Well, here I am. Another fight in the books, another victory, another step closer to my goal. I am sitting here at my computer trying to collect my thoughts and put together the events of the past few weeks. Where to begin?

I was offered a fight a few weeks ago that I thought was going to be on the ELite XC Heat card in Florida. As it turns out, I was really offered a fight on the Sho XC card in Chicago. I had not yet been cleared to fight since breaking my jaw so I turned the fight down after my doctor told me I shouldn't step into the cage until November at the earliest.

Fast forward to Saturday's wrestling class back in september. While teaching class I shoot in on King Gabriel, a huge kick boxer who lands a solid knee to my jaw, knocking it out of joint but the fracture held. After taking that shot, I figured "fuck it," I can fight. I was sure no lightweight was gonna land anything on me with near that much power so I might as well get back to work and start paying off my mounting credit card debt.

Wednesday comes and I show up to teach class at Legends only to find a media circus at the gym. The place is packed with people doing press for the Elite XC Heat card and everyone is there. Kimbo and Gina are the center of attention as they workout and shoot interviews to hype the upcoming event. I am forced to move my class into the boxing ring do to all the people using the mats.

Jeremy Lappen and Skala are there and stop by the ring to watch my training. I ask them if I'm still able to fight on the card in Chicago, now that I am convinced that my jaw will hold up. They are surprised that I am ready to fight but I explain that the athletic commission's original suspension is up on September 21st. Unfortunately, I am informed that that ship has sailed but that they will keep me in mind for whatever opens up.

Six days go by and I am rolling in Eddie's class on Tuesday morning when the Kyle, the desk guy comes onto the mat and tells me that I have a phone call at the front desk. "Take a message bro" I tell him as I am obviously busy.

"It's Chris and he says it can't wait," he tells me.

"Fuck!" I am already in a bad mood after not being able to fight for so long and the anxiety is getting to me. The last thing I need is my workout interrupted for some bullshit but I pick up the phone and Chris starts talking.

"Dude, I know I have made some mistakes in the past and that there was some confusion about the CBS card but I think you are gonna be real happy." I doubt it I think to myself. "I got you a fight on the CBS card with Edson Berto. Do you want it?"

"Fuck bro, I don't know. I don't know anything about this guy, let me check him out and get back to you," I tell him.

"No can do bro, they need an answer right now."

A thousand things are rushing through my head. Am I ready to fight? Will my jaw hold up? Am I in good enough shape? Who is this guy? Will I have time to prepare? Will the fight air on TV? Does my contract change?

"Fuck!", I yell "I can't decide right now . . . . Fuck it. Sure, tell them I'll fight him."

I hang up the phone and rush back to the mat with my heart racing. What did I just agree to? Who is this guy? Did Chris even think about whether it was a good fight for me or did he just throw me to the wolves because he wanted to go to Miami?

At this point I figured it didn't really matter. I had agreed to take the fight so it was time to get cracking. I had been training hard and all that was left to do was to get mentally ready. For me the mental aspect of the fight is the most challenging and the only aspect that really matters. I know personally that when my head is in the right place no one can beat me. I mean they may have more points on the judges cards when the time runs out, but no one is going to stop me in the cage.

I was plagued with doubt and uncertainty heading into the final week of my training. As it often does, the Universe stepped in to show me that this was something I needed to overcome.

It was Wednesday morning when I woke up and started getting ready to head out for a run. The phone rang, and it was Gary Stuber, a friend and training partner. He had read my post on myspace about fighting Edson Berto and wanted to tell me that it scared him. He didn't think it was a good fight for me and was so distraught that he had called one of his best friends, UFC fighter Spencer Fischer, and asked him what to do. Spencer told him that it was his duty as my friend to let me know if he thought I was taking a bad fight.

When I got the phone call, he told me that Berto was far too dangerous on his feet and that in his opinion he was probably the most dangerous well rounded striker in the division. He felt that his stand up was going to be too much for me to handle and that his wrestling was good enough to force me to stand with him. He stressed that I was still at a point in my career where I had options and that I was able to choose who I fought. He said that Spencer had reached a point where he had to fight whoever they put in front of him and had dropped a few close decisions and was now fighting untelevised on the undercard. He told me that he was going to call Chris and tell him the same thing, but he felt it was his obligation to let me know he felt I was getting myself into a bad situation and should choose someone else for my first fight back.

Well, like I said before, the mental aspect of the fight is the most important and the hardest to master and he had just thrown a major wrench into my mental mechanism.

I was freaking out.

I had already made up my mind that I was fighting and I had already committed to the fight. I am not one to back out of a fight once I have committed, even if I'm injured I step into the cage and go to work. I have never been one to back down on the street and I sure as fuck wasn't about to start backing down now. That being said, my head was a mess.

I was stomping around my apartment screaming and throwing shit, "Fuck! Why did you call me! What am I doing?"

Then I slowly started to get my shit together. Who am I? I'm a mother fucking fighter! This is who I am! This is what I do! I fight! Fuck the doubters, fuck the haters, fuck everybody! You didn't make me, you can't break me, you don't have what I have, you don't know me, you don't know what I'm capable of! I am a warrior, this is who I am! The blood that flows through my veins is the blood of a champion and if it needs to be spilled, then let it flow. I would rather live one day as a champion than a lifetime as a coward! I laced up my shoes and started running.

I was still all fucked up mentally after my run and after practice. I fought well in sparring but didn't feel I was fighting to my potential. One of my healers, Dr. Peter Goldman, runs a metaphysical study group on Wednesday nights so after practice I showered up and drove to his office.

The discussion that day was about courage. Over the course of the discussion I was able to tap into my courage and get over my fear. I really just had to remember that I am not my body. I am a spirit who has a body and that whatever happens to that body has no effect on my spirit. I told Dr. Goldman about the phone call and he told me that it was simply the Universe mirroring my own fear and self doubt that I had been projecting and that by manifesting itself in the form of the phone call it had forced me to confront my own feelings and begin to deal with them. I felt much better when I left his office that night.

I pushed hard through the remainder of my workouts at Legends and through the rest of my runs to bring my weight down. My friend, Frank "Recking Ball" Barca, was in town from Australia and was staying with me. He helped me with my stand up and helped lighten the mood when I got to intense and reminded me that this is what I love to do and that I have the best job in the world as well as the best people around me.

As the day to leave for Florida approached, I went to see Dr. Bernie Soon, another member of my support team, who did some great healing work on my body and spirit and allowed me to work through the trauma that I suffered breaking my jaw in my last fight. Once I had worked through the fear that I had internalized during that injury, I felt reborn and felt my lungs and heart really open up. After working with Bernie I was 100% sure I would perform at my peak in the cage on Oct 4th. Check out her website here (www.emdrnow.com) and tell her I sent you, maybe she'll cut me a break on the fee ;)

Chris picked me up for the flight on Wednesday morning and in typical fashion we missed the plane. I had brought all carryon luggage but when his bag needed to be checked they bumped us from the flight. It wasn't a big deal and as tired as I was I just slept in the terminal. When we were getting ready to board the next flight I saw a couple guys who looked familiar in line for the same flight. It took me a second but I soon realized that it was Mask and Scrape from the Tapout crew. I almost didn't recognize them since it was the first time I had ever seen them "out of costume." I said hello and we chatted for a minute. I was kinda apprehensive to say hello since one of my managerial team, Scott "Einstein" Epstien, had informed me that they would not be sponsoring me for this fight. This had come as quite a shock because we had a good relationship and I haven't lost a fight since they had agreed to sponsor me last year.

When we started talking the guys asked me who I was representing for the fight and I told them that I had hoped it was still them but currently I was just rocking Melee Fight Gear (www.meleefightgear.com). The Tapout guys seemed shocked to hear that their cube monkey back at corporate hadn't hooked me up. They said not to worry and that they had my back. We shook hands and I rolled to the john to take a leak.

Before I even got my cock back in my pants, my blackberry was blowing up. It was Einstein letting me know that Tapout had come through at the last minute and that they were gonna throw some heavy paper my way. Nice! I had just doubled the amount of money I was gonna make! Glad I recognized those guys, it seemed like everything was falling into place.

With the extra money from Tapout I was able to fly the rest of my team to Florida to work my corner so I called Kelly Carter (www.titleshottraining.com) and Einstein and told them to pack their bags.

I got to the hotel, checked in, and checked my weight. Everything was right where it needed to be so I just grabbed my book and jumped in bed to relax. The next day I would go for a long slow run in the morning to help get my weight down and chill by the pool. After my run I saw Christiani "Cyborg" Santos swimming in the pool and was real glad I wasn't fighting her. That girl is a beast. Her head was as big as Tito's and her legs were thicker than mine. I have no idea how she makes 140 but she looked huge. That night my weight was nice and low, I was only 6 lb. over, so I went out to sushi with my trainer Chris Reilly. He enjoyed some low grade sushi and a saki bomb while I had green tea and a few pieces of sashimi. I know raw fish before a fight may be risky to some, but I eat sashimi all the time and the main thing is to stay consistent so thats what I had.

I woke up the day of weigh-ins 5 lb. over so I suited up and headed over to the 24 hour fitness with Chris to cut the weight. We did three 5 min rounds of some real light sparring type drills to get my sweat going. Then I did three 5 min rounds on the bike, stepper, and treadmill. After that I hit the sauna to stretch out and drop the last little bit. Kelly Kobold, the girl who was fighting Gina Carano, was in there with me cutting her weight as well. Some douche was freaking out and bitching to Chris who was posted up outside the sauna that there was a girl in the locker room. I thought that was pretty gay and wished he had said some shit to her face so she could have knocked his bitch ass out. Dude, a girl in the boys locker room as a dream come true, what a weirdo.

The weight came off real easy and I headed back to the hotel to clean up and wait for the shuttle to the weigh-in.

Here's Chris Reilly chillin' in the lobby before catching a ride to the weigh-ins.



At the weigh-in I ran into my friend and former IFL Anaconda's teamate, Benji Radach. It was great seeing him and made me feel real comfortable. Sure it was my biggest fight to date, but here I was with an old friend with whom I had gone into battle before. Benji was fighting Ninja Rua and I was happy thinking about us both getting upset victories the next night.



I stepped onto the scale after witnessing Jake Shields and Paul Daley getting into in backstage and Kimbo shoving Shamrock. I was kinda pissed off and disappointed in their antics. I know they are just trying to hype up their fights but I feel like it cheapens the sport and paints the fighters in a negative light. And speaking of negative, I'm just going to ignore Gina's weight issues.



Berto and I made weight and we squared off for the pictures. I remember looking into his eyes and feeling like a great weight was weighing him down and that he had lost his love of the battle. If you don't love the battle, in the cage with me is the wrong place to be.
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After the weigh-in, Chris and I went and ate with Scotty Nelson and Scott Berri (spelling?). When we got back to the hotel, the Elite XC top brass had been waiting for us and wanted to take us out to eat again. After dieting for weeks, I was down. We jumped into a van and headed downtown to some fancy steak house. I had the salmon and it was delightful. I also ate a number of tasty desserts, cheese cakes, creme brule, chocolate moos, etc they were all served on little lollypop things on a tree at the table. Very nice ;)

After a good nights rest, I had some oatmeal and coffee and met up with Kelly Carter of www.titleshottraining.com in my hotel room where he stretched me out and performed a lifeline on me. Lifeline is a diagnostic and treatment program designed to balance the body, mind, and spirit. After the session I went back to sleep and rested until it was time to leave for the arena.

Once in the dressing room, my team and I took over the back portion of the room by the showers and set up shop. Kelly broke out his massage table, Chris set up to tape my hands, and Einstein told fart jokes.







Once my hands where taped, I started some light sparring with Chris in the shower room.



I hit the kick pads for a little bit and remember looking down at my hands and feeling almost scared at how powerful I felt. I knew this was gonna be one hell of a fight.



After my warm up I just cleared my mind and focused on how blessed I was to be able to do what I love. I got the call and started my walk to the cage. I knew I had done everything in my power to prepare and that I had good people around me. When I got into the arena they told me there was a ten minute break before my fight and said I could go back to the dressing room. I told them I would rather stay and enjoy the moment and the anticipation. I was positioned just behind the curtain and could see the whole arena filled with people. I was loving it.

I just chilled out and danced to the music playing over the loudspeakers and allowed the moment to sink in. I remembered how it felt to compete in the state finals in front of 17,000 people and how I had blocked it all out so that I could just focus on the match. This time I wanted to really enjoy the energy of the crowd and bask in it. Standing there with my friends, getting ready to battle, dancing to M.I.A. I felt like the luckiest man alive.

Here are the rest of the pictures from the fight. I'll let them speak for themselves until I get the video. I don't really remember the fight anyway. I do know I had a real nice time.










































































After the fight I headed out to celebrate with my friends. We partied all over Miami with a crazy crew of fighters, agents, talent, and hangers-on. Tito was there along with just about anybody who's anybody in MMA. It was a blast. It was my first fight where I didn't drink afterwards and I was happy to be so lucid and able to really enjoy and remember everything.

The night grew into morning and the chance of making our flight grew slimmer still. I managed to round up the crew and break for the hotel but as luck would have it, we missed the flight yet again. I was exhausted and ready to sleep in the airport as long as it took to get on a flight but Chris had other plans. After our second standby flight left without us he had had enough and informed me that it was the universe telling us to enjoy the victory. Before I knew it we were in a cab on our way to The Gansevoort in south beach. Our luggage and all our clothes, however, were well on their way to Los Angeles.

Chilling poolside I felt so good, everything had gone perfect. I was finally making a name for myself and I knew that I had gotten some people's attention with my performance. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the Miami sun.



Needless to say I'm a fucking head case. For me, being mentally centered is the single most important thing for me going into a fight. People always ask me if I'm scared or if I think I will win or after the fact, if I thought I had a chance. To put it simply, yea I always think I'm going to win. In fact, I always know I am going to win. If I don't fully believe with every fiber of my being that I will win the fight, then I have no business stepping into the cage. Secondly, when you don't look at a fighting in terms of winning and losing it makes this much easier. For me, I feel I have already won the fight if I can bare my soul and give my all in the cage. If I am able to fully commit my spirit to the fight then I have already won.

Back when I was just a wrestler I always said that the worst thing about sport was that you didn't die when you lost. I hated that you could be behind on points when the time ran out and that the match was over. I hated that you could get pinned and still have a ton of fight left in you but that it was over. Nothing is worse than having someone else tell you when you have lost. Me? I've never lost. I've just been a little behind on the cards when the time ran out. The best thing about the fight game to me is that you are given pretty much every opportunity to take the fight as far as you want. When fights are 15 minutes or even 25 minutes long you have plenty of time to find out who is the better man. Outside of the knockout, which thankfully, I have never experienced, you are given the opportunity to leave it all in the cage. If you are caught in an arm bar, you have the option to tap out or let him gas out bending it the wrong way and then use it to beat him senseless. I think that submission are basically just a universally recognized way to give the man a way out. No one is going to call you a pussy for tapping out in an arm bar or to a choke but the reality is, if you still want to fight, you won't tap. If your body shuts off thats one thing, but giving up is another. I will never give up. Fuck that. Knock me out, choke me out, but get me to tell you that you're the better man? Fuck that.

That's the best fucking thing about MMA is that it allows everyone to see exactly what you are made of. Some people don't know what they are made of and fighting is a way of showing them that.

I think I fight to overcome my fear that I'm ordinary.

There is nothing worse than being ordinary, no fate worse that mediocrity.

"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, fabulous, gorgeous, talented? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. You're playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that's within us. It's not just in some of us. It's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we automatically give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fears, our presence automatically liberates others."

I am truly blessed to be able to do what I do. I mean, how many people can say that they have given their all to anything? I mean, really gave everything? You know why people don't give their all to anything? Because nothing hurts more than giving everything. This is why I love my job because I am able to pour every ounce of my being into one task and to pursue one goal with all my heart. Just by committing myself fully to the achievement of a singular goal, I have already won the battle of the spirit.

I don't view the world in a linear manner. I believe that my spirit is eternal and everlasting and that only my physical body or shell is temporary. I believe that I have already fought and died thousands of times. I know that I will fight for eternity and each individual event is but a ripple in the river of my existence. There is no pain that I have not felt and survived and no death that I have not already died so there is nothing to fear.

I happen to like my physical body this time around because I have been blessed with a nice one strong athletic one, at least that's what the girls say ;). However, the reality is that it is nothing more than a temporary home for my spirit and that it will eventually break down and return to the earth.


Why is it that we fear we are great? Why do people fear success more than they fear failure? Is it because once the goal has been achieved we are robbed of our sense of purpose? Who are we without a challenge? Who are we without a way to measure ourselves? Why is it that without a measuring stick against which to judge ourselves that we feel lost? Are we trying to play god? Is our desire to judge so great that without a means of determining a winner and a loser, a sinner and a saint, that we lose our lust for life? Why is it that those who are given everything, value nothing?

Is struggle the meaning of our existence? Is it only by walking through the fire that we truly know ourselves?

These are just a few of the questions that raced through my mind once I finally got back to LA and had some time by myself to decompress and look back on everything. I always get a little down after a fight but like I said, I have the best job in the world. I took a week off from training and have since gotten back in the gym. I am working very hard to continue my winning ways and my team at Legends has really come together in the weeks since my fight.

Thanks to all my sponsors and teammates for making this possible. I love you guys. And to Favi, I couldn't do it without you. And to Chris, this is just the beginning of a beautiful journey, thanks for sharing your secrets.