Matt Mitrione's refuse-to-lose mentality vital in NFL and "The Ultimate Fighter 10"
For 15 months Matt Mitrione sat idle in his Jersey City studio apartment. His pad was high enough to provide a picturesque view across the Hudson River of the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan's Financial District.
Not that he enjoyed it; that heavenly presentation was part of Mitrione's hell.
Three years earlier Mitrione broke the navicular bone in his right foot, a fracture that marred his senior season at Purdue University. He linked up with the NFL's New York Giants as an un-drafted free agent and played through the pain before it reached intolerable levels during a 2003 NFC Wild Card game in San Francisco.
Surgery was supposed to help, but Mitrione's agony reached the horrific stage. He developed a staph infection and needed seven more procedures, one that cut off his heel and reattached it to build an orthotic in his foot.
"The amount of pain that I took was something I never felt before," Mitrione told MMAjunkie.com (
www.mmajunkie.com). "All I would do for a long time was lie in bed, listen to music and do isometric flexes because I couldn't raise my blood pressure."
He had that covered in San Francisco, when his Giants were on the receiving end of the second-biggest comeback in NFL playoff history. Ahead 38-14, the Giants succumbed to the 49ers, 39-38, the death blow Trey Junkin's botched snap of an attempt at the game-winning field goal. As a kid, Mitrione lost his fair share of street fights and never could shake the feeling of getting his ass whipped.
This, in particular, sucked. Mitrione's foot was screaming in pain, his gut in agony.
"We sat in that locker room and, literally, it was the worst feeling you can imagine," Mitrione said. "Like you just had the – I don't want to ever experience that again."
It was said by Robert F. Kennedy, "Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly." Mitrione has written his own book of proverbs, beginning with, "I truly believe I am too stubborn to lose." Told his football career was over, he told the messenger, Dr. Phillip Kwong of the Los Angeles-based Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedic Clinic, "Go to hell."
Two years later he was among the Minnesota Vikings' final cuts before he was re-signed as a reserve defensive tackle.
But this month Mitrione is one of 16 heavyweights vying for a UFC contract on "The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights," the 10th season of the UFC's reality series that premiers Sept. 16 on Spike TV following UFC Fight Night 19. It's the next big step in an athletic career once in paralysis.
"Even though it probably should have been, I've had a lot of pain in there for a long time; I wasn't ready for someone to tell me I was done playing," Mitrione said of his football career. "I was too stubborn."
Mind, body and soul searching beyond tenacious levels are required to live in house with 15 other men under luxurious yet primitive conditions. Phones, television and the Internet are outlawed, and the closest you get to Las Vegas' delicious sins is a view of the strip from atop a loft. Mitrione lived that life for more than three months, away from his wife and two children, and a return to normalcy proved foreign. Everyday errands like riding with the car radio on and talking on the phone were foreign. Being away for Father's Day and returning to find your two-month old aged times two, well...
"I would go on that show again but not for less than half a million," Mitrione said. "That's how much it sucked. It was a grind.
"The house is such a hyper-masculine environment. You're always ready to snap and pop off on anybody. When I got home, it took me about 10 days to two weeks just to be comfortable sleeping in a bed with my wife. I had to really keep my temper in check with my 3-year-old son. I wanted to make sure I didn't pop off on him. The whole mental thing goes beyond the show. It goes into real life when the show is over."
So why do it? Yes, it was a chance for Mitrione to break into the UFC despite his mixed martial arts record of 0-0, but why risk returning to the real word with battle scars and flashbacks?
It's simple: Mitrione is addicted to competition. In his words, "You drop your sack, I drop mine, and let's see who wins." While a rookie with the Giants – remember, he was un-drafted - he never bothered to read anyone's bios. He's fresh to MMA, having trained for less than a year. UFC history to him is more foreign than that of the ancient Sumerians. When teams were picked, all he could tell himself was, "Who's this clown? Is this for real?" During one training session he sat beside final IFL champion and show favorite Roy Nelson and repeatedly asked his name and who he was.
That I'm-better-than-you attitude was immediately apparent when Mitrione met his current training partner, a 10-year veteran of the sport named Chris Lytle. Human relations deems that an immediate turnoff. In the heat of competition, for the right person, that's considered an edge.
"You see that when you first meet him, the way he carries himself and the way he talks," Lytle said. "You're either going to like him right away or you're not. I like it. I don't know if it's cockiness or self-assurance or whatever you want to call it, but you need that. You have to feel you're better than that person and you're going to win the fight. If you don't have that, you're probably going to get hurt."
Mitrione had "it" during his two-position role (defensive tackle/fullback) at Sacred Heart Griffin High School (Springfield, Ill.). He had "it" at Purdue University, where he earned All-Big Ten honors his senior year and finished seventh on the Boilermakers' career tackles-for-loss list.
"It" was enough to impress Giants head coach Jim Fassel, who found a spot for Mitrione as a reserve lineman. The Giants were 6-6 on Dec. 1 of Mitrione's rookie season when Fassel took over the play-calling. His offense responded with 81 points in two weeks (the most they've scored in back-to-back games since Sept. 29 and Oct. 6, 1968) and a blood-and-guts 10-7 win over the Eagles that clinched a Wild Card berth on the season's final day.
Fassel's offense was steamrolling over the 49ers during their playoff game to build a 38-14 lead. On the bench, Mitrione was thinking immediate gratification when left tackle Luke Petigout warned him, "There's so much time on the clock. Don't think too fast." Next thing he remembers was his foot saying uncle, Junkin's botched snap and a pass interference call that wasn't.
Mitrione played two more years without coming close to a shot at redemption. He left football after the Vikings released him in Week 6 of the 2005 season and created a sports nutrition company called Engineer Design Nutrition (EDN).
"I left on my terms," Mitrione said. "I got back to a spot where somebody said I was never able to do. I'm entirely too stubborn to not do what I want to do."
Football helped Mitrione lay the foundation for a fighting career. Being a pass rusher helped use his hips and body to throw and land punches with precision, a system he named "Functionally Fit to Punch You in the Face." His work at EDN hooked him up with a client named Jayson Werth, a slugging outfielder for the Phillies who doubles as a promoter for the Illinois-based Capital City Cage Wars.
Looking to open more doors in MMA, Mitrione cold-called agent Ken Pavia, was introduced to Pavia clients Lytle and Jake O'Brien, and relocated to Indianapolis to train at Integrated Fighting Academy. He was booked for one of Werth's events before suffering a knee injury that sidelined him for three months, but he so quickly impressed Lytle and O'Brien that Pavia called "TUF" producers to recommend Mitrione for a tryout.
"I told him he has the skill set to be a star, that the guys were raving about you and this is your chance to get into the UFC," Pavia said. "They gave him a look, and his personality got him on the show."
Win or lose, Lytle sees Mitrione as a trendsetter and a role model for large and nimble athletes to gravitate toward the sport. The next few months will reveal Mitrione's ultimate fate, but he's already talking like he ruled the roost. Even if Nelson provided him with a biography in the form of a knockout punch and you don't see him fighting for a UFC contract Dec. 5 in Las Vegas, Mitrione's will to win is inexorable, so don't expect him to pack up and return to a state of anonymity.
Second place is the first loser. And Mitrione is just too damn stubborn.
"If you're not winning, who cares about you?" Mitrione said. "Tell me who that second sprinter was in that 100-meter dash. Who cares? If you don't win, brother, you're wasting everybody's time."
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