Iceman (6 page)

H
ERE'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.)

Alfie was looking for places to work out and came across a gym called One Kicks, which taught Muay Thai boxing, run by a guy named Nick Blomgren. Muay Thai is the original form of kickboxing and allows competitors to strike from eight different points: the hands, elbows, legs (shins and knees), and feet. It's actually called the Art of Eight Limbs. Most sport-oriented martial arts only allow two strike points, the hands and the feet. Muay Thai is as revered in Thailand as football is here. It's the national sport, is recognized by an official holiday, and is treated with a respect by the combatants unlike any other sport. It's not just about sport to those in Thailand, it's about finding serenity and peace through the practice of an art. Fighters usually touch the rope three times. They always enter the ring from the top, rather than through the bottom, because the head is sacred and the feet are dirty. When in the ring, they perform a traditional dance called the Wai Kru, in which they circle the canvas to figuratively seal it off, meaning the fight is between them and them alone.

Here in the United States, the ritual is confined to the actual beatings. And Nick was a master. He had been a black belt in karate when he discovered the sport, then spent several years training in Thailand for three months every year. In 1992 he won the North American kickboxing championship. Since Alfie knew I kept up with the sport, he called me and asked if I had heard of Nick and if the gym was any good. Nick's nickname was One Kick because that's all he needed to knock someone out. So, yeah, I told Alfie, Nick was legit.

Nick was also becoming one of the bigger kickboxing promoters in town. At first, he was doing it just to get himself some publicity for his fights, but pretty soon he was putting together cards at casinos such as the Aladdin and Four Queens and the Orleans that drew as many as fifteen hundred people. Sure, these were the out-of-the-way, down-market casinos that the locals played at, not the upscale tourist traps such as the MGM and Mirage that drew fifteen thousand boxing fans for title fights. And, yeah, kickboxers only made about $500 per fight, rather than the $5 million or more that the boxers made, but the fights were sanctioned. They had refs, judges, and fans screaming for blood and took place in a ring. For a kid like me, looking to fight in someplace other than a bar, it was the pinnacle of combat sports.

Not too long after Alfie began training with Nick, Nick called me and invited me down for a visit. I told him I wanted to try a few matches, and without even seeing a tape, he started putting me in shows he was promoting. Pretty soon Alfie—who went on to win seven national titles—and I were Nick's headliners.

Nick said he liked my look—the Mohawk, my stare, my generally mean-looking disposition—and my style. That was the same as it was when I was wrestling or fighting in the street: aggressive, focused, and completely immune to the idea of getting hurt. Nick told me I was becoming a draw, that a lot of people were coming out to see me go on the attack when I fought. I had a pulse and energy when I stepped into the ring, mainly because I liked fighting so damn much.

But when I wasn't fighting, I was as invisible as a guy with a Mohawk and tattoo on the side of his head can be. I'd go out with Nick, sip on a Coke, sit by myself, and not say much at all. He'd take me all over town, trying to get me to open up, show a little life outside the ring, at least act as if I were having a good time. He wanted me meeting people, elevating my profile, increasing interest in the sport. Really, he just wanted me to lighten up and have a good time. But that wasn't me, at least not then. I was all about fighting. Everything else was not only secondary, but not all that compelling.

It wouldn't be too long before I realized that would have to change.

I
SETTLED INTO A NICE RHYTHM AFTER COLLEGE: I'D
fight in Vegas for Nick, bartend during the week, teach karate at a couple of local dojos nearly every weekday. I made good money—a lot of it in cash—and between winning a few kickboxing matches and my teaching, I developed a rep as a good fighter in SLO's karate community. Then, one afternoon, I got a call from the sensei at my dojo asking me to stop by. A new fighter had moved to town, and he was looking to spar.

Going a few rounds in the afternoon is no different for me from playing a pickup basketball game for anyone else. And I'm always eager to take on someone new, try out my moves, and see if they've got anything I can pick up. When I arrived at the dojo that day, I noticed the new guy, John Hackleman, right away. He was shorter than me and stocky, with a barrel chest and thickly muscled arms. At first glance you might wonder how he moved those things with any speed. Then you get on the mat with him and you realize how smart it is to never underestimate anyone. Because your question is quickly answered.

John was born in New York and moved to Hawaii when he was four years old. He picked up judo when he was nine, mainly because, as a white kid living in a Samoan neighborhood, he was tired of getting his butt kicked. By the time he was a teenager he was a kickboxer, a Golden Gloves boxer, and on his way to becoming a tenth-degree black belt. His style of fighting was called Kaju Kenbo, which was created by a group of Hawaiian martial artists in the mid-1940s. It was hard-core. The guys who started it weren't looking for some kind of inner peace. They developed Kaju Kenbo because they wanted to become better street fighters. And it wasn't long before John perfected the form.

John Hackleman is an amazing trainer and a great friend.

He was—and still is—a master at all the combat sports. After a three-year stint in the army in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was signed by Don King and had twenty professional fights. He then became the number-one-ranked kickboxer in the world during the mid-1980s, when he moved to Southern California and opened his gym, The Pit, which was for hard-core devotees of martial arts. Then he realized owning a gym called The Pit and having a rep for teaching what was essentially street fighting didn't exactly invite the widest swath of customers. That's when he tweaked the Kaju Kenbo style and created his signature form of karate, Hawaiian Kempo. It had all the striking and fighting techniques of Kenbo, along with conditioning drills that made it more mainstream.

John was moving The Pit to SLO with his wife, who was from the area, and he came to spar that day to get a feel for the local talent. We didn't do any serious fighting. The instructor ran us through some drills, I'd run at him and he'd defend, then he'd run at me. Both of us would do wall drills, with our backs to the wall and multiple people coming at us. It was the first time in a while that I'd sparred with someone who was better than me. He was great at landing powerful punches and kicks from different angles, and I was impressed. As he was leaving, he handed me his card and said, “If you ever really want to train, give me a call.” After the workout he had given me already, I was intrigued. And later that week I rode my motorcycle out to his house for a session.

John had bought a place—it looked like a compound, really—about twenty minutes outside San Luis Obispo. It was on three acres of woods, halfway up one of the foothills that surround the town. His house and a garage were on one plateau, and behind that, farther up the hill, was another house. This was where he had relocated The Pit.

It was raining when I drove up the hill. I was soaked and my motorcycle wheels were spinning to get traction on the dirt driveway. I had barely had a chance to dry off when John led me up a set of steep steps made of pebbles. John was a registered nurse who was working at a jail at the time, and the scene at the top of the hill looked like something out of a prison yard. My buddy Eric, who trained with me there, joked that it looked like one of those bunkers people have when they're expecting the apocalypse and have a basement full of machine guns. With all the modern technology and exercise equipment available—even back then—John's program was decidedly old school. The single-story house—which had a covered deck—was empty, except for several heavy bags. Hundred-pound tires were lying around, which John's trainees used to flip up the hill to improve their explosion. People filled wheelbarrows with weights and then pushed them up and down the hills. A thin pad wrapped around a metal pole holding up the roof of the deck was used as a punching bag. Dumbbells, free weights, medicine balls, and benches were lined up around the place. John had those working out do Black Jack drills, which were a push-up, then a body-weight squat, then a push-up, then two body-weight squats, until you reached twenty-one total. All the exercises ended when John rang an old-time boxing bell.

The holiest place at The Pit was the ring, which was set up along the edge of the woods that abutted John's property. It was four-sided and made of fraying rope, with an even greater incentive to staying upright than not being embarrassed: The entire ring was surrounded by poison oak. If you got knocked on your ass at The Pit, you'd be feeling it long after the pain of the punch went away.

Before John had me lift a weight, climb a step, or punch a bag, he wanted me to spar. With him. This time, no instructor was blowing his whistle and calling out drills. John decided when we started and when we finished. In an all-out fight session, we went at it for nineteen straight minutes. UFC rounds only last for five minutes, and boxing rounds only last for three, because fighting for even that long is exhausting. Even if you're in shape, your legs and arms start to shake from all the adrenaline pumping through your body. Sparring for nineteen straight minutes felt like running a marathon. My whole body was burning. And hurting, too. Because John handed me a beat down like I'd never had. My roommate at the time was Eric, and when I got home, I looked at him and said, “That was awesome.”

But I must have shown Hack something. When I left that day, it was still raining, and it was expected to keep raining for several days after that. As I hopped on my bike to leave, John tossed me the keys to his truck. I gave him a look as if to ask, “What's this?” But he answered with a question: “You coming back tomorrow?” I said yes. He told me to take the truck so I didn't kill myself riding my bike up his hill in the rain. I told him I couldn't do that, and he just asked me again, “You coming back tomorrow?” When I said yes again, he turned around and walked away. That was the end of the discussion. I was taking the truck, and I was becoming a member of The Pit.

I was proud to become a part of John's team of Pit Monsters.