Houston Alexander – Making Sure His Record Is Straight
Thomas sent this in:
Some people dream of fame and riches. Others dream of getting away from it all in some tropical locale. Houston Alexander dreamed of fighting Kimbo Slice.
“For some reason, I had a dream that I had to fight this guy about a year ago, and this is no joke,” Alexander, who nonetheless laughed at the recollection. “Then we used to talk in the gym and they’d say ‘you know, one of these days you might have to fight Kimbo.’ So it was no surprise when my manager Monte Cox called and said, ‘they want you to fight Kimbo.’ It was no surprise at all and I had already envisioned fighting him. For some reason, I knew it was gonna happen.”
This Saturday night at The Pearl at The Palms in Las Vegas, Alexander’s dream comes true when he takes on The Ultimate Fighter 10 competitor, internet superstar, and budding MMA fighter in one of the most highly-anticipated matchups of 2010. And yeah, it may sound corny to call it a dream come true for Alexander, but this is a day he’s been waiting a long time for, and not just because he’s fighting Slice. For Nebraska’s ‘Assassin’, it’s his chance to re-start a UFC career that stalled after a blistering start in 2007.
Back then, Alexander – a virtual unknown – stormed on the scene with back to back first round stoppages of Keith Jardine and Alessio Sakara. The charismatic father of six captivated the fight game with his story and his in the ring performances, and stardom was quickly hoisted on his shoulders. That was the good news. The bad news came at the tail end of 2007 and into 2008, as he dropped three straight bouts to Thiago Silva, James Irvin, and Red Schafer. Praised for his power and aggressiveness, but criticized for his ground game, Alexander was forced back to the drawing board.
That was over a year ago.
For some, that could have been the signal to either sulk or go back to the local circuit. Alexander decided to do what the old bluesmen used to do, and that’s woodshed, as he locked himself in the gym, worked on every part of his game that needed fixing, and didn’t come out until he felt he was where he needed to be.
“I knew personally that I belonged where I was,” said Alexander of the first stage of his UFC career. “I knew that I could compete at the level of a lot of these guys, but again, when you’re dealing with some of the best guys in the world, you find out quickly what things you really need to work on. And I had a lot of stuff thrown at me all at once. I’m used to the pressure because I have children, but this is a different pressure. You come with it or you go home, and I just had to make sure that I sharpened my knife, sharpened my pencil, and did everything right to actually be in a situation where people knew that I belonged on this stage. I had to go back to the lab and make sure my record was straight before I got back in that ring. That’s what my grandfather used to tell my mom and my uncles – make sure your record’s straight. Now I know I deserve to be in there.”
Alexander, 37, also admits that there were times when he started to believe everything that was being written about him when he was riding high off his first UFC wins.
“It took me a while to not believe my own hype,” he said. “You get a lot of those guys who just build you up and build you up, and I know the type of fighter than I am, but you can’t let those guys build you into thinking you’re something you’re not. I know the capability I have and I know the strength that I have and I know that I have the know-how to get to where I’ve got the belt wrapped around my waist. It’s just a matter of me becoming a true MMA fighter, not a street brawler, and not a guy who’s in there just throwing punches. I had to become an MMA fighter, so this whole year, I took the time to drill, drill, drill, to work hard, and to actually learn my different art forms.”
In September, Alexander was ready to reintroduce himself to the world, but he wasn’t going to do it in the UFC’s Octagon. Instead, he took a fight in Council Bluffs, Iowa against UFC vet Sherman Pendergarst. It was a risky move, as a loss probably would have signaled his exit from the UFC, but Alexander wasn’t thinking about that – he just wanted to get that winning feeling back.
“I don’t think it was more pressure than usual,” he said. “Every fight there’s pressure, and I put pressure on myself to do well. In that fight, I had guys in my ear saying ‘if you lose this fight, you’re out of the UFC’ or ‘if you win this fight it doesn’t matter because he’s a no name.’ I had all this around me, but I just wanted to go in there and win. I didn’t care who it was – it could have been a midget with shin pads on (Laughs), I just wanted to win.”
He did, halting Pendergarst in less than two minutes. When it was over, an emotional Alexander dropped to his knees. He was back.
“It was a relief afterwards because I’ve been working hard for a whole year, and it wasn’t a year where I just took off and tucked my tail and didn’t do anything,” he said. “I worked my ass off to get my grappling and jiu-jitsu game up to par and to make sure I can hit harder. I tightened up a lot of things that needed to be tightened up.”
Now it’s time for him to get back in the Octagon and show the rest of the world what he’s been up to on his 14 month hiatus from the UFC. And standing across from him when the bell rings will be Kimbo Slice.
“I’m not mad at Kimbo,” said Alexander. “Everybody’s upset about this guy because they think he’s this made-up warrior. The guy said it himself that he’s got a long way to go to become an MMA fighter, and it’s the same thing with me. I have the same street background and it took me a while to become an MMA fighter, but I think I’ve grown into one. It’s gonna take him a while to become an MMA fighter, but once he gets it, I think he’ll be a force to be reckoned with.”
And as far as Alexander’s concerned, he has no problem with the whole Kimbo phenomenon that has captivated the world over the last couple years.
“If you can get on the internet and make yourself famous off of beating people’s asses in backyards and parking lots, I’m not mad at that,” he said. “It’s called capitalism, it’s called being an entrepreneur, so if you can build yourself up to where you deserve the money that you get, I am not mad at that. You can’t call him a brute, because that was at a time they were calling me a brute. He’s learning like everyone else, I’m learning, and there’s no one who’s not constantly learning how to do MMA. So I have no problem with Kimbo.”
He’ll also have no problem fighting him on Saturday, and most fans are expecting fireworks from the moment the bell rings. But can Slice deal with a world-class puncher like Alexander, and at the same time, can Alexander keep his confidence in check to where he doesn’t just come in recklessly in search of a spectacular KO?
“I don’t think my coaches would allow me to go into a fight overconfident,” said Alexander. “We know that at any given moment, any guy could have a puncher’s chance, and I’m not gonna be stupid and go in with that type of confidence that I can go in and just knock this guy out with one punch. It would be nice for it to end that way, but I can’t go into the Octagon not wanting to work. I want to work. I don’t just want to go in there and think I’m gonna get the dream punch because it’s not gonna happen. I just want to go to work.”
Yet as far as facing an opponent who has most likely grown in leaps and bounds after a full training camp with the renowned American Top Team goes, Alexander isn’t going to stay up nights worrying about such matters.
“I can’t worry about what type of Kimbo’s gonna show up,” he said. “I’m gonna worry about what type of Houston Alexander’s gonna show up, and that’s it. We have a gameplan and I’m supposed to follow it. I’m gonna worry about what I need to do.”
Does that mean showing off a little more of the Alexander arsenal – like his ground game?
“If it goes to the ground, I’m gonna be ready,” he said. “It’s not gonna be what people saw in the previous fights where there was too much thinking. Now it’s automatic, and that’s why you do the reps over and over and over again.”
He pauses, then smiles.
“If for some reason it ends up on the ground, just look out for submission of the night,” he said. “I’m dead serious too.”
Now that would be a dream finish for Alexander. And speaking of dreams, how did the dream fight against Kimbo turn out?
Alexander laughs.
“I woke up before the end.”
