Sep-2-2008
Michael Patt – Taking His Shot on Saturday Night
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UFC 109 Official Event Program
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By Thomas Gerbasi
Despite fighting in front of thousands, sometimes millions if television is involved, and the consistent presence of coaches and training partners in the weeks and months leading up to a fight, being a professional mixed martial artist can be a lonely game, one filled with sacrifices that entail more than cutting back on Oreos or putting in an extra mile or round while working out.
Michael Patt knows all about these sacrifices. They’ve cost him opportunities to use his Masters degree in Business for more lucrative jobs, cost him friends when he decided to stay in Dayton, Ohio to train instead of moving back to his hometown of Chicago, and cost him relationships on what seemed to be a regular basis.
“Every relationship I had for a number of years always ended because of the training,” said Patt. “They just didn’t understand. They didn’t understand why I came home at night, busted up and sore, and didn’t want to do anything. They all said that it was the training or them, and unfortunately they weren’t as important as the training was to me.”
What followed next would usually be stunned silence, a request for a repeat of that sentence, and then the inquisition.
“That’s usually when I’d hang up the phone,” he chuckled, secure in the knowledge that what he was doing wasn’t just a pipe dream, and that the decisions he was making were the right ones.
“Since I’ve been a kid, I’ve always done sports, and I think at some point, when you realize you have the skill, you want to give it a shot and realize where you stand in life, and when you’ve been doing all this training and teaching, you really want to walk up to the top level, and say you made it,” said Patt.
Well, he made it.
This Saturday night, the 33-year old Patt will make his UFC debut against Tim Boetsch in a light heavyweight preliminary bout that has the potential for some fireworks if the Dayton resident has his way.
“I hope that the fans see that I’m a solid, top to bottom, tough, hard-nosed competitor and that they shouldn’t blink because I have a nasty habit of finishing stuff real quickly,” he said.
Patt’s 15-2 pro MMA record bears that out, as he has ended 11 of those bouts in the first round. Most recently, Patt submitted Jarred Taylor in 2:02 at a show in Pasadena, Texas on August 15th. It was a solid win, his first of the year, and after a long training camp and the fight, which took place on a Friday night, he was looking to relax his body a bit before gearing up for another fight.
Then a call came in from his manager, Jake Hattan, at 2am two days later.
“I’ve got good news and bad news, whaddya want first,” asked Hattan.
“Give me the bad news,” mumbled Patt, still half-asleep.
“You’re gonna fight September 6th.”
“What’s the good news?”
“You’re gonna fight in the UFC.”
For the next couple of hours, Patt was awake, still wondering whether what he just heard was real or a dream.
“The 2am call is not what you expect when you’re waiting for the call about the UFC,” he laughed. “It just doesn’t factor into the fantasy plans.”
It was real all right, and once he got up the next day, it was back to the gym to prepare for the biggest fight of his life. Luckily though, having come from the camp that has spawned UFC standouts Rich Franklin, Jorge Gurgel, and Dustin Hazelett has its perks.
“It’s still something to celebrate when you get that call,” said Patt, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt under Gurgel, when asked the reaction around the gym to his call to the UFC. “But everybody trains the same no matter what the show is – you train hard, you go the same amount of rounds, and basically you go as hard as you can until you drop.”
And as far as coming into Atlanta on short notice, Patt admits that after a rough first week, his body is raring to go.
“To take a last-minute fight, this was absolutely the best time for me to do it,” he said. I was already training for six, seven weeks, so I already had that training and did that fight. I won’t lie, the first week was rough because my body was fighting against me, but I put some hard practices together and my body is ready to fight again.”
Against Boetsch, Patt will be facing someone who will make him fight. But with that, there’s also the upside that a spectacular victory will do for Patt what it did for Boetsch when he debuted in February with an impressive win over David Heath.
“I’m gonna go in there, go at him, and if I knock him out or submit him, great,” he said. “But if he manages to last the entire fight, if that’s the way it goes, the one thing I won’t sacrifice – and this may be for good or for bad – is that I try to play my game and put my pressure on, but I’m not gonna do something crazy. Some guys will try a spinning back kick just for the glamour of it. That’s just not me. Those are the things people sometimes do when they don’t think they can win, but they just want to get noticed. But the bottom line is, people remember the winners.”
Winners also get called back to the big show, something that is key training motivator for every debuting UFC fighter who hopes to make a home in the Octagon.
“Fighting a regionally tough guy is one thing, but when you know you’re gonna be in the big show, and especially if I can put him away, I’m going secure my career there for the next year or so, and it helps you push through all those tough spots,” he said.
Patt also has a girlfriend helping him in the lead-up to the fight - a switch from the old days, eh? Well, we’ll have to spill the beans – Patt’s girlfriend is pro fighter Jan Finney, who has had her share of big fights against standouts Julie Kedzie, Shayna Baszler, and Miesha Tate.
“She’s there training with me,” said Patt. “So when she sits down at night and she’s sore and I’m sore, there isn’t the conversation of ‘why are you sore? Why aren’t we having a half-hour conversation about flowers and stuff.’ (Laughs) She doesn’t want to be bothered either – she just says ‘turn on the TV.’ So it works out real well. So I’ll say, as a professional fighter, if you want to have a good relationship, find a female professional fighter.”
All joking aside though, Patt’s relationship with Finney means one less thing for him to worry about while preparing for a fight, and he also has someone who can relate to everything he’s going through. Of course there’s a bad side to that as well.
“The only time we really argue is when we’re both cutting weight,” he chuckles. “Then it gets mean because we both like our food.”
On Saturday night, Patt will be saving all his ‘mean’ for Tim Boetsch. And when it’s all over, there may be a new light heavyweight throwing his name in with the most superstar-laden division in the game. That kinda makes all the sacrifices worth it.
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