If you mention that a fighter’s nickname is “Buckets of Blood”, the vision of John Polakowski probably doesn’t come to mind immediately – if at all. But it’s a moniker the Seattle native wears proudly, even though it wasn’t given to him by ‘The Pit’s John Hackleman for the obvious reasons.
“The nickname of ‘Buckets of Blood’ is about my blood, not my opponent’s,” laughs Polakowski. “I just have a tendency to bleed a lot during my fights, usually from my nose. I’ve always been a bleeder.”
It’s just one of many interesting anecdotes about the 27-year old lightweight, who will enter the UFC Octagon for the first time on Saturday to take on Roli Delgado at The Palms in Las Vegas. Of course, the one aspect of Polakowski’s life that most have focused on has been his tendency to hug people. Yes, hug people. It’s not a bad trait to have, but it’s one that took on a life of its own during Polakowski’s recent stint on The Ultimate Fighter’s eighth season.
“I always loved giving hugs,” he said. “I’m a touchy-feely person and I like showing the important people in my life that I care about them and I like making other people happy too, and generally a hug achieves that.”
But did he expect it to be the focus of his time in the world of reality television?
“When they showed the episode, it made it look like I gave someone a hug every ten seconds and that’s not really how it was,” he explains. “But I do like giving hugs, and I do hug differently than most people. I really hold the person close to me for a second. I make sure it means something.”
It did show a different side of the pro fighter, and certainly, there haven’t been many prizefighters who are thought of as huggers first and left hookers second. That’s a good thing as far as Polakowski is concerned.
“I definitely think it’s good for the sport,” he said. “It shows that we’re not a bunch of hooligans who are violent, super aggressive people who want to start a fight with everybody. We’re intelligent people who care about other people too, and we have the capacity to be happy, friendly people, and not just tough guys who like to fight.”
But if Polakowski couldn’t fight, we wouldn’t be talking about him in this forum right now, and with a strong striking game (no doubt honed by sessions with Hackleman and his prize pupil, Chuck Liddell), and improving ground work, the San Luis Obispo resident showed enough on the show in a win over Wesley Murch and a close decision loss to George Roop that he was given a shot in the UFC this weekend. Of course, his prospects of sticking around may ride on the result of his bout against Delgado, and he knows it.
“It certainly is a lot of pressure because I certainly want to stay in the UFC, that’s for sure,” he said. “I’ve never fought on as big a stage as the UFC and in front of so many people, so that’s a lot of pressure too, but I feel really good coming into this fight. I feel good about my skills, and I think if I can execute my gameplan, I’ll do really well.”
And as far as pro fights go, you get the idea that Polakowski will be excited just to see someone other than Olaf Alonso staring at him on fight night. Yes, Polakowski has three pro fights, and all three were against Alonso, with “Buckets of Blood” going 2-1 against the PRIDE Bushido and WEC vet.
“It wasn’t necessarily by choice,” said Polakowski of his trilogy with Alonso. “We had a really good first fight and then we had a rematch and that didn’t live up to the hype because he was injured in the first round, so we had a third match. But I will never fight him again.”
He won’t have to worry, because if he sticks around in the UFC, he’ll have plenty of potential dance partners. But first up is his Team Nogueira teammate, the 6 foot 3 Delgado
“He’s got reach on me, but I don’t think it’s gonna be a problem because I’m a pretty good standup fighter,” said Polakowski in breaking down the matchup. “So as long as I use lots of head movement, I should have no problem with him standing up. My whole game is gonna be to keep it standing and avoid the takedown because he’s a black belt in jiu-jitsu and I have some jiu-jitsu experience, but it’s nowhere near his. So I’m gonna try to fight standing and hopefully go for a knockout.”
If he gets it, the win will – in many ways – justify his decision to leave Cal Poly a year short of getting his degree in Computer Engineering in order to train full-time as a professional fighter. That decision didn’t sit too well with his parents, but they’ve since come to accept their son’s choice.
“For a long time my parents weren’t really happy that I chose to be a professional fighter because I dropped out of college,” he said. “I was a year away from getting a degree in computer engineering from Cal Poly and I dropped out to fight full-time. For a few years they really weren’t happy with me, but now they see that I kinda made it a little bit, so now they can write to their friends about me or whatever (Laughs) and they’re proud of me now.”
Any regrets?
“Not at all,” he replies instantly, insisting that he will finish his degree “When my fight career’s done. I tried to do school and fighting and it was just too much, especially a degree in engineering – it really requires a lot of time.”
So does pro fighting, especially at this level of the game. But John Polakowski’s willing to put in the work – in fact, for him, this doesn’t even qualify as work.
“It’s my passion,” he said of fighting. “This is what makes me happy. I love the competition, and I love to have a big challenge in front of me. That pushes me harder and being a professional fighter is me following my dreams. I feel like a lot of people don’t follow their dreams enough, so I feel very fortunate that I’ve been able to follow mine.”
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