Iceman by Chuck Liddell Page A

married; we both knew that. But my mom didn’t want us rushing into anything, either. When I was growing up, she and my grandparents had always made it clear that the children in the family came first, they were the priority. The grandparents were considered the past, the parents the present, and the kids the future. The generations past and present knew that if they didn’t take care of the future, there’d be no one to take care of them.
    So later that night, after I told my mom the news, I called her again, this time to talk about the impact of it all. This is a woman who had four kids and raised them all without a partner. She had a life’s worth of experience in relationships and parenting; she understood how hard it was for people to stay together when one person was giving more than the other; she knew how it impacted the kids when someone walked out of the house for good. When she doled out advice, it wasn’t to find a way to get Casey and me together so we could necessarily live happily ever after. She actually wanted to make sure that Casey and I didn’t make any rash decisions about our future together, which, if they were wrong, could cost me a lifetime with my kid. My mom asked me straight up, “Can you be faithful to her forever?” I wasn’t sure, I answered. After all, we had been broken up. “Well, if you get married and you’re not, there will be hard feelings and it will compromise your ability to be in your child’s life. That’s how couples work. But if you don’t marry her and still support her while she’s pregnant and take on the responsibilities of a parent, you’ll be able to retain a relationship with your child.”
    More than anything else, that’s what I wanted. And while the thought of having to help raise and support a kid didn’t fill me with dread, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that at least a small part of me thought, okay, I really need to get a UFC fight.

CHAPTER 14
THE MORE YOU MOVE, THE MORE SOMEONE HAS TO TRY TO KEEP YOU STILL
    L ATE IN 1996, NOT LONG AFTER OUR SIT-DOWN ABOUT my career, Nick sent me to see his buddy John Lewis, who was already one of the most respected names in the nascent world of the UFC. Like Hackleman, he was raised in Hawaii and was a street fighter turned martial arts expert. He began studying kickboxing, then picked up a Japanese style called sho kwan do—which is like Thai boxing—and then earned his black belt in judo and Brazilian jujitsu. In one of his early mixed martial fights he battled Carlson Gracie to a twenty-minute draw, in a fight between two of the best Brazilian jujitsu masters in the world. John had tattoos all over his body and a shaved head and looked like a seriously hard guy. But while he could take anyone down in less time than it took to say hello, he was incredibly generous. He normally charged around $200 an hour for his time as an instructor in Brazilian jujitsu, but if you were a fighter, he took you in and made you great (he still gives 15-percent discounts to anyone from Hawaii). He knew how exalted his stature was in the UFC world and also knew that if you trained with him, chances were good you’d get on the radar and get a fight. But he wasn’t interested in guys who wanted to come in, work out for two weeks, get a fight, and then disappear. He wanted guys to practice their craft for six months and build their career. He was training people for a lifetime of fights, not just one.
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    HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF WHEN YOU’RE ON YOUR BACK:
    The best way to protect yourself from your back is to duck your head and hold your opponent. But the main thing is to be working to get up and be offensive on the bottom. That is your best defense. Because if a guy is trying to stop you from getting up, he is not hitting you or setting you up for submission. Always be moving from side to side and hip to hip.
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    Close to a dozen UFC guys were