Mike Swick – One Win Away

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By Thomas Gerbasi

Mike Swick was thisclose.

Just weeks after he won his fifth consecutive UFC fight over former world title challenger David Loiseau at UFC 63 on September 23, 2006, the middleweight contender was sitting in the press room at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas following UFC 64, telling anyone within earshot that he wanted a shot at the man who was crowned king of the 185-pounders that night, Anderson Silva.

It wasn’t the thing most contenders were doing that night, especially after Silva’s first round destruction of Rich Franklin, but Swick was confident, hungry, and ready to take a shot at ‘The Spider’, and he was willing to go on record with such thoughts. Of course, Silva had an early-2007 date with the winner of the upcoming Ultimate Fighter 4 winner, but after that, it would be natural for Swick to step in, especially if he got by his next opponent, Yushin Okami, at UFC 69.

But those plans went awry when he was decisioned by Okami in April of 2007, and now, over two years later, Swick is finally back within striking distance of a title shot – this time at welterweight. And he knows he can’t let this one slip away.

“You saw how excited I was to get that opportunity and then that got taken away from me, and it’s been a long road trying to get back to that position where I can get that title shot and get that chance again, so the feelings are way more powerful now,” said Swick. “It’s a lot more motivating and I appreciate it a lot more now.”

Standing in his way this time is rising British star Dan Hardy, a fighter who will have a nation behind him when he steps into the Octagon on November 14th in Manchester, England’s MEN Arena. Swick, who has competed in Europe against Marcus Davis and Ben Saunders, doesn’t mind wearing the black hat come fight time.

“You never know how fighters are gonna react to hearing either cheers or boos, but I don’t think the crowd’s gonna give him super powers,” he smiles. “He’s gonna be the same fighter. He might have a better mentality and might be a little more pumped up when he walks out, but that’s what I want. I want him to be pumped up and I want to fight him at his best. I might shed a tear or two if I get booed, but I’ll shake it off before the fight starts.”

Swick laughs, and it’s the confidence of a man who is well-prepared for the fight of his career and who has finally come into his own in his new weight class. It didn’t always look to be the case in his first two bouts at 170 pounds, as he struggled to a majority decision win over Josh Burkman and was less than scintillating in another decision win, this one over Davis.

“It was never really the weight, as much as just other stuff that was going on,” said Swick. “But I feel really good at this weight, so it’s definitely where I belong.”

But in Swick’s next two welterweight bouts, he finally looked to be acclimated to the division and back to the mix of speed and precision striking that first established him in the UFC in 2005-2006 as he blitzed Jonathan Goulet in 33 seconds last December and then halted Saunders in the second round of their UFC 99 bout in June. It was the Saunders bout that was particularly telling, as he dismantled the highly-touted Floridian with a disciplined early attack followed by a ferocious finishing flurry once he got his opponent in trouble. And given Saunders’ sizeable upside and ultra-impressive pre-UFC 99 win over Brandon Wolff, the way Swick finished him off surprised some in the fight industry.

“I’m a little surprised by how surprised people are,” said Swick. “We were confident going into that fight. We felt we could beat him, but I guess I didn’t look at it the same way everyone else did. And especially in my recent fights, I think that’s the one that surprised the most people. But that’s good because I want to keep doing that and get that title shot.”

Now he faces a similar opponent in Hardy who, like Saunders, has gotten a lot of positive notices for his recent wins, especially a 69 second highlight reel knockout of Rory Markham in February and a June victory over Davis. But is it too much, too soon for ‘The Outlaw’? If it is, Swick is certainly eager to find out, but he’s not looking at the Nottingham product as a stepping stone. Quite the opposite, actually.

“The exciting thing about this fight is not only is he a good opponent – he’s a very technical striker – but he’s a game opponent,” said Swick of Hardy. “He brings it, and mentally, he’s there, which is always a good sign. Another thing that’s exciting is that he has that all or nothing attitude. He’s got a lot to gain in this fight and not as much to lose because of the position that he’s in and I know I’m going to fight the most hungry and the most aggressive Dan Hardy out there. He’s gonna come at me with everything he’s got and that’s what’s gonna challenge me. The difference between Dan Hardy and me and where we rank doesn’t matter. The winner of this fight fights GSP (Georges St-Pierre), so it’s a huge reward for either one of us and there’s definitely a lot to gain.”

The respect seems to go both ways, as Hardy has not engaged in the all-out verbal assault with Swick that he put on Davis before their bout. Hardy-Davis was mental warfare at its most captivating, yet Swick made it clear as soon as the bout was announced that he was not about to fall for any tricks designed to knock him off his game. Call it a warning shot, or you can just put it down to experience, as Swick has been down this road before.

“It’s 50 percent they’re trying to get in my head and 50 percent trying to build their own confidence up, but either way, I definitely hear it every fight,” said Swick of pre-fight mental gymnastics. “I can’t think of a fight that I’ve had where my opponent wasn’t saying how he’s gonna beat me up and do this or that. I guess it’s kinda normal for fighting, but it does always seem like the way they say it that they do underestimate me. It’s cool, and it doesn’t bother me because all that confidence has to go somewhere. And if they get in the ring with me and it doesn’t work out the way they had hoped, all that confidence turns to panic. I’ve seen that countless times, and that’s what I like. I like watching that confidence turn to panic, and then securing that win. The more confident somebody comes into a fight, the better it is for me and my gameplan. An overconfident opponent is setting himself up for serious panic issues if things don’t work out the way he expects.”

In nine out of ten UFC fights, the 30-year old Swick has had his hand raised at the end of the night, so he must have this whole pre-fight banter thing under control, and you would think that opponents might take a look at his track record and back off a bit, right?

“I don’t think that’s ever gonna happen,” he said, “I think I’m just too skinny. (Laughs) People just look at me and say ‘ah, I’m gonna kill this guy.’ In a pre-fight press conference, I don’t expect people to say ‘well, Mike’s gonna beat me up but I’m gonna give it my all.’ But I’ve had quite a few opponents who were not only overconfident, but were a little disrespectful when it came to giving respect where it was due. They had to learn in the center of the Octagon that I was obviously better than they expected me to be.”

And Swick believes that Hardy is already at the point where he’s focusing on the fight and not on making headlines in the papers or on the internet.

“I think Hardy knows,” said Swick. “In some of his recent interviews, he stated that he knows that it’s not gonna get in my head. He knows that it’s not gonna affect me, make me insecure, or take me off my game when we fight. The bottom line is that at the end of the day, we’re gonna get in the Octagon and we’re gonna fight. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that. I’m not gonna be any more mad, angry, or aggressive towards him whether he’s nice or whether he’s mean. When I get in there, I’m a whole ‘nother person, and that’s not gonna change.”

Yet with a title shot on the line for the second time in his career, Swick does want one thing to change, and that’s the end result. Needless to say, he doesn’t plan on letting this one slip by.

“I had to get right up to that point and lose it and have to regain it all again, so it’s very exciting,” he said. “I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure I get that shot and win that belt.”