Midd junior tries hand at cage fighting Jay Yonamine '07 takes 90 seconds to claim first ultimate fighting victory

Author: Jeff Patterson

Jay Yonamine '07, a political science major, spent his fall term in D.C. - definitely commonplace - but on Jan. 21 he "did the most extreme thing [he's] ever done," when he fought a mixed martial arts bout. With SPRAWL scrawled across his shorts, Jay won his first fight in an octagonal cage.

After watching Ultimate Fighting on TV and reading up on technique, Jay enrolled in a fight school over summer break near his Minnesota home run by his current trainer/promoter Mike Reilly. Within six months Jay was cage-ready. It should be noted that it can take as long as two years for some people to master the necessary skills.

On the morning of the fight against Dan Monet, who had three fights under his belt, Jay woke up thinking, "Tonight I'm going to be in the cage." Looking back, he wouldn't describe the feeling as "scared," just "extremely nervous." Yonamine had to be at the Rochester, Minn., arena, which was charging $50 for a front-row seat, several hours before the start of the match, and all he could do was sit around. At 9 p.m. he heard the cage's door lock behind him and there was no chance to back out. "Humans react with either fight or flight. In the cage, you can only fight," he said.

Yonamine doesn't remember much about the fight, even though it was four weeks ago, but he does recall being surprised when instead of beginning the match by touching gloves with the other fighter, like he expected, the referee just said, "Fight." Yonamine hesitated a little, but then went at Monet. He thought the fight only lasted several seconds, but his coach said it was more like a minute and a half.

Yonamine remembers Reilly shouting, "Break his f---ing arm," when Jay was in the driver's seat. After the fight, Reilly claimed it was only to intimidate the other guy, but in the heat of battle and as a rookie, Yonamine followed his coach's instructions. Luckily for Monet, he tapped out when he did. If Monet hadn't, he would have needed a cast.

"You have to be super intense. [I call it] calm aggression and you have to save it up," said Yonamine. He feels he was successful because he concentrated on his technique. "Sometimes fighters get too pumped up and instead of using proper technique, they just flail their arms," he said.

Yonamine had only positive things to say about the sportsmanship displayed, more often than not with a hug, on the mat after fights. "Nothing is left unsettled and by fighting, [both competitors] see who's boss. The loser [can only blame himself]," Yonamine said. Mixed martial arts was an original Olympic event under the name pankration and Yonamine questions why it is no longer in the Olympic games: "It's the purest form of sport," he said. "Skeleton is not."

Mixed martial arts has caught on all over the globe - especially in Brazil, Holland and Japan, where one PRIDE Fighting Championship event was attended by 90,000 - but it has not had the same success in the U.S. Senator John McCain was a big reason for a four-year stoppage in the sport from 1997-2001, but with new rules that carefully define 31 fouls including biting, eye-gouging and head-butting, along with set weight classes, the sport is growing in popularity. Mixed martial arts is especially popular in the Midwest, where college wrestling is just as big as college basketball is on Tobacco Road. McCain's negativity towards the sport is understandable - he was tortured for five and a half years as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton - but he is still a boxing fan, and the two positions seem hypocritical.

As Yonamine is quick to point out, no one has ever died in a mixed martial arts fight, but the average number of deaths from boxing is nine per year. Regular cage fights last a maximum of three rounds, compared to 12 in boxing, and as a result the cage fighter's brain is not blitzed with hundreds and hundreds of punches.

A cage fighter's diet usually doesn't include 4-5 meals and 3,500 calories a day, but when it is "a lot of oatmeal and bananas" combined with exercise, it'll get you in tip-top shape. Training is "intense, really intense." Yonamine and his dozen or so teammates, so-called because they train together and accompany each other on each fighter's walk to the cage - do various types of cardiovascular exercises "pretty much until failure." His teammates range in age from 18 to 30. Some are high school dropouts, but one is pursuing his M.D. Their favorite conversations typically involve their new rifles or snowmobiles. In practice, Yonamine and his teammates perfect their technique, but obviously don't go all out, as they would against a scheduled opponent. "If you don't tap out [when you're losing a fight] you'll either get choked or some bones will break.

Yonamine's left ear is currently full of gauze and stitches, but the injury wasn't from a punch. In fact, he was "only grazed once," and thanks to a "disgustingly" large amount of vaseline on his face, Monet's fist slid away harmlessly. The injury occurred from constantly banging against the firm mat. "I was surprised how hard it was, it was nothing like the wrestling mats we train on.

Even though Middlebury has strict rules concerning fighting, Yonamine doesn't see any problems in the future. "I don't have underlying rage... I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it."