It wasn’t the Christmas gift Dale Hartt expected in December of 2003. His wife of almost five years had finally had enough of her husband’s fighting career, and she made her stance clear – it was her or mixed martial arts.
“It wasn’t fair because fighting is who I am,” said Hartt, who was divorced four months later. It wasn’t the way you would expect a story like that to conclude, but the Bangor, Maine native didn’t live his life according to convention – then or now, and when he saw the first UFC in 1993 as a teenager, it altered his life irrevocably.
“I watched the first UFC, and I thought it was gonna suck, frankly,” admitted the 29-year old lightweight prospect. “I thought it was gonna be like pro wrestling and be fake. I was like 20 feet away from the TV and I was being the cool guy because I was 13 years old and I was being an idiot like every other 13 year old (laughs), and I was half-watching the TV. Then Gerard Gordeau kicks Teila Tuli in the face. All of a sudden I see that tooth flying out. I literally pulled my chair up three inches from a big screen TV and did not move my head for the rest of the pay-per-view. I was sold.”
At the time though, there were no mixed martial arts schools in Bangor, Maine, and his fighting ambitions had to be put to the side while he graduated high school and then joined the Navy, where he picked up a two-year college degree. He also found his calling again.
“The Navy shipped me to Jacksonville,” Hartt recalls. “There I found this guy named Lionel Perez, my first Jiu-Jitsu instructor, and Tom Burke, my first Muay Thai instructor, and they changed my life. The best way to describe it is, you know that child’s story where they have circles, and squares, and the stars? My whole life, I’ve been a circle and everybody has been stuffing me in this square. It was not fitting, but they kept trying to mash me in there and that’s really hard on somebody when you don’t fit in with your own family. All of a sudden I started fighting and I found out that other people were like me and had the same feelings I did and that they were as intense and driven as I was.”
After his stint in the Navy, Hartt enrolled at the University of North Florida, all the while continuing to train. An internship with UBS Paine Webber followed, and when that was over, he was offered a job for $65,000 a year.
“Me being me, I give it up and go work at Gold’s Gym for ten bucks an hour,” said Hartt. “That was the beginning of the end of my marriage.”
By the end of that year, 2003, Hartt was on his way to being single again and free to pursue a pro fighting career that would begin in December of 2004 with a submission win over Gary Bonenfant. Before that though, with his divorce final, Hartt – who was working in a bar at the time – met a young lady who would change his life. His first words to current girlfriend Ashley:
“I go to the gym.”
Now that’s a charmer.
All kidding aside, the two have been inseparable since, with the couple welcoming their first child, a son, in May. Ashley also supports her boyfriend’s fighting career 100 percent.
“The thing about Ashley is, she doesn’t care if I win or lose,” said Hartt. “She likes MMA because I like MMA. She slept on an air mattress for four months so I could train at Team Quest. She’s absolutely fantastic.”
With his personal life in order, Hartt was able to focus on his professional life, and with five wins in as many pro fights – all by submission, KO, or TKO – he earned a UFC deal that begins with this Saturday’s bout against Shannon Gugerty. It’s a chance to make a big impression, and he’s thinking along the lines of Fight of The Night. He hopes Gugerty agrees.
“I may tell him at the weigh-in, let’s go out into the center of the Octagon, tie some fishing line around each of our legs and we’ll just swap it out until one of us goes down,” he laughs. Needless to say, Hartt is far from nervous about his big show debut.
“I’m nervous about not being nervous,” he admits. “I’m actually trying to fake being nervous because I’m worried that all of a sudden I’m gonna step in that cage and I’m gonna be like ‘holy s**t, I’m fighting in the UFC,’ and that this 40 foot wave is gonna nail me. But I’m not nervous at all, I’m just wicked excited. I’m walking on air and I’m like the happiest little kid you’ve ever seen in your life.”
And with the likes of Marcus Davis and Mark DellaGrotte backing him, he’s got a right to feel secure in his chances this weekend. Hartt especially credits Davis for getting him to this point.
“I think the best thing Marcus did was let me bother him and tag along,” said Hartt of the welterweight contender. “He’s helped me with a lot of things in life, and he’ll probably kill me for saying this, but he’s almost like my dad in a way. He’s helped me grow not only as a fighter, but as a person.”
As a person, Dale Hartt is one of a kind – just a few minutes on the phone with him will convince you of that. And if he can win on the UFC level, we may be seeing the birth of a new lightweight star. But he’s not getting ahead of himself, and even if stardom does come his way, you get the impression that it won’t change him.
“I don’t have big goals,” he said. “I don’t want to drive a Lamborghini and I don’t want to be the cool guy. I’m not the cool guy. I would like four matching hubcaps and a cell phone and I’d like to have a nice house with a big lawn and a garden.”
“And when it comes to this sport, I train for my family, my friends and people that have supported me, and my own personal sense of worth,” Hartt continues. “But I fight for me. This is far from the most lucrative thing I could be doing, but I’m gonna go in there, and all I’m gonna care about is putting it on the line and leaving my heart and soul in there. If I do that, no matter what happens, I don’t care, I’ll sleep like a baby.”
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