Jake O’Brien Won’t Back Down

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By Thomas Gerbasi

The timing couldn’t have been worse for Jake O’Brien. Fresh off the biggest win of his young mixed martial arts career over Heath Herring in January of 2007, the Indiana native had an unbeaten record, a victory over a perennial heavyweight contender, and was a couple of wins away from being in contention for the title.

He was also dealing with ‘stingers’, a nerve injury usually seen on the weekly injury reports in the NFL, and something he had been experiencing since his days wrestling for Purdue. But while he would usually work through the pain, which was then followed by numbness in his arms, eventually it got to be too much.

“The injury was something I always had, it just kept getting progressively worse to the point where every time I’d shoot in for a takedown I’d lose feeling down my right side and my right arm was completely useless,” said O’Brien. “Being stupid I would try to keep going on it – I’d just rest, let the feeling come back, and go again. That’s why it got as severe as it was. I just kept trying to push through it instead of taking time off. Finally it got too bad and I had to have the surgery.”

O’Brien was forced to withdraw from a UFC 72 bout in Ireland against Tom Murphy, and he then went in for a surgery in July which doctors told him would only improve his injury, not make it worse. But as with any medical procedure, the risk was there that he could possibly never fight again. Needless to say, he didn’t want to hear about that possibility, not at 22, and not with the world at his doorstep.

“In my mind I was gonna fight either way,” he said, but he went through the surgery, which was successful. He still had to wear a neck brace for a month and then rehab the injury though, and it wasn’t easy for him to sit on the sidelines while the UFC heavyweight division moved on without him.

“There was a lot of off-time when I couldn’t do anything,” he said. “For six to eight months I couldn’t train or do anything, so it was bad. But when I started training, things got better.”

After O’Brien’s first-month checkup, his doctor said that the healing he did in a month was equivalent to what most patients do in a year, but when the fighter finally got back in the gym, he didn’t push things. It was baby steps initially as he worked strictly on his standup for a spell, and then moved on to wrestling, but only with smaller fighters, as not to endure undue strain on his neck. Soon, O’Brien was back at full speed with no problems and cleared for competition. His manager opened up talks with the UFC, who asked if O’Brien wanted a warm-up fight outside of the organization. The fighter refused.

“I wanted a big fight when I came back and I want to pick up where I left off,” said O’Brien. “I didn’t want to have to work my way back up again.”

Be careful what you wish for though, as O’Brien was presented with former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski for his comeback opponent this Saturday night at UFC 82 in Columbus. But he loves the matchup.

“Beating Arlovski’s a short cut back to the top,” said O’Brien. “It’s obviously gonna be a tough fight and I know I’m gonna get beat up a little bit, but I know what it takes to beat him, I know how to beat him, it’s just a matter of going out there and doing it.”

That’s confidence, but you have to have it to excel at this level of the game, and you also need it if you have nine pro fights to your name and you accept a fight with someone like Herring, who was making his UFC debut after a long career in PRIDE. For fight fans, the January 2007 fight was the US introduction of Herring, and O’Brien was just the unfortunate pawn who had to be knocked over to make that debut spectacular.

It didn’t happen, and O’Brien made it look easy as he shut Herring out on two of the three judges’ scorecards and earned a one point verdict on the third card as he took home the unanimous decision win.

“It definitely wasn’t easy,” said O’Brien of the nationally televised win. “He was such a big jump up from what I’m used to that I didn’t know what was gonna happen. I was confident, but I had never fought anyone near his level, so I was anxious to see how I did. Once the fight got going, I kept gaining confidence and I just stuck to my game plan. I actually planned on standing with him more, but that goofy stance he was doing kinda threw me off, and every time I stepped in, he was bringing a jab from his knees and I never really boxed with anybody like that. And once he knocked me down with that punch and I shot in on him, he was so easy to take down that I said I’m not gonna mess with anything if taking him down is so easy.”

Unfortunately, this ease meant that O’Brien stuck to what was working and his nullification of Herring’s offense ensured that fans weren’t exactly treated to a 15 minute Armageddon with gloves. O’Brien chalks it up to a mix of fatigue and inexperience.

“Since I’m fighting at a high level, people must think ‘oh, he’s been doing this forever,’ but before that fight I had been training full-time for a year, so damn, what do you guys want?” he said of the criticism he received after the fight. “I’m 22 years old, just got out of college, but I still beat him. I’ve had about 12 fights total, pro and amateur, and my first nine fights were like two minutes long, and my three UFC fights are the only ones where I’ve had competition, so each fight I think I’m gonna get better and better.”

Against Arlovski he also has the same confidence he took into the Octagon with him against Herring.

“Even in this fight I’m the underdog again and I like that because there’s no pressure,” he said. “All I’ve got to worry about is fighting, and I like that. That’s why I was so excited (against Herring) – I went out there, everyone’s doubting me, and I had something to prove and nothing to lose in that fight.”

And if anything, O’Brien’s not the only fighter coming into this bout with something to prove.

“I think he (Arlovski) has been catching so much stuff for not being aggressive that I think he’s got a lot to prove to the UFC and he’s gonna come out hard in this one,” said O’Brien. “With (Fabricio) Werdum (Arlovski’s last UFC victory last April), I think he was afraid to go on the ground with him since he’s so good at jiu-jitsu and that’s why he was so tentative with his punches. I have better takedowns than Werdum but I’m not the jiu-jitsu master he is, so I think Arlovski will open up a little more against me.”

That could spell fireworks and could also put Jake O’Brien in some of the most precarious positions he’s ever been in as a pro fighter. That’s just fine with him though, and win or lose, you won’t hear him regretting his decision to take a fight with anyone, regardless of how much of an experience edge they may hold.

“I don’t know understand how a guy can say no to a fight,” he said. “If I say ‘no, I don’t want to fight you,’ that’s pretty much saying that I’m gonna lose. I would rather get beat up than say ‘no, I’m not gonna fight that guy.’ I’ll never turn down a fight and I’ll fight anyone because I like the challenge of it. Fighting a guy like Arlovski, you don’t get a bigger challenge than that, so the bigger the challenge, the more I’ve got to work for it and the more exciting it is.”

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