocking scheme, which meant we were often getting out of our stance and moving laterally. Half the time, the guard to the right or the left of me would end up moving too fast—or I would move too slow—and my ankle would be stepped on. It hurt to get on the field, but if the options were watching or suffering, I’d choose the suffering. And even with a bum ankle, I was the best center option we had for the close combat of the offensive line. Besides, I still thought, hey, maybe I’ll get a shot.

  Then reality hit home one weekend when I was invited to visit USC. I went down with my mom, got a tour of the campus, heard about how great the academic programs were and how much the students enjoyed living in LA. At the end of the visit I asked the guide when we were going to see the football coach. His response was “Sure, we can go see the football coach if you want, but why?” When I answered that I thought this was a tour for football prospects, he laughed at me. I had been asked to visit because of my academics.

  This is a good time to get something straight: People think “ultimate fighter” and immediately assume I’m some kind of knucklehead. I grew up fighting; I still like to fight; I’m not afraid of fighting. Automatically, people who like to fight get stereotyped as not having the brains to do anything better with their time. As if I don’t have the good sense to walk away. Plus my voice is a little raspy and it’s hard to understand me sometimes. When I was being recruited by Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to wrestle, I had a long phone conversation with the coach. I wasn’t big on talking on the phone—I’m still not—and when we were finishing up, he told me he wasn’t sure it would work out. If I didn’t have the grades, he couldn’t guarantee I’d get into the business college just because I was going to wrestle. I had a 3.6 grade point average at the time and had scored 1280 (720 math, 560 verbal) on my SATs. I told him that having the grades wouldn’t be a problem. I thought to myself, I got into Berkeley, for Christ’s sake. But he was still skeptical. So much so that he called up a high school wrestling teammate of mine whom he was also recruiting and asked, “Is Chuck slow?” My buddy answered, “No. I think he’s pretty bright. He’s just not that good on the phone.” I had heard stuff like this from my teachers, too. One year an English teacher was passing back our papers. He looked at me, looked at my grade, then looked at me again and said, “You know, you are a lot smarter than you look.”

  I didn’t do anything to try to stop perpetuating the myth that I wasn’t the smartest guy in the room—at least other than getting good grades. For extra credit, I once had to make a visual presentation and a speech about things that interested me. I could have chosen karate or football or speed metal. But since Pops was a sheriff’s coroner for a while, I thought it would be cool to bring in some pictures from his old cases. One guy in town had hanged himself in an old barn, and it was weeks before he was discovered. By the time Pops found him, the guy’s body had turned black and his neck had stretched to the point that it snapped from the rest of his body. When they opened the barn door, the guy’s head and neck were still hanging in the noose. But his body was slumped in a seated position on a chair just beneath him, the one he jumped off when he hung himself. Then I showed a shot of a man who had been knocked into the air by a train and impaled on a nearby pole. I didn’t need to show a third. And I got the extra credit. Very little work, a little more credit, nothing stupid or slow about that.

  Becoming a fighter was a choice for me. I had the brains to be what I wanted, and what I wanted was to fight.

  My mom had spent a year studying at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo after high school. While the coaches there weren’t going to give me a football scholarship, when they realized I was going to wrestle, they invited me to walk on. I redshirted my freshman year and wrestled in the 177 weight class. But I didn’t make it to my sophomore year as a football player. I had been in a motorcycle accident just before spring practice, and the idea of recuperating to play spring ball, then going to summer ball, then playing during the season—at 215 pounds—then losing thirty pounds and going back to wrestling, was too much. So instead I focused on grappling.

  Besides, I had become pretty tight with the wrestlers, while the football players probably saw me as some guy whose ass they could kick. A buddy from a rival high school in Santa Barbara, Seth Woodill, who wrestled with me at Cal Poly, introduced me to Eric Schwartz, from Soquel, California, who would eventually become one of my closest friends. The first time Eric and I met was at a dining hall on campus when we were all going to eat as a wrestling team. Seth leaned over to Eric and said, “That’s my friend Chuck. He is seriously bad. He is tough.” I looked real thin from always
trying to make weight, had a short and tight buzz cut, and had my hands stuffed in my pants pockets. The only thing about me that said “bad” was my look. Eric leaned over to Seth and said to him, “This is the tough guy?” Then he just laughed.

  Not too long after that, Eric got a glimpse of what Seth was talking about. We were hanging out on the beach relaxing one day when Eric started telling a joke. During the setup he waved his arm like a madman, the idea being that it would get the attention of the hot women sitting around, with the hopes they’d come over. A couple of them did. Which turned out to be a problem for their boyfriends, who had left them alone while they walked down the beach. When they got back to their blankets and saw their girls talking to some other guys, they started running right for us. I looked around and thought, someone is going to get seriously fucked up. Then I realized one was heading straight for me. Before I could get ready, he jumped up and threw an elbow right into my chest. It didn’t hurt, but I was surprised. So I retaliated with three quick elbows to his chest, which dropped him into the sand. He popped up, got real close, and locked up my arms so I couldn’t punch him. I got so tired of wrestling with the guy I gave him three quick head butts—boom! boom! boom!—and down he went again.

  By now there was a crowd, and a friend of his jumped in with both arms swinging. Meanwhile, some guy came out of the crowd and punched me in the side of the head. After I dropped the second guy, Eric came over and asked, “Who was that guy that punched you in the head?” I was like, “Huh, what are you talking about?” I didn’t have a concussion or anything, I just hadn’t felt anyone hit me. After that I heard Eric whisper to Seth, “Damn, that dude is tough.”

  Eric was great at talking smack. He’d see a guy walking around who was bigger than all of us and tell me, “That guy can totally kick your ass,” just to start up with me. Or, if I saw some guys who were acting like jerks or picking on someone, I’d tell him to go give them a hard time, so I could jump in and beat the crap out of them. And, as I said, I don’t always follow Mom’s advice. On a road trip to Oregon for a wrestling meet, we drove up in Eric’s beat-up green Toyota hatchback with his brother and another buddy. Driving down the main drag in Eugene, we saw some guys screwing around in the street in front of us. When Eric was about fifty yards away, he pretended to veer into their lane, as if he were going to hit them. Okay, not the smartest thing, but we were just goofing off. When we passed them, they started flipping us off. Eric wanted to keep driving, but I said, “Stop the car.” There were two guys, one about 260 pounds and another about 230. When we got out, they saw our Cal Poly wrestling shirts and started talking trash about us being wrestlers and losers. I had just had stitches put in my eye because of a wrestling injury, and Eric kept telling me to get back in the car because if I opened up the stitches, I wouldn’t wrestle that weekend. He was right, so I started opening the door. Then the guy who was about 230 got in the face of Eric’s brother, who only weighed around 160. I stopped, looked up, and said, “You’re a dick.”

  The guy walked up to me and fake-head-butted me. I don’t remember my reaction, but Eric says I didn’t even flinch. Then I dropped the guy with an elbow. He went straight down, knocking his head on the bumper before crumpling into the street. We could actually see a little trickle of blood running down the gutter and into the drain. By now the bigger dude who was running with the guy I had just dropped had taken off his shirt. He had acne scars all over his back, as if he was mid–steroid cycle. He came at me and I dropped him on his ass, too. Then he looked at Eric and said, “Why don’t you guys just get out of here.” And we did.

  About a year later a teammate of ours who lived in that town was visiting home and was wearing a Cal Poly wrestling shirt. He ran into those guys we’d met on the street and they said, “Dude, there is a seriously crazy wrestler up there.”

  CHAPTER 7

  NO COWERING, NO SCOWLING, JUST STARING

  IDIDN’T DRINK AND I DIDN’T DO DRUGS. FIGHTING could have been considered my vice, although I’ve never viewed it that way. I don’t know how to explain the sensation of being ready to throw down anytime and anyplace. But some people talk and act tough, then when you look closely, you see in their eyes that they are scared. I’m not. Friends have told me that I get a look in my eye when I’m about to fight as if I don’t even see the guy in front of me. I’m looking right through him. There’s no cowering, no scowling, just staring. To me it’s as if I’ve already knocked the guy flat on his ass.

  Still, it’s not like I had a rep on campus as some street brawler. I was actually pretty clumsy, often tripping over painted lines and landing in the push-up position. When it happened in downtown San Luis Obispo, I’d hear people whispering, “Man, that guy’s drunk.”

  * * *

  PEOPLE WHO SCARE ME:

  Creeps on To Catch a Predator

  * * *

  If anyone knew me at all, it was as a decent wrestler. I wrestled at 177 until my senior year, when I moved up to 190. I was always really good at taking some of the best wrestlers in the country deep into a match, then losing by a point. I never gave up anything—which is why I was injured every season except freshman. I couldn’t just let a guy beat me in a position, I had to try to fight my way out, which led to an injured shoulder, a hernia, and an injured knee. I was also still in great shape. In practice we did rope drills, sprints, and iron-man wrestling, which is when one man stays in the circle for several three-minute rounds while fresh wrestlers rotate in against him. And I had a lot of strength in my arms and hands. I would shoot on an opponent’s leg, and if my fingers came anywhere near the back of his calf, I could suck that leg right in. My fingertips would creep around his calf, dig deep into the guy’s muscle, and never let go.

  As a wrestler, I’d try to pressure the guy until he’d break.

  But sometimes you make one change to your look, and it’s as if people are seeing you for the first time. During my senior year, in 1992, Eric and I were going to see a Slayer concert with a bunch of our roommates. We loved Slayer and wanted to do something crazy and memorable for the concert. Matt Wilson pulled out a set of electric shears and said, “Hey, let’s shave our heads.” Everyone loved the idea—except for me.

  * * *

  CHOOSING A TATTOO THAT’S RIGHT FOR YOU:

  Make sure it means something to you. I always thought it was silly that people walk in and say I’ll take that right there and they are pointing to a little thing in a book. I’m not trying to stop people from making a living, but it should be something that means something to you. Put it wherever you want, but make it matter.

  * * *

  My hair had been short and tight—just like my Pops’s—since I was a little kid. But my senior year in college I had finally decided to grow it out. So shaving my head wasn’t exactly a crazy notion. We started throwing out some ideas, then Matt suggested I get a Mohawk. I thought, cool. That was the extent of the conversation. He shaved one side, shaved the other, and trimmed me down the middle so it was real low. I liked it. It wasn’t one of those overgelled Mohawks reaching up to the ceiling. It looked clean, as if I was someone you wouldn’t want to mess with. It definitely didn’t look as if I was an accounting major. I figured that it wouldn’t be too long before I had to get a real job and grow it out, so why not enjoy it until I graduated.

  That was my reasoning when I decided to get my head tattooed as well. I chose the Japanese letters that spelled Koei-Kan, my karate style, which means House of Peace and Prosperity. I wanted the tattoo to be somewhere everyone could see it without me having to take off my shirt, but also in a spot where I could hide it once I started interviewing. It took a lot of shopping around before I found a place that would tattoo my head. But putting it on the side of my skull made perfect sense. With a few weeks’ notice, a full head of hair would cover it up.

  Little did I know that interviews weren’t going to be a problem, or that my signature look was born.

  CHAPTER 8

  PRACTICE WHAT YOU LO
VE

  HERE’S A SHOCKER: I DIDN’T WANT TO BE AN ACCOUNTANT when I was done with school, and not because I wanted to keep my Mohawk. Really, all I wanted to do was make a living as a fighter. This was before the UFC was created and before mixed martial arts became popular. Since I wasn’t a boxer, my options were pretty much limited to beating the crap out of people in San Luis Obispo’s alleys—which didn’t pay at all—or becoming a kickboxer, which paid only slightly better.

  Professional kickboxing had been popular in the United States for less than two decades when I left Cal Poly. And I didn’t have any idea how to go about becoming a pro. Once school ended, I bartended around town and taught classes at some of the local dojos. I’ve never been a long-range planner or thought about how I was going to support myself. Until I discovered the UFC and dedicated myself to becoming a champion, making a living as a fighter didn’t necessarily mean beating people up in the ring. It meant I was in a gym doing karate, practicing what I loved, every day, and getting paid for it. If I had never heard of the UFC, I’d probably still be teaching classes and bartending to make ends meet and would be happy about it.

  But a former Cal Poly teammate of mine, Alfie Alcaraz, went out to Vegas after school, in 1993, to try to make it as a professional kickboxer. (By the way, you’ll notice a lot of kickboxers and UFC fighters are former college wrestlers. Unless we’re going to the Olympics or the WWE [World Wrestling Entertainment], we’ve got no place else to turn if we still want to compete.)