Mar-18-2010

James Irvin - Still Standing

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By Thomas Gerbasi

For years before they even made it to the big shows, my buddy and colleague Jason Probst always told me about James Irvin, Scott Smith, and Urijah Faber - a trio of friends and training partners from Northern California that he insisted had the right stuff to make it big in the still growing sport of mixed martial arts.

Irvin, now a UFC mainstay, remembers those days.

“We all started at the small Gladiator Challenge shows, making no money,” he recalls. “My first fight, Scott Smith had just become the champion. And then when I became the champion, it was Urijah’s first fight. It’s funny the way we all just came up right behind each other. Mike Roberts became our manager together as well, and in all different ways, we’ve made the most out of this sport. It’s pretty incredible.”

It has been, and Probst was right all along. From their humble beginnings in the sport, Faber went on to become the face of the WEC and a dominant featherweight champion now looking to get his belt back next month against Jose Aldo, and Smith (who fought Irvin in 2004 before they became training partners) had some big wins in the WEC and UFC in 2005-06, and even scored a slot on the fourth season of The Ultimate Fighter, before finding success outside of the organization.

As for Irvin, he’s had his own series of highs and lows, both in and out of the Octagon. Competing in the heavyweight and light heavyweight divisions, he has had highlight reel knockouts of Terry Martin and Houston Alexander in the UFC, as well as crushing losses to the likes of Anderson Silva, Mike Kyle, and Stephan Bonnar. Injuries (Particularly to his knee) have also halted his progress, and a bout with painkillers taken to deal with the effects of a broken foot cost him nine months of his career due to suspension.

Now, 20 months after his 61 second defeat against Silva, Irvin just wants to get back to where he believes he should be.

“I see Urijah in the top two or three positions, I see Scott getting ready to be in the top ten, and that’s what I miss the most, being a contender,” said Irvin. “I want to be a contender.”

On Sunday, the road back begins for the 31-year old from Sacramento, and this journey is now being taken as a middleweight, as Irvin drops to 185 pounds for the first time to battle Italy’s Alessio Sakara. For Irvin, the decision to move to his third weight class was an easy one.

“I think I’m getting into the prime of my career,” he said. “I have five years left in this sport, possibly ten if I can go without injuries, and the guys I’m going against are either world champion jiu-jitsu guys, wrestlers or Muay Thai guys. I’m none of those and I’m never gonna be any of those guys. But what I can be is one of the most athletic guys. I can be the biggest, tallest 185er, I can be the strongest, and those are the things I can put in my corner that I can’t when it comes to putting a black belt in my jiu-jitsu corner.”

It’s a realization that comes with maturity, with knowing what you can and can’t do in the world’s toughest game. And what Irvin can do is bring athleticism and speed to the 185-pound division, and when it comes to power, well, they don’t call him ‘The Sandman’ for nothing. It’s one of the reasons why this bout has been elevated from the preliminary portion of the card into a television slot on VERSUS.

“I think (UFC President) Dana White would probably kill either one of us if we tried to wrestle with each other,” laughs Irvin of his bout with Sakara, a former pro boxer. “I don’t care who you’re training with, you’re not gonna be a new submission fighter. He’s still gonna go back to his basics and that’s gonna be as a standup guy. That’s why they put us together.”

But Irvin does admit that Sakara isn’t just a one-dimensional banger anymore, a fact owed to Sakara’s alliance with the renowned American Top Team camp in Florida.

“He’s definitely a lot better and I think it all goes back to ATT,” said Irvin of Sakara. “They have one of the best, if not the best, camps in the United States, and it looks like it’s paying off. I think he was known in the past as not being a guy who trained a lot. He must have changed his ways and it definitely looks that way.”

Irvin can say the same thing about himself. He says that he’s been training at 200 pounds for six months and will have no issues making 185 before Sunday’s fight. He’s fully healed from his injuries, no longer relying on painkillers, and even though he’s come to the point where it’s do or die when it comes to making a title run, he’s fine with that. He doesn’t even bemoan the losses and down periods of the last few years. The way he sees it, it’s all part of the growing process. And he knows that everybody loves a good comeback story – it’s up to him to write it.

“Until I got to the UFC, I was undefeated,” he said. “I was steamrolling people. But I’m happy to have my losses be against the world-class fighters in the UFC. It’s funny, but that’s how it goes. I can get an eight second knockout (of Alexander), and then I have Anderson Silva smash my face. But my career’s always been that way. I have flying knee knockouts against Terry Martin and then have a lackluster loss to Thiago Silva. My fight career has been back and forth, and if I can pull it together and stay on a string of three or four knockouts, then you know how this sport is – I’d be the next great 185er.”

Not a bad mindset to have after 20 months of question marks and physical hurdles to climb over. Irvin laughs, just before he makes it clear that with him it’s either feast or famine. But at this juncture in his life, he chose ‘feast’.

“I’m an extremist – I’m one or the other,” he said. “I’m either gonna be down in the dumps and no one’s ever gonna see me again, or I rise to the occasion, get my knee surgery done, and I’m gonna go racing back to the top of the game, and that’s what I’m doing right now.”