The Voice of Reason: A V.I.P. Pass to Enlightenment (24 page)

“Sun King” by the Cult.

I don’t have any idea how this one got past me when I was making my Top Ten list; I just
don’t
. This song was one of the cornerstones of my argument, one of my Best o’ the Best, and in the hustle-and-bustle of writing, it somehow got “lost inna sauce,” so apologies to Ian, Billy, and whoever is playing bass and drums in the band these days.

“Sun King” is simply
off
the charts as a walkout song. The buildup is insane; this organ fugue (courtesy, I have no doubt, of the great Bob Rock, their producer) leads us into Billy Duffy’s guitar intro. This song is so good, as both a song and a piece of walkout music. It’s so profoundly perfect, that I’m wedging it into the Top Five using a little
post facto
reverse engineering, and I’m shoving “It Don’t Come Easy” by Ringo into the Number 3 spot, moving everything else down one. This makes “Sun King” Number 2 on my list. I’m listening to it as I type this. If this song isn’t just the greatest walkout song (with the possible exception of Number 1, “How Soon Is Now?”), I don’t know what is. Somebody
better
come out to this, and
soon
. Any up-n’-coming fighter out there, ya wanna make your mark? Wanna start standing out, like your big, mean ol’ Unka Chael? Build yourself, and your entrance, around
this
song.

eah, it’s that time, ladies ‘n’gentlemen, when I give you the lowdown on how I soared to the dizzying heights of ecstasy for twenty-five minutes or so, and then tumbled, like Icarus aflame, into the wine-dark sea of depression, regret, self-pity, misery, and horror, all courtesy of two interrelated, and irretrievably stupid, mistakes. The first mistake was mine; the second “mistake” belonged entirely to someone else.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, please step into the cage with Anderson and me on the infamous night of August 7, 2010. See that crazy look in my eye? Look charged, don’t I? There is good reason. By this point in my life, I’ve already been busted by the feds for a crime I didn’t even know existed, much less was capable of conceiving, carrying out, and covering up for five years. I’ve lost my real estate license and can never get another one, but they’ll give a chimpanzee one if he turns over a couple of properties a month. My political career has gone up in smoke, shutting off that potential career and revenue stream for life as well.

In about a year, I’ve gone from being a guy everybody was voting for to a guy who can’t even vote himself. I’ve been shamed and disgraced. It doesn’t matter that people knowledgeable of the inner workings of Oregon politics have ominously hinted that prosecuting me had nothing to do with one isolated, busted-ass-play of a real estate deal, but rather with taking out a young, charismatic, conservative (i.e., me) by foul means when fair means failed.
^*

So right now, standing in the Octagon set up in this arena in Oakland, I’m pretty much out of options. I’m out of real estate. I’m out of politics. I’ve got …
fighting
, and if that doesn’t work out, well, then I’ve got … fighting.

And I just happen to be fighting the best fighter in the world.

I’m ready. I’ve trained hard. I’m not going to leave anything in the tank; I’m going to pour it
all out
on that weirdo Anderson Silva.
All
the pain,
all
the rage,
all
the dissapointment,
all
the helpless, blind fury.
All
the regret. I am going to channel all of it into the performance of my life.

And I do.

I fight like I’ve never fought before. I surprise him with punches. I
knock
him
down
. I fling him to the floor and beat him like a rented mule. He, the master of deception, trickery, and mind games, is getting deceived, tricked, and mind-gamed right out of his title. I hold him down and beat him. I beat him until my hands feel like they are going to turn to mush. Over and over my fists rain down on his unprotected head, and he lies there like a lab rat with a severed spinal cord, waiting to be put out of his misery. I wait, and wait, and wait, as I punch, and punch, and punch. I wait for the referee to
end
the carnage. I have already hit Anderson with more unanswered, undefended strikes than
anyone
has every hit
anyone else
with in the history of the sport.

I cannot understand this. I’ve seen a thousand fights. I know how many times you should have to hit a guy without him hitting back, defending himself, or improving his position to make a referee stop the fight. I’ve
exceeded
that amount by a factor of
five
, and still there is no reaction from the referee. So I punch on. But a nagging fear begins creeping into my brain: Is this going to be another instance where I do everything
right
, and still get screwed?

My mind flashes back to working in the real estate office; trying to sell properties, trying to do a good job, being a “team player”—filling in the paperwork as I was instructed to, then getting a call from the feds. I start thinking about how I had to tell the kids I coach what happened, and how, because of it, I may not be able to coach them anymore. That society may decide I’m unworthy of their parents’, and their, trust. My mind flashes back to being booked and fingerprinted, and emerging, blinking into the daylight, a newly minted felon.

And still I punch on. But I am growing increasingly puzzled and distracted by the amount of punches I’ve landed, the rules concerning undefended strikes, and why I have to keep hitting this guy
long
after they should have pulled me off him and given me his belt. The gnawing sensation that something unnatural is occurring again in my life is creeping, like a fungus, into my psyche. Why the selective enforcement? If he had hit me a third as many times, he’d be out of the shower and on a plane back to Brazil by now, with his belt still around his waist. And I’d be on the next train to Prelim-ville. Where’s the justice? Where’s the fairness? Damn, where is the referee?

Four rounds of
pounding
. I’ve hit him more times than Bonzo hit the drums in “Achilles Last Stand.” Twenty minutes of one-sided pummeling.

The world is
mine
, in five minutes.

I look across the cage.

He’s shot. He’s blown out. All I have to do is stay away for five minutes. He’s too tired to even chase me down. He’s ruined. I have battered him out of the business. And yet, when the horn blows to start the fifth and final round, I fight on. I’m not a coward with an insurmountable lead looking to ride a bike for five minutes and leave town with a cheap “W,” like a certain champion whose name may or may not rhyme with “Peorge St. Gierre.” I came to
fight
. I
engage
. I don’t want to run and hide—in the Octagon, in my country, or in my life. I fling him down again, hoping that I am also flinging away my own bad fortune, my own errors of omission and inattention, my own faults. I pound him again and again. My mind wanders to my dead father, to whom, on his deathbed, I made a promise that I’d win a championship. To my mom, in the crowd. To my friends, my supporters, to the people who run the wrestling program who said to me, “We don’t care about the case, Chael. You belong
here
, coaching our kids. They’re
your
kids too. This is your home, and we are your family.” My mind wanders to this, and to many other things, as I fight in the waning seconds of the fifth round of the most important event of my life.

What my mind does not wander to, or register, is that Anderson Silva has been holding my right wrist with his left hand for about twenty seconds. By the time I register what’s happening, it’s already too late to fix.

His leg comes up and over my shoulder, squeezing my head like a vise. I begin working my escape, but it’s a waste of time. By the time I come back to the here and the now,
here
is the wrong place, and
now
is the wrong time. It’s over. It’s done faster than it takes to describe. Go watch the video. I’m in no mood to relive it for you second by second. I never will be.

It all comes crashing down: all the prep, all the training, the game plan, the sacrifice. It’s all … gone, like the real estate career, the political career. Down in flames I go, AGAIN.

The rest is routine. The sponsor’s hat perched crookedly on my sweaty, lumpy head. The bleeding cuts. Buffer screaming. The fury and resentment at my own lack of attention at the worst possible moment. I silently consider IRT (idiot replacement therapy). I consider asking my doctor if he has some serum that will replace me, molecule by molecule, with a new, improved version of myself that’s
not so stupid
, and that
pays attention
to the tactics of his opponent, who happens to be the
best fighter in the world
, whom you
shouldn’t
lose to by
falling asleep
and
losing focus
while you’re pounding him. Huuuuuge mistake.

Press conference.
Hotel.
Airport.
One big blur.

Home.

It’a baaaaaaaaad. I don’t have to tell you how bad.
Then, the letter arrives from California: