Losing four teeth in a professional prizefight and still having the heart to come back out for the next round is pretty hardcore. Coming back to fight again just days later is the stuff that makes folk heroes.
Frank Lester, welterweight competitor on The Ultimate Fighter: Team US vs Team UK, is the man in that position right now, and despite not making it to Saturday’s 170-pound final match, he may end up being the fighter you most remember. It’s a suggestion he doesn’t necessarily agree with.
“I personally don’t think I’m the person to remember from the season,” he said. “I would have said it was (welterweight finalist) DaMarques (Johnson). In my mind, he’s definitely one of the best guys in the house and one of the strongest personalities, and just an all-around good guy. I see DaMarques as the true superstar of the season.”
Lester is right on all counts about Johnson, and the other three finalists, James Wilks, Andre Winner, and Ross Pearson, can also have strong cases made for them as being this season’s standout personality. But when it comes to the drama of the fight, competitive spirit, and courage under fire, the 25-year old Lester is at the front of the pack. And when you ask him what made him ask to fight again after teammate Jason Pierce was ousted from the competition, his answer is simple:
“How many people get a second opportunity like that?” he asks. “Not many. I’m Army infantry, my dad’s a 30 year retired Army colonel and was a Ranger. I come from a very strong American military heritage, and when I was in that house, I was gung-ho, America, and to see Pierce bitching out like that, it got me upset. So that played a role in it. Plus, I was disappointed by my own performance in the (first) James Wilks fight. Even though I fought hard, it was a rough one. And finally, we were down and I always thought that (David) Faulkner was a good matchup for me. I’m a bigger, stronger guy than Faulkner, and I felt I was more athletic.”
But there was the issue of getting back in the competition after Wilks eliminated him and removed his teeth in the process on episode six.
“I went up to (UFC President) Dana (White) after Richie Whitson lost to Ross Pearson, and I said ‘hey Dana, if Pierce is gonna bitch out, I want that fight. And I promise that if you give it to me, I’ll win.’ He kinda looked at me like I was crazy, and I didn’t think anything was gonna come of it.”
Later, White returned and spoke to the San Diegan.
“You know you’re not allowed to even fight, right?” said White. “You’re suspended for 180 days.”
Lester, who was sporting 24 stitches and had two roots taken out from his mouth, reiterated his request for the fight. Soon, doctors cleared him for the bout, and he got his wish.
“That’s when you just sack up and pray to God,” said Lester, who went on to defeat Faulkner via forfeit after the second round in perhaps the most stirring ending of the season. And though Lester would be back in the Octagon again before the season was out, losing in the semis to Wilks, by this point the results didn’t matter; Frank Lester was one of the toughest fighters ever to appear on the show, and he gained a huge fanbase because of it. So where does it all come from?
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t ever think about it because I don’t want to jinx myself. I don’t think ‘oh, I’m a tough #$%$.’ I just try to go in there and fight and survive. I don’t think about it; I just do it.”
It’s that courage that has kept the still raw and learning Lester going in a career that only began two and a half years ago when he returned home after serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He still can recall his first day in the gym.
“I remember going into the gym and how awesome it was,” he said. “Undisputed is in the ghetto part of San Diego in North Park. I went in there when it pretty much had just opened, and there wasn’t much in there – a couple heavy bags, graffiti all over the walls, one boxing ring that was like homemade, and this tiny little cage that came from the Hell’s Angels clubhouse. I just remember walking in there and saying this is where I need to be. War Machine (Jon Koppenhaver) was the MMA trainer, Baret Yoshida was jiu-jitsu, and I just fell in love with it. That’s all I wanted to do.”
Married at the time, Lester’s wife was pregnant, and before his daughter was born, he wanted to get in one pro fight. His gym mates advised against it, wisely informing him that he wasn’t ready for a pro fight yet after just six months of training. Lester didn’t heed the warnings.
“I was taking a beginner Muay Thai class, I was rolling a little bit, and I just wanted to do it,” he remembered. “I just wanted to get one fight in. So I took a pro fight, I negotiated it myself. And I made five dollars.”
Five dollars? How did he manage that?
“One, because I’m an idiot,” he deadpans. “The other part was because they said they had to pay for me to get licensed and they said it cost them 900 bucks. ‘Oh, that’s all your purse money.’ The California State Athletic Commission said after the fight, ‘you have to pay him something.’ So they gave me a five dollar check.”
He lost the fight too, dropping a three round decision to Chuck Graves in June of 2007. Less than two months later, Lester was back. This time he made $1,500, but was soundly thrashed by then unbeaten Nick Braker. Strangely enough, he decided to keep going.
“There were different times, each time, that brought me along to bring me to the next point, so it’s never been one constant thing,” he said. “First it was that I was having a baby and just wanted to compete once. Then it was the fact that I was so hungry after not having won that I fought again and I got my ass whupped bad. After that I didn’t train for a while, and when I went back, some people laughed at me in my own gym. That fueled me and I started training more and training harder. I didn’t want people to laugh at me anymore; I was tired of it.”
There would be more obstacles though, mainly neck surgery that landed him in the hospital for ten days after 240-pound UFC vet Wade Shipp accidentally landed with an elbow on his throat during training. But in May of 2008, there was some light.
“I took a fight on short notice in Mexico, and I said I’m gonna win this fight. And I did.”
The first round win over Cesar Uruilla was the first of three in a row for Lester leading up to his life-altering stint on The Ultimate Fighter, and if you truly want to know what makes him tick, look no further than his stint in the military, his desire to represent his name well, and his love for his daughter – all of which allow him to brush off pain and fatigue most of us couldn’t even function under.
“I definitely get an adrenaline rush from fighting, and I definitely get that same fear (as he had in the military),” he explains. “I remember being in Iraq and doing cordon and searches through neighborhoods and room clearing, and nothing can be scarier than that. It’s a different kind of scary here as to where I always feel like my pride is on the line. When I’m in there, it’s not just me I’m representing – I’ve got my family, and I don’t want to look good just for me; I’ve got a daughter, and I don’t want to go in there and be a chump. My baby’s gonna grow up and youtube this. (Laughs) And when I’m in there, I remember that. Before I get in the cage, I always think about Jordan, and I’ve been in the cage in trouble before and had a guy on my back, whaling away, and I’m thinking ‘I better get out, Jordan’s not gonna want to see me get beat up like this.’ And I remember hitting a switch, coming around, and taking his back.”
Resilience will get you a long way in this game, especially if you put in the long hours to get your technique up to speed as well. Lester is currently training with his TUF9 coach, Dan Henderson, in Temecula, California, to get his game up to UFC levels for his bout Saturday night against Nick Osipczak, but ask him when he realized that he could compete here, and he answers honestly.
“I still don’t know if I think I can do this,” he chuckles. “Before every fight I say this is the last one. But who knows, I’m just going with it. Did you see the last WEC? I don’t know if I’ll ever be as good as any of those kids. Did you see those 20-year olds that are 12-1 or 12-0 and got guillotine chokes in ten seconds? I just hope I can perform the best I can and do well here. I’m gonna show him (Osipczak) a new Frank Lester and I think I can definitely be competitive in this sport. I’m not there yet, but I’m working hard.”
His voice trails off, but at 25, he certainly has enough time to improve his technical skills and eventually become a force in the welterweight division. The rest? You can’t teach that, and for those attributes alone, there will be plenty of people who will want to watch Frank Lester fight.
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