Oct-1-2009

Mike Swick: The Early Bird catches ‘The Outlaw’

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By Elliot Worsell

They don’t call Mike Swick ‘Quick’ for nothing. As swift to draw his fists as he is when leaping to answer a ringing phone, Swick doesn’t require second invitations or time to contemplate.

That’s why when Dong Hyun Kim had to withdraw from his UFC 105 date with Dan ‘The Outlaw’ Hardy, Swick was deemed a quick fix. At the same moment Joe Silva was skimming through a shortlist of replacements, Swick was saying a silent prayer with one hand on the phone.

What made Swick doubly keen to fill in for Kim was the fallout from his own recent withdrawal from a UFC 103 bout with Martin Kampmann. Forced to pull out following a concussion picked up in training, Swick had to sit on his hands and watch his replacement, Nottingham’s Paul Daley, destroy Kampmann inside one round.

“I really wanted to be there (at UFC 103) fighting, obviously,” admits Swick, who attended the show in his Texas hometown. “I didn’t know how to act and feel watching that fight.

“I was surprised by the result, but more so with the way Kampmann fought. Daley is a great striker, but I don’t think he’s a great mixed martial artist or has got much on the ground. He beat the worst Martin Kampmann I’ve ever seen. Kampmann played right into Daley’s hands. I think Daley has a big mouth, but it’s going to get shut sooner or later.”

Swick went home that night with a new rival in mind. Naturally, he wanted the man that beat the man he was supposed to face at UFC 103. He wanted Paul Daley. Perhaps more accurately, Swick just wanted anybody.

“The concussion I got only required a few weeks rest, but was just enough to keep me out of UFC 103,” says Swick. “I wanted to fight so bad and as soon as I could. I was actually texting Joe Silva all the time saying, “please, if anyone pulls out of any fight, I’ll do it.”

Swick’s pleas weren’t any kind of false bravado or empty promises. He meant every word. Sometimes, when you’re that keen for something to happen, it happens.

“I was looking at the UFC schedule wondering who I could fight and when, and then Joe texted me back saying, “could you be ready for November 14?”” adds Swick.

“I texted him back right away saying, “I’ll do it” before he even mentioned who the opponent was. I didn’t care. I just wanted to fight.

“It was 24 hours before Joe called with the name Dan Hardy and I accepted immediately. I guess Joe was first making sure that Kim was 100% out. The contract was sent to me and I literally sent it back five minutes after.”

While the stars seemed to be aligning for Swick to meet another Nottingham star, the hard-hitting Daley, it was the other Notts-based 170-pounder that received the call. Hardy and Swick will now meet on November 14 in one of the most important welterweight clashes of the year. Needless to say, Swick is happy with the way things have panned out.

“Even though I like Dan Hardy, I am glad I am fighting him and not Daley,” explains Swick, 14-2 in his mixed martial arts career. “Daley has just come on the scene and isn’t well-rounded, while Hardy is a bigger fight and better test.”

Ironically, Swick was thinking and saying similar things about next opponent Hardy at the start of the year. Unsure whether the flash and brash Brit was all he was cracked up to be, Swick, like many UFC fans, waited for ‘The Outlaw’s substance to equal his style.

“Jon Fitch and I did this tour of the Army bases in Germany earlier this year and, after we signed up, we asked who else was going and one of the names brought up was Dan Hardy,” adds Swick. “Both Jon and I were talking on the way to the airport and basically saying, ‘great, you hear that guy Hardy is going? That guy who talked all that crap about Marcus Davis? We are going to have to be with his guy for a whole week?’.”

Swick was apprehensive. He knew about the venomous Hardy tongue and the in-your-face red Mohawk. A cocky reputation preceded the self-assured yet humble Brit.

“When we actually met Dan, both of us immediately liked him a lot,” admits Mike. “He couldn’t have been cooler, as it happens, and we really clicked. He’s actually very humble and not all that loud at all. Getting to know him, it was obvious to me that the whole thing he did before the Marcus Davis fight was designed to get a mental advantage over Marcus, which it definitely did.”

Davis, of course, is a common opponent of both Swick and Hardy. Swick controlled the self-styled ‘Irish Hand Grenade’ for three rounds last June, while Hardy dropped and diced Davis en route to a tighter decision win in June of this year.

Despite the close nature of the fight, Hardy’s victory over Davis landed him in the upper echelons of the welterweight division and helped set up his UFC 105 clash with Swick.

“Looking back, you can see Dan Hardy played Marcus Davis like a fiddle,” recalls Swick. “He absolutely did that on purpose and you have to give him credit for recognising that Marcus is a very emotional guy and that he could affect his performance just by talking trash like he did. There’s no question Hardy did a real great job of that. Marcus admitted that he couldn’t sleep at times because he was so mad.

“But it doesn’t matter if Dan’s nice to me, an idiot to me or talks trash like he did with Marcus Davis. That won’t work on me. I’m not like that. He can sit there and come up with the worst thing anyone has ever said about me, but it won’t work. I am harder guy to figure out than Marcus Davis - my buttons aren’t so obvious.”

While the 30-year-old Swick’s buttons are better hidden than the emotional Davis’, the American contender remains well aware of Hardy’s patented mind games. The pair shared Octagon space at UFC 99, of course, the night Hardy scored his career-best win over Davis and Swick snapped the unbeaten record of Ben Saunders.

“I am two different people,” continues Swick. “I am the guy who does the interviews and trains for a fight, and then I am this guy who exists only in the Octagon. And nothing you can do to the first guy – being nice to him, being nasty to him, whatever, will affect what the second guy does.

“They all see that as weakness, that I am a nice guy. But it isn’t. I am a nice guy who turns into an animal in the Octagon. I’ve heard talk about how I am too nice a guy, too this and too that, from opponents and yet I am sitting there being a nice guy at the post-fight press conference while they are in the locker room with the doctor.”

A veteran of the original Ultimate Fighter season, Swick has seen more than most in the sport of mixed martial arts. Having only suffered one defeat in the UFC to date – a middleweight decision loss to top contender Yushin Okami – the talented Swick is considered a safe and consistent bet. He’s unbeaten since dropping down to welterweight and has claimed the scalps of Davis, Saunders, Josh Burkman and Jonathan Goulet. He speaks with experience and with the aura of someone who’s seen it all before and come out smiling.

“I think Dan knows his mental games won’t affect me,” says Swick. “He can say the funniest thing about me or the meanest thing and it won’t affect me at all in the Octagon. He may say a few things just to get himself up for the fight - as he seems to like putting pressure on himself like that - but it won’t stop me from going in there and beating him very, very badly.”

Despite a mutual respect borne from surprise and false preconceptions, Hardy and Swick, like most others in their profession, are only too happy to throw down in the name of sport. After all, given the recent collapse of Kampmann, Swick and Hardy are both within spitting distance of a shot at Georges St-Pierre’s UFC welterweight crown. One more victory could hand the key to either.

“It is a bad, bad time for Hardy – or anyone – to fight me because I am the most motivated I’ve ever been in my career,” assures Swick. “I’ve got a lot to gain by winning this fight. I want my title shot. I am not looking past Hardy - if I do that, he will beat me - but I am thinking that if I tear through Hardy I get closer to becoming UFC champion.”

Although he views Hardy as a potentially dangerous stepping stone, Swick has seen enough of ‘The Outlaw’ inside and outside the Octagon to foresee his crucial November 14 clash stealing the show at UFC 105.

“Dan has done very well in his UFC career to date,” assesses Swick. “He’s had three very good wins, he’s fast, well-rounded and he can punch. I told Fitch that I think Hardy’s a very good fighter. I was around him during UFC 99 in Germany and was impressed even back when I thought he was a big head.

“We are both strikers, we are both aggressive and we are both mentally strong. Neither of us is going to break mentally, so we have to break each other physically. It’s going to be a war, as there’s so much at stake for us.

“There’s so much I want to do in the UFC and this guy isn’t stopping that from happening. This is the most important fight of my life, but it has come at exactly the right time.”

‘Time’ is the buzzword for Mike ‘Quick’ Swick. Just as the nickname suggests, this Texan waits for nobody - especially an ‘Outlaw’.