Iceman (19 page)

I'
M NOT SURE WHY TITO WAS AFRAID TO FIGHT ME
but wouldn't hesitate to fight Randy. Maybe he felt he had to fight or else he'd become even more of a joke as a champ than he already was. Or maybe it was the money: Tito was getting $125,000 for fighting and another $50K if he won. Randy was getting $105,000 for showing up and a $70,000 win bonus.

The fight was held at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in front of seventy-six hundred people. And as he always did walking into the Octagon, Randy looked calm and collected. In fact, he was grinning from ear to ear, as if he had a secret that no one else knew. Tito came in looking as intense as he ever had, and once he was in the cage, he did that bounce he does, lifting his knees up to his waist while jumping as high as he can. Maybe he does it to get himself pumped or to get the blood flowing. But he ends up looking like a character in
Donkey Kong
. It definitely didn't do much to scare off Randy, who just kept smiling, as happy as could be.

Unlike Tito's title fight with Ken Shamrock, which started out fast and furious, this one felt more calculated. Both fighters came out slow, feeling each other out. Then, around 2:30 into the fight, Tito tried to get in a few knee shots. But he got in too close and left himself vulnerable, because Randy took him down. For a minute Randy had the better position and tried choking Tito out, but it was still too early in the match and Tito had too much energy for Randy to finish him off. Tito slithered away and tried to box with Randy for a minute or so. But, again, Randy used his superior wrestling skills to take Tito down. With two first-round takedowns Randy not only won the round, he had shaken Tito's confidence. You could see it in his eyes that he was rethinking his strategy. No one during his title defenses had so easily put him on his back. Now Randy had done it twice. This was an interesting fight.

Clearly rattled, Tito came out in the second round with a high kick, trying to catch Randy off guard. It didn't work. Randy deftly avoided the kick and soon had Tito on the mat again. This time he forced him against the fence and administered the kind of ground and pound he had given me in our first fight. Tito was utterly defenseless, both in that instant and, as everyone watching began to realize, against Randy's superior fighting skills. At the end of the second round, unable to get anything going physically, Tito was reduced to yelling at Randy from across the cage, trying to get in his head with some trash talking. It didn't work. Randy was up two rounds to none.

When Tito began the third with a lunging attempt at a takedown, Randy sprawled, which sent both fighters scrambling for position. Somehow, Tito ended up on top, only to have Randy reverse. When they got to their feet, it didn't last long, as Randy again threw Tito to the mat. This fight, like a lot of fights, had a pattern. Randy was happy keeping Tito on the ground and put him there every chance he could. He wasn't all that interested in striking, and once he realized the fight was his, he had no reason to take that kind of chance. Besides, he was scoring points and doing damage. He was neck-cranking Tito against the fence while delivering elbows, forearms, and punches. Randy is a freak of nature. At forty he looked stronger and hungrier and better prepared than Tito, who is twelve years younger. Tito just seemed exhausted and frustrated by Randy's constant ability to foil his game plan. Round three went to Randy.

As long as he avoided a knockout, Randy was going to win this fight. Tito's corner knew that, too, which is why they were screaming for him to strike Randy hard as soon as the round began. But Tito's moves had no impact. Randy took him down again and delivered some more ground and pound. It was becoming a familiar sight. Things were so bad for Tito that Randy nearly choked him out. The ref was right on top of the action, ready to call it, looking for a sign Tito was gone. He escaped, but was forced against the fence again, where Randy threw punch after punch that connected.

In the fifth Tito came out swinging again, but it was no use. Randy had him on his back by the middle of the round. As soon as Tito got back up, Randy threw him down again. It was unbelievable how much Tito was dominated in this fight. He spent the entire match either trying to escape Randy's grappling moves or on his back, protecting himself from punches. In one final, drastic move Tito rolled over and attempted a kneebar. But Randy avoided the hold, and with Tito's butt exposed, Randy pretended to spank him. He actually pulled his hand back and acted as if he were punishing a child. It was hysterical, as though the Hall of Famer were giving the young punk a lesson. This is how you act before a fight. Bam. This is how you win a fight. Bam. This is how you completely demoralize an opponent. Bam. So keep your trap shut and, from now on, focus on fighting. Setting yourself up for embarrassment like that is one more reason why it never pays to mouth off.

Tito must have learned something. After the fight was over and Randy was declared the winner by a unanimous decision, Tito grabbed his belt and wrapped it around the waist of the new UFC light heavyweight champion.

The only question for me was, what would my next fight be? A rematch with Randy? Or a grudge match with Tito?

B
UT, BEFORE EITHER OF THOSE FIGHTS, I HAD TO
finish my business with Pride. After beating Overseem in August, I was scheduled to fight Quinton “Rampage” Jackson in Japan in early November, just six weeks after the Tito-Randy fight. As a fighter, Rampage had a style pretty similar to mine. We were about the same size. And he began as a wrestler in high school. He even planned on becoming a pro wrestler when he finished school, before moving over to MMA. And while he was good on the ground, he liked to stay on his feet and trade punches. Or, more accurately, throw punches and knock the snot out of whoever was standing in front of him.

Rampage had never fought in the UFC. He claims it was because he was such good friends with Tito and didn't want a potential fight to get in the way of that. At least Tito had been able to convince one potential opponent that being buddies was a good reason not to fight. Instead, Rampage came up through these small MMA tournaments such as King of the Cage, which used to take place almost entirely at casinos on Indian reservations. That's another way we were similar: The way we came up, we clearly just wanted to fight; against whom, for whom, in front of whom didn't matter. If it took place on a street corner with no one watching, that would have been fine with us. Getting paid was a bonus.

Rampage's big break came when he was invited to fight in Pride in Japan. He was matched up against one of the country's most popular wrestlers, who was a Pride veteran. Rampage was raw, but he was tough. For most of the first round, no matter how many times he was taken down or how many joint locks were attempted on him or how exhausting every choke attempt was, he kept wrestling his way free, often lifting his opponent off the ground and slamming him back down. Finally, he submitted to a choke. But by then he had won over the crowd and earned a deal with the Pride execs to fight for them full-time. Over the next two years he fought in six of the eleven Pride tournaments. He had battled and beaten such guys as Kevin Randleman and Murilo Bustamante, just as I had. As far as fighters went, we were as evenly matched as two could be.

Pride Final Conflict, which is what they were calling this round of the tournament, took place in the Tokyo Dome. More than sixty-seven thousand people were in the audience. For some perspective, that's more than most baseball, basketball, or hockey games, and even heavyweight title fights in boxing. It's about how many people pay to see the Super Bowl in person every year. From the last row of the dome we looked like two action figures moving around on a place mat. But people didn't care, as long as they were inside. The enthusiasm for MMA was unparalleled.

While I was the bigger name in the UFC, this was Rampage's home turf. And you could see that just from the introductions. I was lifted on a platform through a hole in a stage, like some pop star elevating above the crowd before a show. But my intro music was generic, the lights stayed on, and I had no entourage with me. I walked pretty casually down the steps of the stage toward the ring. I even smiled for the camera that was tracking me the entire time. You'd think there's no way you can be fighting in front of that many people and, at least at first, not be jacked up with adrenaline. But I felt calm and relaxed. I just walked around the ring shaking my arms, trying to get loose.

Walking into the ring with the crowd going wild really gets my adrenaline pumping.

Rampage, however, had an entrance. For him the lights went down, a rap song he had picked out blasted through the dome's loudspeakers, colored beams of light filled the stadium, and the crowd roared. I was wearing flip-flops, shorts, and a jersey when I came into the ring. Rampage had on a black T-shirt and camouflage pants, with his entourage dressed to match. He also wore his signature heavy chain around his neck. This wasn't a silver necklace, but a real chain, the kind used to keep big rigs from separating. It hung to his belly button. But the best effect was on his face: It was a leather mask with plastic flames flaring out from the sides.

When he was finally at the top of the stage and had the crowd's attention, he pointed his lips to the ceiling and let out a yelp, like a wolf that was howling at the moon. He slowly made his way toward the ring, and every few feet he'd stop to howl. I had gotten to know Rampage that week while promoting the fight, and we liked each other. But I wasn't really expecting this. It was interesting. Even if it did take him a while to finally get to the ring.

While I slipped off my shoes and peeled off my shirt, it took him another few minutes to get undressed. Tonight he was wearing camouflage shorts. But, as an American fighting in Japan, he's also been known to wear Uncle Sam shorts, like the ones that Apollo Creed wore in
Rocky
. You could tell he was pumped to fight. Instead of slipping through the ropes, he jumped over the top and into the ring.

I had worked with Dana a lot before this fight. I actually spent a month at a training camp in Vegas rather than working out at The Pit. It was a big fight for us. Plenty of fans thought Pride was a tougher league than the UFC because it had longer rounds and fewer rules. Because of that rivalry, we were anxious to prove we had higher-quality fighters. There's a great story that Dana was so sure that I—and the UFC—would win that he bet Pride's boss $250,000 on me. The real story is that he bet $250,000 I would beat Wanderlei Silva, because that's whom he expected me to fight. No one thought I'd be going against Rampage.

While I was training, Dana and I did a lot of scouting on Rampage. For a lot of guys that means going to their fights in person or watching them on pay-per-view. But when I'm doing that, I like to go as a fan. I get to as many UFC cards as I can, and when I'm watching, it feels as if I'm just a guy lucky enough to be in the crowd. I can feel my body twitching with the moves, then I start to throw punches at the air. It's easy to get pumped up from the music and the action. I can understand why the crowd is so frenzied when I'm on the other side in the cage. It's fun at home, too. And for a lot of fights I'll have some buddies over to watch. But I rarely sit still long enough to see the whole card.

My scouting is done by watching film. For Rampage that meant watching film of his previous fights. We put together a pretty detailed game plan. In his fight against Bustamante that August, he got caught in a lot of submission moves. He escaped, but it showed that he was getting better as a fighter. Also, because of the trouble I had had against Couture, we felt Rampage would rather take this fight to the mat than stand and strike. So I wanted to get in a lot of low kicks and do some damage to his legs, making him more fatigued and making it harder to lunge the way it's necessary when you want to grapple.

When the fight began, we exchanged a lot of jabs in the center of the ring. Surprisingly, he didn't shoot for my legs at all. He was standing around, happy to make this a boxing match, which wasn't what we had expected while training. We both tagged each other early. I got in a strong high left kick, and he got me on the head with two lefts. Then he came with another left hook that knocked me on my heels. It definitely stunned me. It's when I get hurt or surprised that I'm at my most dangerous. I've got a strong chin—which comes from years of fighting on the street—and I don't get my bell rung easily. Most fighters hesitate, just for a moment, when they think they've tagged someone pretty hard, as if they are waiting to see if the guy falls. That's when I take the chance to attack. So when I fell back on my heels a bit, I immediately came back with a combination that got the crowd into it.

I wasn't throwing any leg kicks and had basically abandoned our game plan. He caught me with another combo and I almost fell walking into the ropes. Then he followed up with a right that landed smack on my face, and it stopped me in my tracks. We were both just throwing wild punches. Since the fight began there hadn't been many jabs, but rather a lot of knockout blows that didn't knock anyone out. Already, I felt exhausted, which was one reason why I couldn't kick. I was too tired. I couldn't get my leg up with any force. It felt as if for every combo he delivered, I'd follow up with just one good punch.

Rampage may have won, but not without getting a little roughed up.

The first five minutes of the fight came at a slower pace than anyone had anticipated. And neither of us had tried going to the mat yet. At the midway point of the first round he had me in the corner and was delivering a lot of knees and punches to my body. That's what you want to do when you've got the upper hand in the corner, especially as a fight nears the end of a round and an opponent is fatigued. Never let 'em breathe.

Then he tried to pick me up and slam me down, but I escaped. To that point, no one had got the upper hand physically after a lot of trading punches. But after I wiggled out of his grasp, he caught me with three big hooks to my face and body that had me backpedaling all the way across the ring. Then he got me leaning the way he needed and lifted me up into the air for a body slam. You could already hear the crowd before I hit the ground. It had been waiting for a move like this. While the impact was huge, the damage was minimal. I slipped away and was standing again within moments. And the crowd, appreciative of all the MMA skills, cheered just as loudly when I got back on my feet as it did when I landed on my back. But now he was on the offensive. At the end of the round he knocked me down with a left. Rampage moved in for the kill and had me in a vulnerable position on the mat. If the round hadn't ended, there's no telling if I would have escaped again.

I was breathing heavily, bleeding, and looked exhausted as I made my way back to my corner. Meanwhile, Rampage, who had been winning at the end of the first round, was so tired he knelt for a few seconds with his hands on the ropes before getting up and trudging back to his corner. It was truly a back-and-forth with two evenly matched fighters. Pride couldn't have asked for a better battle. Former UFC heavyweight Bas Rutten, who was announcing the fight on television, said it already ranked as one of his top three favorite fights.

I hadn't done any damage to his legs at all in the first round and needed to find a way to tire him out. Early in the second round, I had him in position in the corner. My arms were locked around his head and I tried to work a guillotine, but I couldn't get the right grip. Instead I leaned my weight on him, trying to make him use his energy to hold us both up. I heard my corner yelling, “Stick to the head, stick to the head,” but I wasn't following their instructions. I didn't do enough knees to his body to take his wind away, either. He escaped and we ended up in the middle of the ring trading punches. But mine were lacking any snap. It's hard to respect a guy's punches when there's no power at the end of them.

From the middle of the ring he threw a nasty uppercut. It didn't connect, but came close enough that I fell back. He mounted me and had me facedown with my arms spread. I moved into position to get back on my feet—which drew another round of applause—but he immediately lifted me and threw me down again. That drew even more applause. Now it was a crazy pace, with him coming after me and me just trying to ward him off. When I went down again, he pounced. He was throwing body punches and punches to my head. He had one hand on my neck and chin, pushing my head back while I lay flat on my back, and with the other he was going to town. With more than two minutes left in the round, I had no defense. My guard was down, my arms were providing no resistance. He threw close to thirty punches, all of them connecting with my head or my body. Then the ref ended it.