Fighting for control of his dream
To call what struck Steve Sawyer on the night of May 24 an “epiphany” might be overstating the moment.
Mostly what struck him, he said, were the fists and knees of Brandon Gaines, his opponent in their mixed martial arts bout in Alexandria, La. “He’s the best I’ve fought to date,” Sawyer said, drawing on his 18-month, five-fight (4-1 record) experience as a professional.
Amid the flurries of punches, kicks and other moves, Sawyer, 34, said he sensed a mutual respect, the recognition of two fighters who take seriously the “art” part of martial arts.
“We complimented each other during the fight, and that’s something you dream about,” Sawyer said. “I hit him in the head and he said, ‘Dude, nice right hand!’ When I tried to grab his legs, he brought up his knees, and I told him, ‘Awesome defense!’”
When the Columbia resident won on a technical knockout in the third of three 5-minute rounds, it was as if he didn’t want the bout to end. In video on YouTube (search for “Steven Storm,” Sawyer’s moniker), Sawyer raises his arms in triumph while manager Sam King bounces up and down in his corner. Then he grabs Gaines’ arm and lifts it, too, as fans cheer.
Such moments, Sawyer said, are why he does what he does, why he trains as intensely as he does. And why his goal is to make it to Ultimate Fighting Championship, the most popular branch of the MMA genre, with its weekly TV shows on Spike TV and its lucrative pay-per-view broadcasts.
“I want to have that kind of experience,” Sawyer said, “with someone else who not only thinks that way, but someone who’s that good.”
Until then, he must pay his dues. Friday night at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, N.C., Sawyer faces Canadian Toby Johnson, another minor-league fighter with big dreams.
“(Johnson) has trained under Carlos Condit, who’s famous out there” in Albuquerque, N.M., King said. “This will show us how South Carolina stands as far as MMA; it’ll show us how we compare with the best.”
Or maybe not. In mixed martial arts, as in boxing, the route to the top is strewn with obstacles. Sawyer faces all those, plus age, geography and perhaps politics.
He has come a long way. He still has a long way to go.
A SPORT ON THE RISE
You knew the UFC had arrived in May 2007 when Sports Illustrated devoted its cover and eight pages to the rise of the sport. “America’s fastest growing and most controversial sport,” read one headline.
Though its roots go back to 1993, when it was little more than legalized brawling, UFC took off in 2001 when gym owner Dana White and two deep-pocketed Las Vegas friends bought the franchise for $2 million. Nice call; SI reported UFC made about $223 million on pay-per-view in 2006 — and that doesn’t include the live gate for such shows. One show, “UFC 69: Shootout,” in Houston in 2007, pulled a reported $2.8 million.
UFC specifically and MMA in general have found their audiences in the sponsor-favored male 18-34 demographic. Sawyer said the appeal of the sport, which combines wrestling, boxing, kickboxing, karate, judo and several forms of jujitsu, is “the unpredictability of it. When Mike Tyson was boxing, he could end a fight at any moment with one punch, and MMA is the same way. You have no idea when or how it’s going to be over.”
Once banned in most states, the addition of rules and weight classes helped remove the “human cockfighting” label attached to MMA in 1996 by Sen. John McCain. UFC officials proudly point to their record of no fatalities and few serious injuries.
Now, South Carolina is poised to join neighbors Georgia and North Carolina in allowing MMA fights. Legislation sponsored by Sen. Jake Knotts — who did so at the behest of S.C. Athletic Commission chairman Michael Tyler — was introduced in May to legalize the sport. The bill failed to come out of committee before the Legislature adjourned but appears to have a good chance to become law in 2009.
“It’s a moneymaker,” Knotts told The Associated Press. And Sawyer and King want to be among the first to cash in.
“I’d love to have my sport legalized,” King said. “Right now, the most dangerous thing is driving across three or four states to get to a fight.”
“The support is there; it’s just a question of time,” Sawyer said. “There’s money to be made, especially if you’re in on the ground floor.” And he is — almost 34 years’ worth.
FINDING SUCCESS … AND A FIANCE’
Sawyer hardly seemed a pugilist candidate growing up in Bangor, Maine. “I was the kid from a good, middle-class family,” he said, “the Boy Scout, the lifeguard, working with handicapped kids at the YMCA. In high school, I lettered — in chess.”
But his athletics interests were in boxing and martial arts, not team sports. “I didn’t like (a sport) where someone else decided my fate,” he said. His grandfather, a World War II OSS agent, had passed along some Asian martial arts knowledge as well.
After three years of college, Sawyer joined the Army in 1995 and was based in Fairbanks, Alaska, where he found a few fellow devotees to work out with and hone their MMA skills. “Friday nights were fight nights,” he said. “We roll out mats on the basketball court and beat the crap out of each other; real male bonding.”
He transferred to Fort Jackson in 1998 and put out the word for other soldiers to train with him at Coleman Gym. When a Ranger captain, Dennis McAllen, was looking for a training sergeant in hand-to-hand combat, Sawyer was a natural.
Sgt. Anthony Wikstrom says in 2006, Sawyer, by then a civilian, coached him and others for All-Army matches, “and we took 10th at Fort Benning out of 39 teams. He taught me a lot. He’s a well-rounded fighter.”
In 2000, Sawyer received what he terms “the call of my life,” when former UFC fighter and coach Frank Shamrock invited him to try out for his San Jose, Calif., fighting team. Sawyer didn’t make the squad. “Frank said, ‘I need you at a higher level. Go home and get the basics,’” he said.
Of course, there was a little matter of making a living, too. From 2002, when he left the Army, until 2006, Sawyer worked for local karate guru Mike Genova, and later ran his own martial arts school (“I wasn’t a great businessman,” he said) while struggling to figure out what he wanted to do.
Two meetings changed his life. While teaching karate in the Richland Northeast area (he still trains at South Carolina BarBells on Two Notch Road and at Regional Ambulance, whose owners, Jerry Benehaley and Darrin Moyer, are his sponsors, paying him a salary to train), one of Sawyer’s students was Teresa Moore, a USC exercise science professor and nutritionist.
“I encouraged him to follow his (MMA) dream,” Moore said. Romance bloomed, and the couple has been engaged about a year.
Later, Sawyer met King, 27 and a Columbia Airport police officer, who since 2005 had run a team of amateur fighters. “Sam said, ‘People know who you are. Why don’t you drop the school and go pro?’” Sawyer said. In March 2006, he did. He tried boxing, but a loss ended that notion — “I was a (boxing) pro for a day,” he said.
His first professional MMA fight, in January 2007, was equally inauspicious. Facing Athens, Ga.-based David Mewborn at “Wild Bill’s Fight Night 6” in Atlanta and fighting as a heavyweight, Sawyer was TKO’d 21 seconds into the first round.
“Three days later, it was all over YouTube,” he said ruefully.
That loss, though, turned his career around, Sawyer said. Driving home afterward, he and Moore decided to put her in charge of his diet and part of his training regimen. A conversation after the fight with Mewborn had convinced Sawyer to drop a weight class. And a few months later, Sawyer visited Athens’ HardCore Gym, where Mewborn trains, and came away convinced he could succeed.
He has won four times since and believes his career is on the right path.
“Sam is getting me fights, and every fight to date, I had a chance to lose,” he said. “But every fight taught me something, too.”
FIGHTING FOR CONTROL
Adam Singer knows MMA. His HardCore Gym has produced Mewborn and others, including brother Rory Singer, who fought in UFC bouts on Spike TV. One of Adam Singer’s former students, Forrest Griffin, won the UFC’s light-heavyweight crown on July 5 over previous champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson — a victory worth $250,000, plus considerable sponsorship rewards (by comparison, Sawyer has earned about $4,000 in his brief career).
Singer witnessed Sawyer’s first match and correctly assessed he was in the wrong weight class. Also, “Steve was training himself, and when you’ve got two guys with even skills, you take the guy who is better coached,” he said.
Since, Singer has followed Sawyer. He said he sees progress. But is it enough to reach his UFC goal?
“How old is he?” Singer said. “That’s (34) really pushing it. Plus he’s not part of a camp, doesn’t have a legitimate coach. Even if he’s won some fights, I don’t know how much he’s improved.”
Singer checked Sawyer’s resume on MMA Web site Sherdog.com. “He pretty quickly needs to get some fights with better fighters,” he said. “He’s fought some terrible guys; the only one with a winning record (Mewborn), he lost. He hasn’t beaten anyone to make a name” for himself.
How to do that? “He’s got to go out and fight a guy like my brother, who’s been in UFC,” Singer said.
And win it, of course.
Sawyer said he understands the odds against him. Moore said the idea of making his mark in UFC, then using that notoriety to train younger fighters is a career option they have discussed.
But ultimately, Sawyer said, it’s not about the destination. It’s the journey.
“It’s control … control,” he said, almost wistfully. “I like the choking particularly, because at the point I have someone choked, you literally have their life in your hands.
“It’s not even them giving up. The raw aspect of it is, they’re asking to have their life back. And you can give it back.”
In that moment, Sawyer knows why he fights.
By BOB GILLESPIE
The State Newspaper
7/13/2008
