Dec-31-2009

Dustin Hazelett and What Martial Arts Should Be

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By Thomas Gerbasi

Dustin Hazelett isn’t a young man who loves chaos in his life. He’s analytical, a technician. But after the last month and a half, the Kentucky native got a crash course in craziness as a participant in two of the more bizarre fight events in recent memory.

It all started at UFC 106 in November. As Hazelett was raring to go for his first fight in over year, his opponent, Karo Parisyan, pulled out of the bout just two days before the opening bell, leaving him“blindsided.”

He would get his full paycheck for that night, but for a professional fighter, it’s not just about the money – it’s mainly about the competition, and Hazelett was left without that end of the bargain.

“When I didn’t fight, I didn’t get that feeling,” he said. “Our training camps are long and hard and you sacrifice so much, and at the end, you get to fight and that’s the payoff. And I didn’t have that, so it was like this empty feeling.”

UFC matchmaker Joe Silva told him that he would keep him in mind should any openings arise in upcoming shows, so Hazelett took just a week off to rest his body from the Parisyan training camp and got back into the gym in Ohio. That was when bizarre event number two took place when fellow up and comer Carlos Condit sliced his hand open on a piece of sheet metal, forcing him out of his UFC 108 showdown with Paul Daley.

Losing the Parisyan fight was bad bizarre.

Getting the call to take on Daley in this Saturday’s co-main event was good bizarre, and Hazelett immediately accepted the match. And as is often the case when fights fall apart due to injury, the replacement bout is sometimes even more intriguing than the original one. That’s certainly what seems to be happening with Hazelett vs Daley, a classic matchup between grappler and striker that the 23-year old can’t wait for.

“I’ve watched him (Daley) fight before, I’ve heard about him for a long time, and he definitely put everybody on notice with his victory over (Martin) Kampmann,” said Hazelett, referring to Daley’s UFC debut knockout of Kampmann last September. “I think it’s definitely going to be a very exciting fight because of his skill on the feet and my skill on the ground. Anywhere the fight goes, there’s gonna be action. There’s not really gonna be a place for either of us to stall in this fight.”

And though Hazelett may not care for the chaos that occasionally comes attached to the fight game, when it comes to the chaos inside the Octagon, he’s got no problem with that; in fact, he excels in the midst of scrambles that would rattle most competitors because that’s where he comes up with some of the out of this world submissions that have become his trademark. And when you consider that five of Daley’s eight defeats have come by submission, you may say ‘well, Hazelett’s going to have an easy night.’ But you’d be wrong because to get close enough to Daley, Hazelett’s going to have to deal with power that has gotten the Nottingham product dubbed ‘Semtex’. Now things are even more interesting.

Hazelett agrees.

“The thing that’s so challenging about it is that every fight starts on the feet, which is where he’s strongest, and he’s very explosive and quick,” he said. “Plus, it’s no-gi instead of gi in MMA, so there’s a lot more of the slip factor.”

So the longer the fight goes, as sweat become a factor, the harder Hazelett will have to work for the finish. Daley on the other hand, probably won’t lose too much off his speed if the fight gets into round two or three, and losing power certainly won’t be an issue either. Hazelett is well aware of all these factors though, and he is confident that his technique will win the day.

“I’m a firm believer in the proper execution of technique, and this is just another case of that,” he said. “Obviously he’s very skilled on his feet, but it’s his power and speed that make him dangerous as well.”

Daley, at 5 foot 9, isn’t the biggest welterweight in the world though, a good thing for the 6 foot 1 Hazelett, who doesn’t cut the amount of weight most of his peers do. He was already at 172 pounds the day before the weigh-in for the aborted Parisyan fight, and doesn’t expect to be bulking up to 190 come fight night this week either.

“I feel better, even though the day of the fight I’m usually 10-15 pounds lighter than the person I’m fighting,” he said. “I feel stronger. It’s a disadvantage, but it’s an advantage at the same time.”

What Hazelett also sees as a benefit for himself come fight night is that when it comes to speed and power, he’s already tasted some of that in a real fight during his 2008 bout with Josh Koscheck. He lost that bout via a second round TKO, but it got him acclimated to what he may be dealing with in Daley on Saturday, and along with his work in the gym, he feels ready for whatever his opponent may throw at him.

“We have some very explosive guys at the gym, and obviously it’s gonna be hard to replicate somebody like that (Daley) in sparring because of his immense Thai Boxing experience,” said Hazelett. “We don’t have anybody with that build, that explosive, with that kind of experience. But we do have some explosive guys who are good strikers, so that’s helped me a lot. I also think that when I fought Koscheck, he has that same kind of explosive speed and power and that’s a good advantage for me having had that fight to have that experience against a guy like that. Obviously Daley’s striking is more crisp than Koscheck’s, but it’s the same kind of explosive speed and power that I’ll be dealing with.”

And should he survive incoming fire from Daley, take him down and force him to tap out, it may be safe to say that the likelihood of Hazelett being called in as the replacement guy in the future won’t be as likely, so you may just want to pencil him in for the main card from now on. But you won’t hear anything like that coming from his mouth. It’s not his style and it’s not the way he feels about this sport. His motivations run a lot purer than simply getting TV time.

“One thing that I really want to promote through my fighting is what martial arts is supposed to be,” he said. “Everybody nowadays is arrogant and talking smack and stuff, and that’s not the way that I think it’s supposed to be. This isn’t pro wrestling. This is a martial arts competition and people are supposed to have the honor and respect. I feel like a lot of fighters are getting away from that and I want to be one of the guys that is still promoting that kind of an attitude with a sense of humility.”