Hungry again, UFC welterweight Brock Larson sets sights on redemption
His cell phone rang four days later; 94 hours had passed since the low point of a burgeoning career.
Brock Larson has built his reputation on ruthless aggression. An attack-mode philosophy one second after the referee yells "Bring it on!" had taken him to 26 wins in 28 MMA fights, including five straight, and a breakthrough into many recognized top-10 rankings that rate MMA's top welterweights.
Rewards have never been immediate. Larson's the unpretentious type whose humility was forged on Minnesota's smallest of farms. The buzz from his arm triangle choke submission of Mike Pyle at UFC 98 wasn't loud enough to merit a spot on the main card of Spike TV's free UFC Fight Night 19 event. He was matched against an unknown named Mike Pierce, and another quick pay day figured to finally vault Larson's name into the title picture.
Larson lost – on all three judges' scorecards – adding the unheralded Pierce to a loss ledger that includes only Carlos Condit and Jon Fitch. He answered the phone in no mood to tip his cap. The normally affable native of Brainerd, Minn., was annoyed. Irritated that Pierce was rewarded for hugging, furious at himself for letting it get to the scorecards and not doing what he normally does: leave no doubt.
"It left a bad taste in my mouth, the fact it was a boring fight," Larson, who fights Brian Foster later this month at UFC 106, told MMAjunkie.com (
www.mmajunkie.com). "The judges did the right job, but (if) you go 15 minutes and never get punched in the face, it's hard to believe that you can lose, well."
His voice trailed in disgust. Pierce stayed in one spot and put his head down – not working, not punching, and not moving, Larson figures.
There had to be a joke in there somewhere. Eighteen of Larson's documented victories have come in the first round. His reputation as a destruction device had fans talking, wondering if he could wipe out the UFC's top contenders with the same fierce brutality. Instead he was stuck on the preliminary card and left stuck in neutral. Somehow the judges were less impressed with Pierce and more disappointed that appetites for destruction were left unsatisfied.
"This day in MMA I didn't think it was possible to sit in guard and not do much," said Larson about a month after the fight. "You don't really train to have a guy hug your hips.
"I don't think the judges made the wrong call. They had to award him the win because the only thing that went on in the whole fight was takedowns, and he got them. I clearly lost the fight. Hats off to Pierce, but he has some issues to work on himself."
Ironically, pressure from above actually aided Larson in defeat. In the locker room after the fight, UFC matchmaker Joe Silva told Larson's manager, Monte Cox, "Don't worry about Brock. He's a fighter. We don't know what we're going to do with this other [expletive]. I don't know if I can watch another 15 minutes of that [expletive]."
Silva and the UFC's powers-that-be had planned to feed Pierce to Josh Koscheck, a decorated former NCAA Division I wrestling champion and top contender, at UFC Fight Night 20 before Koscheck was moved to a featured bout with Anthony Johnson at UFC 106. Reassured he remains an integral part of the UFC's future, Larson (26-3 MMA, 3-2 UFC) finds himself on the preliminary card of "UFC 106: Ortiz vs. Griffin II" Nov. 21 in Las Vegas fighting Foster, a promising prospect.
"That was good to hear coming off a loss," Larson said. "In a weird way, that loss helps me, and it would have helped Pierce if he tried to be aggressive. Win, lose or draw, at least he's competing. People won't want to watch that stuff.
"I've always taken pride in going after and trying to finish my fights, and I get the upper hand always going after it and being aggressive. Pierce didn't have that attitude. He just wanted to eke out the win and get the [win]. The W is important, but at the same time it's the entertainment business. People pay to watch, and they don't want to watch two guys hug belly buttons. Clay Guida, he makes more money on friggin' 'Fight of the Night' bonuses than he does on his fight wins."
Despite a submission loss to Rick Story at UFC 103, Foster (12-4 MMA, 0-1 UFC) earned a share of that evening's "Fight of the Night" bonus. Foster, a H.I.T. Squad fighter who trains with Matt Hughes and Robbie Lawler, is after his first UFC win. Larson previously worked out with the duo, which will allow him to play the knowledge-is-power card. In a reactionary move to the Pierce loss, he's working with two former national wrestling champions to avoid being bogged down, specifically by the hugging of hips.
"People look at film and say, 'This guy beat Brock? That's all he had to do,'" Larson said. "I have to get the Band-Aids out, cover that owie and not have to worry about that being a problem."
* * * *
One dull day in the eighth grade, Larson sat in an empty classroom, head down, his cranium throbbing after an older kid ran up from behind and slapped him. The teacher, Mr. Metson, surprised at such an early arrival, was disappointed to see this big kid blubbering. A frequent target of bullying, Larson always believed it was wrong to fight back.
That was about to change.
"What are you doing? What's a big, strong kid like you sitting in a classroom before school crying?" Larson was asked.
Incredulous at Larson's aversion to self-defense, Metson asked again: "A big, strong farm kid like you doesn't want to get beat up?"
"He gave me the man-up speech," Larson said, "telling me I have to stand up for myself. I said to myself, 'Oh God, I'm going to get the crap beat out of me,' but I did it. That was an attitude adjustment the teacher gave me, a life lesson."
Larson met his tormentor in the playground that day after school and told him he was no longer a target. Rather than trade blows, the two called a truce and ended up becoming friends. The word was spread: Nobody ever picked fights with the big farm boy again. And those who did paid the price.
"He went into a stage where he kind of let everybody in the area know they can't do that no more," said Jared Feierabend, a graduate of Dave Camarillo's jiu-jitsu academy and the head instructor of the Koumei Dojo in Brainerd.
Feierabend is Larson's friend since the third grade when, ironically, kids playing matchmakers decided to pair the two into an after-school playground battle.
"I was looking at him like, 'Oh man I don't want to fight you, please,'" he said. "He was a really nice kid who said 'That's OK.' He would have killed me."
Larson's parents are a dichotomy of personas, each of whom makes up the full-grown 5-11, 170-pounder. Dave is a "big teddy bear." Candy a "5-foot-3 powder keg" who disciplined by belt, broom, cattle prod, whatever it took. Raised in a household with little money, the family rose before dawn early to cut wood knee-high in snow or bail hay in July 4 weather while butchering 100 chickens a year.
"We always ate the cows that nobody else wanted," Larson said, "the old tough ones no one would buy."
The adolescent years were spent evolving from boy to man in more ways than one. Larson's teenage days were spent rising at 4 a.m. to drive to the bakery in Garrison, Minn., five miles from Brainerd. Various occupations included pulling weeds in a strawberry patch, cleaning and serving at the neighborhood bakery, and throwing blocks at the local cement company. Once college didn't pan out, Larson worked in road construction with Dave at Anderson Builders.
One day Larson, covered in tar, was punching a hole in a mall parking lot when Feierabend, training to be a martial artist, was looking for help with his ground game. He turned to Larson, the toughest guy he knew, and told him about a school he built and invited him to show off a few takedowns. It was the first of nightly 10 p.m. sessions that preceded 14-hour days in road construction.
That's when Larson first suggested he'd consider fighting.
"He was patching that hole in the parking lot, and I thought, 'Perfect!'" Feierabend said. "It just kind of fell into place like puzzle pieces."
The two entered the beginners division of a Minnesota Martial Arts Academy submission tournament, each winning and earning invites to train two hours away with jiu-jitsu experts including an up-and-comer named Sean Sherk. Larson was laid off from his construction job that winter and made the trip with Feierabend to get their asses whipped three times a week, yet he impressed to the point where it was advised he take MMA to another level.
"One of those guys suggested, 'You should fight,'" Larson recalled. "I said, 'Really? I'm getting my ass whopped by Sherk over here. I don't think I'd be very good at it.' They told me, 'No, no. You'll be fine.'"
Larson's first fight was Oct. 19, 2002, the second of six bouts at American Reality Combat 7 in Alexandria, Minn. His opponent was Josh Hartwell, and Larson needed a mere 46 seconds to earn a submission win via strikes.
"I said, 'Oh! This stuff's not so bad!'" Larson said. "I was doing it because it was fun. And now I'm doing it because it's still fun and I'm getting paid for it, so how can you do anything better than that?"
He's done pretty well by winning his first 12 MMA fights and racing to a 21-1 record to earn a shot at Carlos Condit and the WEC welterweight championship. His momentum was halted when Condit forced him to submit in the first round, but it was the initial sign that adjustments in Larson's regimen were required. His whole fighting career, hell fire and brimstone worked. Following Condit, he learned to slow down, breathe deeply and then go.
"It was when I first realized that I had to chill out, to relax," Larson said.
After Pierce lulled him to sleep and straight to a bitter loss, Larson is back in the re-evaluation stage. It's ironic that in the shadow of defeat, people are watching more closely. A win over Foster and Larson won't be in title contention, but he'll be back on track. Any accolades and opportunities will follow if it's meant to be.
"I'm not a braggart or a big-headed guy by nature," Larson said. "Any day in this sport it can all be taken away from you. The biggest thing is just keep winning and let your actions do the talking. It's the blue-collar way, I guess.
"I'm just hungry again."
