The Official MMA thread

When the next crop of 16 heavyweight wannabes turn out for the UFC's Ultimate Fighter reality show Wednesday, one will be making his way from the Pacific Northwest with next-to-no record, a lot less experience, and about 900 times less attitude than his opponents.

Unlike the others, he's not an over-the-hill MMA journeyman looking to make a comeback, or a former NFL football player angling for one last moment in the spotlight. Nor is he a YouTube streetfighter who single-handedly took out a large regional promotion by being knocked out in seconds on national TV after months of expensive marketing hype.

This guy, let's call him Demico Rogers, is just a dude who knows how to swing.

"People that knew me before I became a fighter know I'm not a violent person. Then they see me participating in this sport and they think, 'Wow, Demico's not like that. How can he do this?' But you know what? Anyone can hit a guy in a bar, but it takes a lot more than that to get up at 6a.m. and swim, run, cut weight, and train all the time. I knew when I started MMA that it wasn't about hitting guys as much as it was about discipline, strength, courage, determination ... It takes a lot more to be good at this sport than any other sport I know."

Demico Rogers wasn't always a fighter. In fact, he thought he'd just about figured out where life was headed when he secured a job fixing Mercedes Benz automobiles in his hometown of Seattle. The pay was steady and the work was something he enjoyed. Throwing punches was the furthest thing from his mind as he tooled around the workshop.

"Cars were a lifetime passion of mine. When I turned 16 and got a license, I always wanted to go faster than the other guys, and I used to pay a lot of money on installations for my car. You always do, unless you can do it yourself, so I picked up a wrench and soon enough I was working on new cars, making a good living."

But something else was waiting for Rogers.

"As I started gettitng into mixed martial arts, I wondered if I was mean enough or scary enough to do well in it, but it turns out it has nothing to do with that. In fact, the more angry you are, the more it hurts you. A smart fighter is always going to have an advantage over an aggressive fighter."

Rogers enjoyed wrestling in high school and played a little football, but the all-encompassing nature of MMA drew him in.

"I don't think there's any point where you can say you know enough, where you don't need to learn anything else. Nobody on this planet is good enough at everything in MMA. In jiu-jitsu, eventually you'll know all the moves, but you still have to work on transitions. Even the best in the world are constantly looking to add skills and improve what they know."

With the next season of The Ultimate Fighter set to premiere tonight, we dragged Demico aside and asked him a few questions about what it's like in the TUF house, especially when it's filled with stonking big monsters like streetfighting online pop culture icon Kimbo Slice.

THE SUN: What's your greatest strength and weakness in the cage, and how do you deal with guys that bring skills you don't have?

DEMICO ROGERS: I have my wrestling base and a good technique in striking, so they'll be my two biggest attributes. Everything else - I've won jiu-jitsu tourneys so I can do okay on the ground - it's one of those things where your skills line up against those of the other person, and as you become a pro this becomes more the case, but it becomes a chess match. It's not so much adrenaline as my wrestling against his jiu-jitsu, my wrestling against Mauy Thai, so you don't necessarily have to be good at everything, but have to be able to contol everything.

SUN: What's your 'walking around' weight?

DR: 255 lbs.

SUN: How are you feeling about how you did now that the season had finished shooting?

DR: I'm very happy. I was worried I wasn't ready. I had a record of 4-0 as an amateur going in, with no pro fights at all, but my coach told me to believe in my skills, since if I wasn't good, I wouldn't have been picked.He said, you were chosen because you're ready, and once I get to the UFC and start that intensified training, it might take me a while to get to the [world champion] Brock Lesnar level, but I know I'm capable.

SUN: Do you back yourself against Lesnar?

DR: We'll see about that, I don't want to go calling anyone out before I'm even in there, and I'm hoping someone else will take him out before I have to. But I think I have some better wrestling than [Lesnar's recent opponent] Frank Mir, and I'd definitely go for it if I get a chance.

THE SUN: You've fought in a few amateur events, but this is a step up in class, presumably. How'd you feel walking into that Ultimate Fighter soundstage with a group of guys weighing between 210 and 265 lbs?

DEMICO ROGERS: It was pretty nerve wracking, but I knew eventually I was going to be at that level way back when I started this thing. I didn't know it was going to happen that fast, but I knew if I worked hard enough, it would happen. So I just took it for what it is, mentally prepared myself and showed up. You just have to convince yourself that you're ready, that you can compete at that level.

SUN: So you did well at the auditions?

DR: I tore it up pretty well at tryouts, I did well. I was happy. Again, I knew I did well because they wouldn't be flying me down otherwise.

SUN: So there were no problems maintaining a physical presence around all those other beasts in the TUF house.

DR: Yeah, the house was crazy, a lot of the guys were huge. Everyone seemed to be alright at first. They told us the house would get small really fast, and it did. They kept us guessing a lot, so you never knew what you'd have to do next or when they'd come in and throw a wrench in the works. After a while, the thing I did was I just stopped worrying and wondering and just went on autopilot. If they say, 'Fight tomorrow,' you just go do it. 'Go to the doctor,' do it.

SUN: So tell me about Kimbo.

DR: The thing about the show is, I had no idea he'd be there until he walked out, so there was no time to plan. I knew he was going to have some ego since he's already been in the spotlight, but I'll be honest, I don't have any problems with him. He seemed like a really good guy, he was there like us, there to prove himself, he got no favours and slept on twin-sized bunk beds like the rest of us.

SUN: The moment he walked in, he's a pretty polarizing guy - some guys must have had their sights set on him as a 'big kill' early on, right? I mean, there he is, he's made a name for himself punching guys in boatyards on YouTube, he brought down EliteXC, there was talk of guys being paid not to go to the ground with him... what goes through your mind when he walks in and you know he's standing between you and a contract?

DR: I just thought, here's a guy that's going to hit hard - that's pretty much it. I knew I have skills that match up with him pretty well, and I do some things better.

SUN: Was there tension? Did guys act up like in previous years?

DR: No, the guys on the show, they were pretty good about a lot of things. They kind of like, a lot of the coaches were pros, so you've got to do what you're told. They tell you to do something, that's what you do. They kind of owned us for six weeks. As for whether things got crazy... Well, you just have to watch it. Being on this side, I don't know how they'll edit it, but I'm real excited to watch it.

SUN: What's it like after a few days in that atmosphere?

DR: There's just no time out. No phone, no TV, no outside contact, but you know what happened? We totally turned to each other. We had our own cliques, you find the guys you mesh well with. We spent some time after practice around 9p.m., hang out in the corner and talk about home. The interesting thing about us all being fighters is that we talked about anything but the fighting. I think those hours kept us sane, helped us keep it together.

SUN: So let's say the MMA career stalls - what would you do for the rest of your life?

DR: After fighting? Public service. My grandfather wanted me to be a police officer, he was a cop in the 60's, but I really have a passion for firefighting, and a lot of fighters are that way. There are a few vets in the UFC who are firefighters part time, and I think that's a job that can use my physical attributes.

SUN: What makes you good at fighting?

DR: I truly believe I have the warrior spirit. Not everyone is capable of bringing it out, but there's nothing like that walk to the cage. It's one of those love/hate things. When you're not fighting, you think about it and it's one of those gut wrenching thoughts, the idea of doing that some time in the future, but when you're called, it's an incredible rush.

I went out and watched some fights a few weeks back and, man, I couldn't believe I'm doing this for a job right now. People ask how you do it and it's not something you can explain. You just get in the cage and there's another guy looking at you and you're about to go at it.

SUN: The fight game in Seattle is getting bigger, we have a big wrestling base here which helps out, a lot of people wrestle and the transition to MMA is so smooth from there because wrestlers already have that drive and work ethic, which definitely helps. We have some really big promoters and lot of fighters, trainers, fans. It's a close knit community. A lot of guys I knew growing up through wrestling are now coming up as MMA fighters, and the fanbase and backing is getting really big. The biggest thing we lack is the camaeraderie; in Vegas, everyone trains together, helps everyone else out. Around here, every promoter owns their own gyms and so they don't want you helping others. When we finally start cooperating on the Seattle MMA scene, that's when the market is going to explode.

SUN: What do you say to people who see MMA as nothing but barbarism, that it is a bad influence on kids?

DR: You know, the sport is getting very technical, so that old image of guys just swinging sledgehammers at one another is not how it is at all. One of the biggest issues I have with the sport is when our kids start fighting, the kids' technical level will be so high that every fight will go to a decision. By the time we all have kids, they'll be doing jiu-jitsu at 3 and 4 and doing Muay Thai at 5 or 6. That'll be interesting to see what happens then, but if you're going to really have an opinion on MMA, you need to go to fights and see it first hand. The crowd is so into the action that, maybe a few years ago it was different, but in all the shows I've been to, there has never been a fight in the crowd, outside the arena, nothing at all like that.

SUN: So you're okay with kids learning MMA?

DR: We do a lot of work with camps to let kids come in and train, so they don't go out in parks and try it the wrong way. That's why we can't have shows in some places, because parents see kids fighting and, really, we don't want that. That's not what anyone needs. Let the kids train, let them understand how to defend themselves, and teach them that this is something you do for sport, not to settle arguments, andeveryone wins.

SUN: How far do you think MMA will go?

DR: Far. Absolutely. I think [UFC President] Dana White is very smart. When you talk about MMA, you're talking about the UFC, and it can go really far if things are done the right way, and he knows that. I don't think he'll sell out, I think he's a better businessman than that, so don't think he'll try to overblow the sport. I hope he does it the right way.

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Originally Posted by m@T

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Originally Posted by Eason

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some good fights but I just felt sad watching this UFC