Oct-21-2009

Razak Al-Hassan – Architect of His Own Destiny

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By Thomas Gerbasi

All right, let’s get this out of the way right at the start. December 10, 2008, North Carolina. Why, oh, why, didn’t Razak Al-Hassan tap out as Steve Cantwell locked in an armbar that eventually resulted in Al-Hassan dislocating his left elbow and getting his first pro loss?

“I wasn’t thinking self-consciously, ‘okay, I’m not gonna tap out to this,’” the affable Al-Hassan laughs. “What I was thinking was that I was gonna find some way to get out of this by some means. It didn’t happen that way, but that’s just who I am. Some people are like that, that no matter what, we’re gonna fight to the very end and give everything we’ve got. Sometimes you see people say ‘I’m gonna go in the Octagon and give everything I’ve got and leave it all out there,’ but they end up having a lackluster performance or they’re done at the first sign of trouble. I’m not that type of person. I’m gonna fight to the very end, and if I have to lose, you can take me out on my shield.”

It was the supreme example of putting your money where your mouth is, and despite suffering the injury and losing his UFC debut, the 27-year old wouldn’t change a thing if he had to do it all over again - other than finding his way out of the armbar.

“Life is full of regrets as it is,” he said. “And if I tapped out and thought ‘maybe if I twisted my arm a different way I could have gotten out,’ I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. I’m gonna know 20, 30 years from now that I lost that fight but I showed what kind of heart I have, and I’m gonna fight until there’s nothing left.”

Of course, the refusal to tap has made a cult hero out of Al-Hassan, who has received plenty of press in the days leading up to this return to the Octagon this Saturday against Kyle Kingsbury. But what may have been lost in all the attention given to the finish was that before the end, Cantwell vs Al-Hassan was shaping up to be a pretty damn good fight, kind of putting to rest the idea of the Iowan suffering the first time UFC jitters.

“I try to be a Zen master when I walk out to the cage and I try to keep myself composed,” he explains. “I felt the butterflies behind the curtain when I was about to come out and it kinda hit me then, but as I got in there, I felt fine. Steve just got me in a bad situation and was able to capitalize on it. But I wasn’t necessarily nervous or tensed up going into it.”

And the competitive nature of the bout, his previous success in MMA, and the four months he spent sidelined due to the elbow injury combined to give Al-Hassan the motivation he needed to not only move forward in his career, but to do so full-time. So he quit his job at Wells Fargo and became a full-time fighter.

“Up until I lost I thought I was doing a pretty decent job with the fighting and everything else,” he said. “I’m not going to say I was winning the fight (against Cantwell), but I thought I was at least going tit for tat with him. So I said okay, if I can go tit for tat with a guy like that, a well-rounded former WEC champion, imagine what I could do if this was actually my full-time thing and I don’t have any other distractions or anything preventing me from achieving my potential. The UFC is the opportunity of a lifetime, and I don’t want to sit back and have regrets later in life, saying ‘damn, if only I had more time to devote to this, then maybe I could have done something with it.’”

Such a move could provoke some raised eyebrows from family and friends who may think job security in the banking industry may be preferable to a career in prizefighting, but Al-Hassan knows that he needs to strike while the iron is hot, especially now that he is in his physical prime.

“I can always go back to the desk job,” he said. “There are always gonna be desk jobs out there and I can always find those types of jobs. But as an athlete, you only have a certain amount of time where you can do this, and after that, you’re done. So now that I’m 27, I’m in my prime now, and if I don’t do this now, I’m not gonna be able to do it later. I can’t decide ten years from now, ‘okay, I’m gonna go ahead and give MMA a try,’ because it will be too late for me. Now is the time, I’m young enough to do it, and I’ve got to take my shot while I have it.”

To improve his shot at succeeding in the minefield that is the UFC’s light heavyweight division, Al-Hassan has enlisted Duke Roufus and three other fighters that are fighting on this weekend’s UFC 104 card – Ben Rothwell, Red Schafer, and Pat Barry – to help him prepare for Kingsbury. Roufus calls this quartet “The Four Horseman”, and Al-Hassan couldn’t be happier to be along for the ride.

“It’s destiny,” said Al-Hassan, who trained in Milwaukee with Roufus for nine weeks before finishing his camp with the Peak Perfomance team in Waterloo, Iowa. “The fact that all of us are fighting together on the same card under the same team and that it all worked out this way, it just changes your mindset to where, yeah, you’re going into the cage alone, but you don’t get there alone. You get there with a team helping you, and having your team with you from the beginning to the end of everything, it changes everything. It gives you confidence, it boosts you up, and you feel like you’re not in it alone. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Well, he would like a win, but he’s not counting his chickens before they hatch, and he’s giving The Ultimate Fighter season eight’s Kingsbury the utmost respect.

“I give all my opponents respect, and the fact that he’s in the UFC says something about his abilities as a fighter, so I do take this seriously,” he said. “I quit my job, I went away from my family and friends to go to Duke Roufus’ gym in Milwaukee and I stayed down there in an environment where I didn’t know anybody the first time. And it was because I wanted to be serious not only about pursuing my career in the UFC, but also because I was serious about the competitor I’m fighting against. So the way I go into it is that he’s a well-rounded guy, he can be a threat to me anywhere, and I have to prepare myself accordingly.”

And even though it’s hard to believe, he doesn’t miss the corporate world.

“It’s literally night and day,” he laughs. “I was working a desk job in a cubicle, nine hours a day, and then I’d train afterwards. Now that it’s all just training, training, training, my body feels better, I’m getting better, and I love training full-time because you’re the architect of your own destiny – you decide where you go with it.”

First stop – Los Angeles. And Razak Al-Hassan’s looking to be the star in his next highlight reel.

“The first fight, everybody got to see my heart and that I have the fortitude to leave it all out there,” he said. “This time I want people to see that I’ve matured and grown as a fighter over the last year. I’ve corrected the mistakes I made in my previous fight and I’ve taken my training to a whole new level now in that I’m a serious competitor, and with the right team behind me – which I have now – the sky’s the limit for me.”