Chuck sent this in:

Vladimir Matyushenko competed in his first mixed martial arts fight at the Battle in the Bayou back in September of 1997, Mike Tyson had only just taken a bite out of Evander Holyfield’s ear. The first Harry Potter book was published in the United Kingdom. Oh, and Steve Cantwell, Matyushenko’s opponent at UFC 108 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, was 11 years old.

Needless to say, the Belarus-born Matyushenko has been around the proverbial block a few times. What’s remarkable is that, a decade after beating three guys that night in 1997 for a $5,000 purse, The Janitor only seems to be getting better with age. He has won 10 of his last 11 fights, including a decision victory over Igor Pokrajac in his return to the UFC in Dallas this past September.

If you know anything about Matyushenko it’s that he’s the humblest man in the game, and his secret to longevity is reflected in his attitude.

“As soon as you think you’re good, it’s over,” says the one-time IFL light heavyweight champion. “You always have to adjust to the game, and that’s why I think old-timers like myself and Randy Couture and those guys can keep up with it, because we can adjust to the game.”

If you don’t know his story, Matyushenko has made a life of adjusting. It’s true that he was given his custodial nickname when, after beating Royce Alger and Kevin Jackson in a wrestling tournament in Russia, Mark Coleman teased his fellow Americans about losing to “the janitor.” Coming from a farm in Retchisa, Matyushenko was seen wiping the mats in tattered clothes the day before he beat the Olympian Jackson. The Janitor’s story is the stuff of the silver screen—like Will Hunting in Good Will Hunting, he was a janitor with a big asterisk . . . only instead of a genius for mathematics, he had a penchant for overpowering guys.

(He jokingly suggests that his “freakish strength” is a result of exposure to Chernobyl’s nuclear reactor).

The rest is history. When visiting New York in 1994 with the Belarusian national team, Matyushenko—on the advice of Alger, whom he wrestled at the tournament—didn’t return home with his squad. He stayed on in America, obtained a student visa, enrolled at California’s Lassen Junior College and promptly became a two-time wrestling champion.

And now he’s 38 years old, he owns a gym in El Segundo—VMAT—and his reputation has MMA hardcorists rolling out his name as a threat to the throne.

“I’m not the kind of person who goes around saying ‘I’m Vladimir Matyushenko,’ but it’s nice sometimes that you can touch people’s lives,” he says. “People send me letters that I’ve changed their life, and it’s kind of nice.”

Now he is training for his second fight on his second tour of the UFC. Matyushenko has mixed it up with the likes of Andrei Arlovski and Tito Ortiz when both men were in their primes, and he beat Pedro Rizzo, Tim Boetsch and Antonio Rogerio Noguiera en-route to a 23-4 overall record. Little Nog later evened things up with Matyushenko at an Affliction show this past January, and there’s a burning desire for a rubber match.

“Definitely, he’s a good fighter and a great opponent, and right now he’s doing very well,” he says. “My last fight with him I was injured, two weeks before, I ripped my groin muscles, so I couldn’t really use my wrestling skills and I couldn’t really follow up. I hit him pretty good with a hook and he was half knocked out, but he moved out and I couldn’t chase him down.”

Not that he’s making excuses. And not that, really, Little Nog’s on Matyushenko’s mind right now. He has a formidable opponent in front of him who is desperate for a victory in Steve Cantwell, the WEC’s light heavyweight champion. He knows that Cantwell will be coming in there in the best shape of his life, and that he’ll be throwing big things early and often.

“I think he’s going to throw some bombs and he’s going to keep the pace high,” he says. “That’s what Cantwell’s got over me, he thinks maybe. He’s going to throw bombs and keep the pace, trying to knock me out or get me tired. I will avoid that. He’s young and athletic. I need to be in shape to go toe-to-toe with him, and I’ve been working on striking and conditioning.”

Matyushenko trains with some good company at VMAT, guys like Antoni Hardonk, Jared Hamman and Steve Magdaleno. His son, Roman, is now out of high school and training MMA as well. He has worked with Couture himself in the past, and Lyoto Machida. Like all men with a never-fleeting sense of discovery, he is still picking up cues on how to get better while teaching his students in El Segundo. He stumbles onto epiphanies, as it were.

“Sometimes, when I am teaching the guys, I think—wow, so that’s how you’re supposed to do it,” he laughs.

And the reason The Janitor is still sponging and imparting technique is that the goal—the one he set back in 1997 when he became a professional mixed martial artist—is to one day win the title.

“That’s what I’m doing it for,” he says. “I always set my goals high, even if I don’t reach them. They are always going to be high. If you set your goals like, ‘I just want to go out there and do it,’ then it’s not going to work.”

A win over the hungry Cantwell would be a good stepping stone to his goals of seeing Little Nog again, or of moving up the ladder into contendership and fighting for that belt. Given all the things Matyushenko has been through over the years, all the improbable events that have led to this moment, a Hollywood ending doesn’t seem all that far-fetched. He had the conviction to make the leap to America in the first place, and now he has the courage to continue chasing his dream.

“Somebody said that courage is not the absence of fear, that it’s the presence of fear but the willingness to go on,” he says. “Everybody is afraid, but only a few go and do it.”