There were no medical people anywhere in the building, no ambulance. I remember people drinking 40s in the stands. The place had no air conditioning and was sweaty, loud, and wild.
It happened on a brutally hot July night in 2005, a few months after I graduated college, in a boxing gym in the Bronx. Rumble in The Bronx: My first MMA fight After 36 fights during a 15-year pro career, Frankie Edgar will hang up the gloves following Saturday's UFC 281. Here are a few personal highlights from my MMA career and some things I look forward to. And I'm looking forward to making more memories and contributions in the next chapter of my life. There have been a lot of big moments over the years, lots of ups and downs - sometimes both ups and downs in the very same fight. Now, nearly 20 years later, I'm about to close out my fight career at UFC 281, and I'm doing it practically in my backyard over at Madison Square Garden in New York ( Saturday, 10 p.m. I was never in a fight where I was the bigger guy, just like Royce in the day. I was always the little guy in a fight, too, going back to when I was very young and scrapping with other kids. All we knew was this little guy was somehow putting it on these bigger dudes. None of us at the time understood what jiu-jitsu was. He was winning and I had no idea how he was doing it. I was already wrestling by then, so I was interested to see how the wrestlers would do. My buddy and I heard about this new no-rules thing, this spectacle, and I went to his house to watch. It was right around the start of the UFC, either UFC 1 or UFC 2. Then, I saw MMA for the first time in seventh grade. The men were pissed that they'd bought a fight that ended nearly as soon as it started.īut even in that short time, it became a memorable night.
I don't remember who Tyson was up against - it might have been Michael Spinks - but I do remember Tyson going out there and getting a quick knockout. It was late at night and a bunch of my dad's friends were there, all hyped up for the big fight. I went to my next-door neighbor's house with my old man to watch Mike Tyson. It was sometime in the 1980s, and I was a young kid. I remember the first time I ever saw a prizefight. (Editor's note: This story was written with the assistance of ESPN's Jeff Wagenheim)
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