MMATH

I spoke with Eric Center on the phone from a rest stop in South Dakota. When my phone rang, I was hungry and certainly felt like it was the tail end of a long day that needed to end. I didn’t really feel like talking. As the lines crossed and I heard Eric speak, I heard an impassioned voice that was full of energy and life. It was Sunday, so it’s very possible it was Eric’s day off, but I had a feeling he would sound this way at the ass end of a 6 hour training session. I offered some weak introductory information as I tried to push myself into the mood of doing an interview. Eric’s liveliness, articulation and dutiful view of the sport he participated in made me forget all my petty issues shortly after. I was talking to a true fighter.

“I come from the school of thought that men should be men.” Eric began his recounting of what existed in his physical make up that pushed him towards fighting. “Men today are emasculated. I want to pay homage to the real warriors out there, those that exist now and those that existed in the past. I want to find my place in history. With today’s society, it is likely I can’t participate as a warrior, but I want to at least know that I’m capable of being alongside them.”

Eric’s take is an interesting one. Every person I speak to about this sport has a different motivation for getting involved. With the stereotypes that exist for MMA currently, Eric should by no means want to be a cage fighter. He is college educated, has a stable career, a daughter and the rest of his life ahead of him. So why fight? “It’s not about being pro, I don’t want to rush this, I do it for me. I just want to do the best for myself. I want to progress my body and mind, I want to be the best I can be – for myself, regardless of the outcome.”

“Fighting is no sacrifice to me. I feel invigorated and full of passion towards it. I have a forty hour work week and I take classes regularly, when I go home, I don’t feel like it’s a sacrifice to do what I want with my free time.” Eric is an oddity in the sense that he is unlike most aspiring up and comers. The majority have to walk a tight rope act of managing their pay check and their hopes to become the next UFC great. Eric has plenty of commitments in his life but he never puts off the impression that he is flustered by it or it is anything different than taking your boat out to the lake after you get off work. It’s simply a pleasurable pass time, coupled with a way to improve all aspects of his being.

“I’m blessed with a good group of people in my life. I have my wonderful daughter, who makes me want to be a great example, I have my incredibly supportive co-workers who don’t mind when I come to work bruised and battered, I have my training partners at Xtreme Couture who constantly remind me that you don’t have to sacrifice kindness and humility to be a bad ass in the cage.”

Xtreme Couture is an elite training ground where some of the world’s best fighters continually hone their skills against and with each other. I was curious how Eric wound up at highly rated gym prior to even having an amateur or professional fight. “I used to think the UFC was crazy. The violence was hard for me to watch. I wasn’t terribly interested in the sport. But I was caught in a perfect storm of three things that hooked me into the sport, at the end I found myself washed up Xtreme Couture’s shore.”

“The first part of it was simply watching the UFC with my friends. They explained the moves and the tactics and I slowly evolved my knowledge from watching a brawl to really appreciating the chess match that unfolds during each fight. Through my own appreciation and studying of history and wars specifically, I really wanted to find a way to justify my station as a man in this world. This really came to a head around the time I got into watching the UFC. The third piece for me was when I used to work at Blockbuster video. A guy came in to rent some movies and a co-worker pointed him out and asked me if I knew who he was? It turned out to be Jay Hieron. I struck up a conversation with him and we started talking about fighting more and more as he came in.”

“Jay inspired me. He came by Blockbuster just to show me a belt that he had won in an organization in Hawaii. He completely shattered the stereotype of a fighter for me. I was inspired by him to start training and so I went to Xtreme Couture.”

Eric’s introduction into the sport speaks of a couple of elements at play in MMA that are completely glazed over by the presentation of the sport to the public. The desire to fight is an internal one guided by a stable existence and a realization that you don’t have to become a fighter who curses like a sailor, talks trash and is fueled by a need to take their rage out on whoever is unlucky enough to stand in the cage with them.

“Xtreme Couture is a community. Many great fighters like Gray Maynard and Martin Kampmann go out of their way to say hi to you and to make you feel welcomed. Once people realized I was there to take the sport seriously, I was brought in to the fold. Everyone shows each other a huge amount of support. I don’t know about the other guys, but there is nothing I love more than watching the progression of skill and seeing the fruits of determination and hard work. That’s whether it is in myself or other fighters training alongside me.”

Eric and I eventually did get off of our boasting the sport to one another. Once we did, we started speaking about the brass tax of where he is at in his career. Eric recently had his first amateur fight with the Tuff-N-Uff organization. Tuff-N-Uff is an amateur organization that features perks, paydays and fighter treatment better than most small scale professional organizations. “I was excited. All my nerves faded into excitement. I was so happy to be a part of an organization that has such great fighter quality. My personal scale was busted and so I wound up coming in about 10 lbs under while my opponent was cutting a bit of weight. The fight was a great learning experience for these reasons. It taught me to definitely take fights at 145 in the future.” Eric began detailing his fight with great enthusiasm, “We had a battle. I almost KO’d the guy in the first round and he turned around and almost KO’d me with a slam. The fight had everything – there was great stand up,  muay thai and we threw some ground work in too. I feel blessed to have fought such a tough guy. It was great! I can’t wait for my next fight, which I’m trying to do in November.”

Through my conversation with Eric I quickly came to the conclusion that, if based on his attitude alone, he will be going places in this sport. He has a humble perspective that I find to be very appropriate to the sport. Eric solidified the image of “a fighter”. The picture I have painted in my head is one of pragmatism, intelligence and driven by a goal of self-actualization. Beyond that, it’s hard to think of Eric as being motivated by violence. To exemplify this, towards the end of our conversation I asked Eric about his favorite book and he responded with a laugh. “Harry Potter. I’m the only MMA fighter out there who caught the last movie on premier night at midnight, by himself. “

You can catch up with Eric on Twitter by searching for @VegasMMAWarrior