This is not ‘it’ for Roger Huerta. Beating Kenny Florian in their highly-anticipated battle this Saturday night at UFC 87 is just step one of a plan that he hopes will eventually see him crowned as not only UFC lightweight champion, but as one of the greats of the sport.
Then maybe he’ll relax.
Until then though, Huerta’s life is a grind, a constant effort to get better as a fighter, and you can see it in his face and hear it in his voice. There is little, if any, fluff when it comes to the 25-year old, who has been painted by some fans as the 'Golden Boy' despite a harrowing upbringing that was anything but golden. He cuts right to the heart of whatever you are asking him, refusing to speak in clichés that have become so prevalent in the sporting world today. And while he is quick with a smile, there also is a gravity to his demeanor, as if he’s carrying a hundred pound weight on his shoulders.
“It’s from what I’ve gone through and what I’ve seen,” he said. “I sit back and look at the world for what it is and things for what they are. I don’t try to sugar coat anything, I don’t try to live a white picket fence life because that’s not how the world is. There are harsh things out there. I’ve gone through some of those things, and I’ve also had things thrown at me – why, because I’m a good fighter? Does that make me better than a janitor?”
It’s probably not what you would expect to hear from a professional athlete these days, but despite only being on this earth a quarter of a century, Huerta’s journey to this point has given him the life experience of someone twice his age. And when you’ve been tossed from house to house, forced to the streets, and wondered where your next meal is coming from, it can change your perspective on things. It can make you worry whether the past could ever repeat itself for you, as far fetched as that may seem.
Boxing great Bernard Hopkins, preparing for a multi-million dollar showdown with Oscar De La Hoya in 2004, once told me that he feared that a loss to ‘The Golden Boy’ would boot him from pay-per-view and premium cable back to ESPN or Fox Sports Net. It was a ludicrous statement, but after years in prison and coming up from the streets, Hopkins still had that fear in the back of his head of losing everything with one loss.
Huerta may have reached that same point, one where he is so close to reaching the goal he has dedicated the last five years to, but at the same time, he is on the verge of having to go back to the end of the line in a crowded lightweight division if he loses on Saturday.
“We’re not there yet,” he smiles. “And I can’t enjoy it until I get there. The day that I get there, the day that I win that title, I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I think I’ll relax then.”
Not likely, especially since the line has been growing for a while when it comes to getting a shot at Huerta, even though he doesn’t even wear the 155-pound belt now. Why? Like I mentioned earlier, he’s seen as the Golden Boy, the kid on the cover of Sports Illustrated, the one on the PR tours, the one who could probably do anything he wanted to do in this world, but he chose fighting. And he knows that there’s a target on his back.
“I’m not even a world champion yet and I’ve already got people gunning for me,” he said, but at the same time he downplays the importance of being the first mixed martial artist on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
“I got the cover and the media talks about that, but the fighters really don’t talk about that, they talk about the fights,” he said. “I don’t think about that cover much.”
But somewhere, even if they don’t make those feelings public, there is probably a fighter (or fighters) out there who is looking at that cover, seeing the attention Huerta’s getting and asking ‘Why him and not me?’
Huerta pauses before responding.
“Then I don’t have time to rest, do I?”
Nope, and that’s why you’ll see him crisscrossing the country and even traveling into Canada to prepare for the biggest fight of his career. Whether it’s training in Montreal with welterweight boss Georges St-Pierre and his crew, New York with Muay Thai ace Phil Nurse, Colorado with Trevor Wittman and Nate Marquardt, Albuquerque with Greg Jackson, or back home in Minnesota with Dave Menne, he’s paying the cost to be the boss. Even on his downtime, if you ever see Huerta in a club, it’s a glass of water in his hand, not alcohol.
“There are things that matter other than going to a bar and drinking yourself silly,” he said. “And I used to do that. I was a college kid that partied and drank quite a bit. I sit back and think ‘what did I accomplish by doing that? What was so amazing about it? What do I have to show for that night?’”
It’s tough to resist the temptations thrown at a pro athlete when you’re just 25, but Huerta has seen what too much partying can do, and for him, a good time isn’t worth his career, especially since he’s still got goals to reach and his own personal fighting hit list to attend to. First on his mind if he beats Florian on Saturday - current UFC lightweight champion BJ Penn, a man who has threatened a move back to 170 pounds if St-Pierre gets by number one contender Jon Fitch this weekend. Would fighting for the 155-pound title lose a little something for Huerta if it wasn’t against Penn?
“Of course,” he said without hesitation. “Now I’m gonna respect the guy that I would be fighting for the title, but for me BJ is the man, the man to beat, the one who has done so many things for the sport and who has gone through all these weight classes and beaten all these guys. He’s a great, great fighter who lives up to his name – the Prodigy. For me to fulfill my dreams as a fighter, I would like to beat the best guy in the world in my weight class, and that’s him.”
But before that can happen, there’s Florian, and after that a fighting future he estimates has five years left in it. Of course, having said that, Huerta is quick to point out, “as of right now, that’s what I’m saying. Down the road, when I’m already there at 30, I may say something else if my body can take a few more fights, but as of right now, I’m saying I’ve got five years left in me.”
In that time, the legacy of Roger Huerta will be written. Was he a flash in the pan, a shooting star who burned brightly for a moment before disappearing? Or will he be what he dreams of being – a UFC lightweight champion and one of the best to ever put the gloves on? When it’s put that way, it’s easy to see why there may be an enormous weight on his shoulders with each and every fight. But he carries it well, and truth be told, without it he may not have become the fighter he is.
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