Prologue

What's it like to walk down the street and have no fear? What's it like to turn the corner and know I can handle anything that comes my way? What's it like to be the guy people are afraid to meet in a dark alley? People ask me those questions more than any others. That's what happens when you're six-two, 205 puonds, sport a low-and-tight Mohawk, and have a tattoo etched onto the side of your skull. That's what happens when when you've got a rep as the hardest puncher in what is arguable the toughest sport since the 300 were doing battle. People want to know what it's like to be fearless more than they want to know how much money I make (enough), or how much it hurts to be an ultimate fighter (not much), or would I let my nine-year-old son step onto the Octagon when he's older (sure, if he trained).

Well, here's the answer: I have no idea, because I've got nothing to compare it to. I've never been afraid of a fight. In fact, I like fighting, always have. Not that I'm looking for a brawl every time I hit the bars. I stopped doing reckless stuff like that when I was a teenager. Back then I'd walk into a room trying to figure which guys I was going to end up throwing down with at the end of the night. I didn't care if I was taking on five other people. I figured, no matter what happened to me, by the time it ended I'd have taken care of at least three or four of them. Ever since my grandpa taught me how to throw a punch, I've known how to handle myself in those situations. And having that kind of confidence frees me up to think about something other than “Wow, I can pretty much kick anyone's ass.” It just doesn't cross my mind. At least not when I'm walking down the street.

But heading toward the cage, that's a different story. Then, I never doubt. When I walk out of the tunnel, I can see the lights, hear the music, feel the crowd, but it all begins to close off as I near the cage. By that point, I'm thinking, I've been training hard, it's time to focus. I play to the crowd because that is part of the show, but I can't hear what anyone is saying. Good or bad. All the best MMA (mixed martial artist) fighters feel exactly the same way because most of us were competitive athletes long before joining the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). I played football and wrestled at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Randy Couture was an all-American wrestler at Oklahoma State and was an alternate on three Olympic wrestling teams. The UFC welter-weight champ Matt Serra won a Brazilian jujitsu gold medal at the Pan American Games. What we're doing is sports in its most basic form. We don't have teammates. It's a one-on-one battle, with no place to hide. Every man is born with a fight-or-flight instinct, and mine is to fight. It always has been.

I've been in twenty-four professional MMA fights since turning pro in 1998. I've won twenty, seven of those by knockout. That's a total of less than three matches a year, which usually equals fewer than forty minutes total of actual fight time. Yet for each of those fights I work out twice a day, five times a week, for three straight months (give or take a day here and there to blow off some steam). My trainer at The Pit in San Luis Obispo, John Hackleman, has me throw a 125-pound medicine ball against a wall. I run with a wheelbarrow full of rocks up a hill. I do fight drills, fitness drills, and bag work. I spar. I wrestle. I take kicks to the head and knees to the stomach. And that is just for practice. After that kind of effort, if I walk into the cage and don't think I can whip anyone I'm facing, I'm in the wrong sport.

I'm pretty sure I made the right choice. And while you're reading this book, I think you'll agree. I wrote this because I wanted people to know the guy beneath the Mohawk, to understand why I love stepping into the cage and beating up on people. And while I begin the story with my days growing up in Santa Barbara and end it living the good life as a UFC star in San Luis Obispo, I'm hoping this serves as more than just a year-by-year record if my life story because that's not all it is to me. I didn't just wake up one day and decide I could be a UFC champion. I worked toward it every day of my life, even before there was such a thing as the UFC. All I ever wanted to do was make a living fighting. It didn't have to be professionally. Before becoming a UFC fighter, I was working in a dojo as a bartender. I could have done those two things forever. And if I had written a book about that kind of life, except for the fights themselves, most of it wouldn't be all that different. Every chapter in this book features a lesson that helped me become who I am in and out of the cage, from the time I learned to box when I was three years old to the days both of my kids were born to the night that Rampage knocked me on my butt. You may finish this book and not remember one detail of my life—although I'm sure you'll be telling your friends some stories. But at the least, if you rip out the table of contents and carry it with you (after you buy the book), you'll have the road map that helped me become the light heavyweight titleholder. And the lessons apply whether you're studying for the SATs, sitting in cubicle hating your boss, or training to be a UFC fighter.

Hackleman likes to say that I was nothing but a 220-pound slab of clay who couldn't fight when he met me. He also tells reporters that before big fights I get really nervous, head to his house, sit on his couch, put my head on his shoulder, and ask him to rub the tattoo on the side of my head until I fall asleep. Only one of those things is true.

Read this book and you'll find out.