Though his fight game is diverse, Luke Cummo has exactly one face: deadpan. Even at his most animated, he’s all eyebrows and solemnity.
When speaking to the aptly nicknamed “Silent Assassin,” no matter how excited, angry or nervous he may be at the time, he just sounds sort of sleepy. Yet still, as anybody who bore witness to his fitness on the second season of The Ultimate Fighter knows, there’s a lot going under the surface with Cummo. You’re never quite sure where he’s coming from, and you rarely see him coming at all. He wears his trunks to the ribcage like an 80-year-old man. He discusses the merits of urine therapy matter-of-factly. He harnesses available energy.
And if he smiles at all, it’s the smile of a man in on a secret.
In other words, Cummo has no time for orthodoxy—and it’s what makes him one of the great characters of the UFC. Heading into his fight with fellow New Yorker Tamdan McCrory on August 9 at UFC 87 in Minneapolis, you’ll never see a more casual-looking gladiator than Luke Cummo.
And make no mistake, Cummo is one of the few fighters who can literally make hungry and desperate seem altogether casual.
“My wife Lara and I are in the market for a house right now,” the Long Island native says. “So I have to win and win big in order to get a down payment.”
There’s pressure for you.
Cummo (9-5) is coming off of a frustrating loss that he took at the hands of Luigi Fioravanti at UFC 82 in Columbus, Ohio. In that fight, Cummo touched Fioravanti early but was continuously taken down to the mat by the opportunistic ex-Marine. The boo-birds came out full throat that night, just one of the several aspects of that fight that continues to plague Cummo.
“That was a technical error on my part—when somebody is shooting in on you, you’ve got to be kind of a counterpuncher like Chuck Liddell, and I was a little too over-aggressive,” he says. “I went for the kill early, and all he wanted to do was go the distance, and I gave it right to him by going for it every time. I didn’t use my range effectively, or my footwork.”
Against the upstart McCrory, he’ll need that range and to make good use of his Muay Thai kickboxing if he is to get back to his winning ways. The gangly 6-foot-4 McCrory, who is coming off a loss of his own to Akihiro Gono (armbar), has surprising power in his hands.
“I know he’ll come out aggressive,” Cummo says. “McCrory’s the kind of guy who’s going to come straight out and look to dominate.”
The six-foot Cummo is again training with the Serra/Longo Competition Team in Long Island, and says that his Jiu-Jitsu coach, and former welterweight champion, Matt Serra is throwing the biggest guys he can find at him, while Ray Longo has him sparring with tall fighters to prepare for the height discrepancy.
“The only problem with that is most of the guys that are 6-foot-3 and above are well over 200 pounds, so I’ve been having to train with a lot of big guys, but it’s working out. I’m getting stronger just by trying to keep up with them.”
Having worked for many years with Serra, Cummo has legitimate submissions in his repertoire. He’s a purple belt in Jiu-Jitsu, though he could be a black belt anywhere else—Serra is notoriously tightfisted when it comes to handing out the darker varieties.
Picked dead last and tabbed an underdog on TUF even as he decisioned Anthony Torres and knocked out Sammy Morgan en-route to a surprisingly competitive match with Joe Stevenson in the season finale, Cummo has proven striking ability. He showed this in back-to-back wins against Josh Haynes (2nd round KO) and Ediberto de Oliveira (1st round, strikes) prior to the Fioravanti setback.
Heading into his upcoming fight, he hopes to source that fistic power the new-fashioned way.
“I’m going to go out to Minnesota a few days earlier than the UFC wants me,” he says. “I’ve got to acclimate myself. I think there’s a mountain range, I might go up there and maybe hike a little bit. There’s a bunch of organic farms out there I might want to visit.”
If visiting organic farms seems like an interesting ritual for a prizefighter, well, it is. Cummo is very much into the science of dieting and nutrition, and he has been since he was 18 years old. While some kids were watching television, Cummo, who considers his “own body an experiment” and is looking to become a certified Phoenix Fastician, had his nose in books on the benefits of mineral intake and healthy kinds of intestinal flora.
“I like to say that dieting is like your homework, and you can go to the gym, you can go to class, but if you don’t do your homework, you’re really not going to get good grades.”
When Cummo steps into the octagon against the well-rounded McCrory (10-1), his digestive system will be completely empty. While some fighters replenish fluids and load back up on carbs after cutting weight post-weigh-ins, Cummo—who hasn’t had to cut an ounce in his past three bouts, a natural welterweight if there ever was one—refrains from eating anything. He fasts.
“This way, all my energy will be available for the task at hand,” he says. “The days leading up to the fight I’m going to rest as much as possible and do what I can to build my mineral reserves.”
Though Cummo foresees a long future in MMA, even hinting at one day dropping to 155, he’d like to have his own food show, not unlike the homemade one he bootlegs on his site that he calls “Kung Food.” One of Cummo’s heroes is Bruce Lee.
“I’ve got a bunch of shows already scripted, because it’s something I want to do. So if anybody’s reading this and they’re a film student or they want to get involved in something like that, I’d love for them to contact me.”
But before he gets to discussing food additives and microorganisms on television, there’s this business of McCrory. Though he won’t show it in his face, Cummo is growing restless to get it on.
“I would say that it’s more like an anxious anticipation rather than being scared. If anything there would be a fear of . . . just wanting to do my best. My opponent and I are going in there to hurt each other so, you know, if I wasn’t nervous there’d probably be something wrong with me.”
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