TUF 5 Profiles - Allen Berube

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By Thomas Gerbasi

The phone doesn’t stop ringing for Allen Berube. Even before the first episode of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’s fifth season aired, the 32-year old aspiring mixed martial artist was fielding calls in a rapid-fire fashion.

First it was someone asking about a promotion in his Tampa seafood restaurant, ‘Monstah Lobstah’.

“Yes, all you can eat snow crab,” said Berube, ever the accommodating host. Next it was someone placing an order for over $200 worth of lobster, then a reporter from his hometown newspaper in Maine.

This is the Life of Berube, and just when you think you’ve heard it all in the combat sports business, along comes this gregarious New Englander, who entered the fight game not for money, fame, or to become a world champion.

He did it for free advertising.

More on that later. First, a little background. Born in Biddeford, Maine, Berube boxed as an amateur back home, but it was never anything serious. Blessed with an entrepreneurial spirit, he was struck with an idea to open a restaurant after trips to Florida always saw him getting slammed with requests to bring lobster down to the Sunshine State.

So eight years ago he opened his first takeout stand, followed by a second one three years later, and finally, a 40 seat restaurant. Business was booming, so Berube took the leap into the big leagues – a 4,500 square foot establishment with a stocked bar and 200 seats.

“I built everything myself,” said Berube. “It cost me almost $400,000 to build it. So when I opened that one up I closed down my little take out because it was right down the street. Big mistake – I tanked. The place went under, bankrupted. It almost took me down completely, but I was able to keep my little restaurant down in South Tampa, the 40 seater, and it was all about regrouping.”

Down, but not out, Berube started on the road back. But it was like starting all over for the restaurateur, who obviously had no budget for advertising.

“My advertising was basically making up a bunch of lobster roll sandwiches and going to all the hair salons,” he said. “I would drop them off to the girls and have the girls talk about it.”

By then, Berube was training at a Gracie Jiu-Jitsu school in Tampa and competing in tournaments. By chance he went to a local MMA show to support a friend who was fighting in the event, and then it hit him.

“I saw my friend fight and I said look at all the people in this crowd,” he recalled. “None of these fighters had any personality, so I said, if I can start fighting, even if I don’t win, I can still get in that ring and plug my business.”

It may have been the craziest marketing scheme ever conceived, but Berube didn’t care –“What business owner puts his chin on the line for advertising?” he laughs - and he was going to give it a shot.

Berube fought three times locally, winning two. By then, his wife Anetka was on board and the idea of taking his MMA career further was starting to snowball. It put him in Miami for the TUF5 tryouts, and regardless of whether he could fight or not, his infectious personality alone made him a natural for the Spike TV reality show.

Making it to the show alone was the perfect Hollywood ending, but in this reality show, you get eliminated by losing a fight – a tough and painful way to get your 15 minutes of fame. And when you’re surrounded by 15 other fighters who are more experienced than you are, it was a daunting time for Berube.

“All of them wanted to kill me,” he admitted. “They all smelled the blood.”

And once the workouts led by his coach on the show, BJ Penn, commenced, it just got worse.

“After the first couple of days, I was like, man these workouts are intense,” he chuckled. “They probably filmed me puking ten times. I was gassing and hating it, it was tough. I was like, ‘Man, what did I get myself into? Can I compete with these guys?’ It wasn’t until the third or fourth week when BJ told me, ‘Allen, you seem like the most improved so far.’ And the other fighters said the same thing. So I said, I might be able to do something here. If I can get some sponsorship so I can hire an extra person to fill my spot in my store, I can fight a little bit more and train a little bit more, and then, who knows.”

It was no surprise that Berube was the first fighter picked to fight, and he was submitted by Cole Miller in the season’s first episode, but despite his early exit, he still stayed for the six weeks of grueling training. That wasn’t the worst part of his stay though. For him, being separated from the outside world wasn’t stressful because he was away from family or because he couldn’t check his e-mail. He was away from his business for six weeks that could have broken him if things didn’t go right.

“That was real tough,” he admitted. “I was worrying if my store was gonna burn down so I was a little stressed. There were times when we were just driving home and I was holding it back and trying to keep it together. I was thinking, ‘Are the bills being paid, are the taxes being paid?’ I’ve got two pitbulls and they’re nuts. My wife had to walk these dogs every day. I started thinking, ‘what if one of them gets loose and bites a neighbor?’ You never know what you’re gonna come home to. Fortunately enough, I came home and everything was fine.”

His four-man team at the restaurant put in double shifts to keep it business as usual at ‘Monstah Lobstah’, and now that it’s all over, Berube is ready for phase two of the process – fielding the numerous media requests and preparing for life after TUF5. It’s something he’s looking forward to, not only for the obvious reason of promoting his restaurant, but for also continuing to test himself in the sport. In fact, he’s willing to give four-division boxing champion Floyd Mayweather Jr., a recent critic of mixed martial arts, a taste of life in the Octagon.

“I’ll give him his first MMA fight if he thinks he’s so tough,” said Berube of ‘Pretty Boy Floyd’. “I’m not even one of the best MMA fighters out there and I’ll still whip his ass. This is more real than boxing, and that’s why people like it. And it ain’t going anywhere. It’s gonna make boxing obsolete.”

Spoken like a true mixed martial artist. And even if Allen Berube never rises up the 155-pound ranks and gets mentioned in the same sentence with some of the best in the sport, the fact that he took a shot and got this far is inspiring enough. In fact, Berube’s chutzpah is reason enough to bring a smile to anyone’s face.

“The people I want as fans are the blue collar workers, the people that bust their ass working for the man who want to know ‘Could I do that? Could I keep up with these guys?’” he said. “That’s who I want for fans, because I’m just a regular blue collar worker, I’m the average man.”

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