Iceman by Chuck Liddell Page B

fill up with nervous energy waiting for my fights to begin, which I think goes back to my wrestling days. Getting too pumped up was only a waste of energy. And I wasn’t really nervous waiting for the fight to start or walking out to the cage; it’s not as though it was my first fight in front of a crowd. Although, it wasn’t the way it is today with the music, the lights, the crowds hanging over and trying to give me high fives. More people were in the stands than I’d ever seen for one of my fights, but it was pretty quiet. It seemed as if half of them didn’t know what to cheer for, as though they had heard about this violent sport and wanted to come check it out for themselves. They weren’t quite fans; they were curious. I didn’t mind the peace. I could think, focus, and go over my game plan, which was essentially to go beat the crap out of the guy.
    I didn’t feel any real butterflies when I walked into the ring either. But maybe I should have. I had been telling myself to look out for that big right. My friends had warned me about it. And yet, ten seconds into the fight I let my guard down, and bam , he pops with that powerful punch of his. I said to myself, “Damn.” I wasn’t worried, I just couldn’t believe I got caught by that. I felt my eye starting to swell up, I knew it was going to be black-and-blue within minutes. I couldn’t believe I had done something so mindless so early in the fight.
    But it was good. It knocked some sense into me, reminding me I was in a fight and not just baiting some chump I had thrown out of a bar. After that, I settled down and used some of the strategies I had been working on through years of training, from my days at Koei-Kan Karate-Do to John Lewis’s gym in Las Vegas.
    I got in a good pop right at the bridge of Noe’s nose, which sent blood gushing to the canvas. For the rest of the fight, whenever we locked up or stood still for too long, you could see drops of blood forming a pattern at Noe’s feet. While it looked bad, he clearly wasn’t hurt because he came at me as much as I went after him. I’d give him a low kick to knock him off balance, then follow that up with a sweeping right. Then he’d get low on me, flip me over, and make me use some energy to get off the ground.
    It was a tense, tight fight. Years later Nick described it as electrifying. And it had that feel of whoever was in the crowd and whatever fight they were waiting to see after we were over actually began to enjoy it. We were both so desperate to win—me for reasons more than just my competitive nature—the crowd could sense it. Even with a minute left in the fight, we were showing no signs of letting down, throwing as many punches as possible as quickly as possible. Pretty soon the entire crowd was on its feet, cheering the effort as much as they were rooting for one guy or the other. I remember Nick and John screaming, partly encouraging me, partly instructing me. They wanted to make sure I kept Noe moving in a half circle around the ring. The last thing they wanted was for me to give him a chance to set up and take a straight shot with his right hand directly at my eye again.
    That’s what I did for most of the fight: I moved around in the shape of a moon, as if we were dancing with a little bit of space between us. I looked for my shots, high and low, and tried to protect myself as best as I could. Was I a kickboxer, street fighter, wrestler, jujitsu expert? To tell you the truth, I didn’t know at that point. I was just discovering what I was all about as a mixed martial arts fighter. I wanted to survive, win, and get invited back. I could worry about style points the next time around.
    I must have done something the judges liked because after twelve minutes of fighting with neither of us getting knocked out, the folks at cageside had to declare the winner: Chuck Liddell, by a decision.
    My right eye was