By Thomas Gerbasi

Joe Stevenson sat slumped over, his face in his hands, a myriad of emotions running through a head that throbbed with pain.  That pain was nothing like the one that ripped at his shoulder though, and it was the type of scene that was far removed from anything resembling the 'thrill of victory.'

But as Stevenson sat in the dressing room minutes after scoring the victory that earned him the title of welterweight Ultimate Fighter on November 5th, he could only describe that moment as "probably the best feeling I ever had."

A six-figure UFC contract and the type of job security all fighters crave can do that for you - can make you ignore the aches and pains that would cripple most of us, but for the true competitors in the game, like Stevenson, it's a matter of pride, a matter of capturing a moment that you can always look back at and say 'for one night, I was the best.'

"I'm extremely glad I stuck it out," said Stevenson, who pondered retiring from mixed martial arts before getting the call to be part of The Ultimate Fighter reality series, even though he clocks in at the ripe old age of 23.

 

"Even if I never did anything again after doing this, it gives me validity. If I were to lose every fight from now on, at least I did it and I was in that caliber of competition and I had given it everything.  Of course I'm looking to eventually be the best in the world, but just this experience alone and everything it's done, if I were to get injured right now, I would
be happy.  I'd be able to look back and say 'I did it, I gave my all.'"

On that November night at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Stevenson was not going to give anything less than his best.  This, despite the fact that two weeks before his fight with Luke Cummo he suffered an injury that would have left him with a more than valid reason to ask for a postponement - and it just went downhill from there.

"Two weeks before my fight, my clavicle pulled away from my sternum and it was just causing some major conflict with training and then the fight itself," remembered Stevenson.  "Then I had been extremely dehydrated for two days - not from cutting weight on my own, because I only cut like a pound - I think I had the flu or something."

Oh yeah, he also had to battle an unorthodox fighter with heavy hands that left his last opponent, Sam Morgan, unconscious on the mat.  So why do it? Why take that chance in the biggest fight of your career when you're not at 100%?

"Everything was on the line," said Stevenson.  "You've got three million people watching, and they wanted to see a fight.  If I would have backed out, I would have lost their respect.  To fight and lose, even with that injury, would have been more worth it than to back out and not take my licking like a man."

It's a lesson not only to those who look for the exit at the first sign of adversity, but to Stevenson's three young sons, who will see that – as cliché as it sounds - when the going got tough, their dad got going.

"Oh yeah, totally," he said.  "You want to go through as many difficulties as you can.  I'd rather have this difficult trial now than one day many years from now when I get a title shot or I'm defending the title.  That would be horrible.  But if it does happen, I can say 'I've done this before and I can do it again.'"

Against Cummo, Stevenson started strong and seemed on his way to a lopsided victory, but then the New Yorker turned things around in the second, and all of a sudden, this was a fight.  Stevenson, who said after the fight that he underestimated Cummo, explains.

"Now that I've had time to reflect on it, I think he trained a little bit to knock me out, but more to survive," said Stevenson.  "And I didn't plan on that; I planned on him training to finish me on his feet or to finish me on the ground with massive strikes.  He was scrambling, he got out of bad situations well - which is fine - but it never even crossed my mind that he was gonna just train to survive."

As the bout progressed and Cummo made it crystal clear that he wasn't going anywhere, Stevenson - hurt and gutting it out - had to have been frustrated. But in his mind, he just had one goal in mind.

"During the fight I pulled guard," he said.  "I knew my jiu-jitsu was better than his so I went into guard and I ended up getting a sweep from a leg lock twice.  But what was going through my mind at that point was getting the submission, not 'oh crap, I could lose this fight.'"

And Stevenson's superior ground work would prove to be the difference in the bout as he scored the unanimous decision victory.  He was the welterweight Ultimate Fighter.

"I was very emotional," said Stevenson. "It was finally all over and everything happened for the best, and it was probably the best feeling I ever had."

The good feelings haven't ended, with the Las Vegan getting mobbed every few feet as he walked through the MGM Grand before UFC 56.

"Those are the people that want to see me fight, and if I have an opportunity to take a picture with them or sign something, I'm gonna," he said of his newfound fame.  "There's no cause for me to act rude or unhappy because, to tell you the truth, it's a pleasure and it makes me feel honored."

So was it worth all the pain?  What do you think?