its-time-my-360-view-of-the-ufc

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BUFFERISM NO. 2“REACH FOR THE STARS WHEN FULFILLING YOUR DREAMS.”Don’t just take one step forward. Take it to the highest level possible. Don’t be halfassedin anything you do. Believe in yourself and your ability. Don’t just reach forthe stars—be a star yourself.Eventually, my mom’s faith in my dad proved to be a good bet. In the coming years,my dad would build a successful career as a writer. He wrote nonction articles formagazines like Guns & Ammo. I was much older when I unearthed stories he’d writteneven earlier in his career, for men’s magazines such as Playboy and Argosy. They weremacho guy stories about womanizing, swaggering tough men who brawled their waythrough a series of crazy adventures. Dad basically wrote about himself, and in theworld of fiction, he always got the dames.And on the side, he and my mother began displaying his collection of antiques andcollectibles from World War II and earlier. They reserved booths at gun collector showsheld in Vegas, and over time managed to learn a lot about buying and selling collectibleweapons and artifacts to the public.But the success of all those ventures was o in the future. Right then I was a kid whowanted to go skiing with his friends, and my family didn’t have seventy-ve dollars tothrow away on my trip. I was ne with not going; I really was. I’d never been skiingbefore, so I didn’t know what I’d be missing. I’d spend the weekend with my brother andmy parents, like always. No big whoop.But a day later, when I came home from school, my mother took me aside and handedme a wad of cash. “You take this and you have fun,” she told me.Hey, great, I thought, and I went on my ski trip after all.A week or so later, at about two o’clock in the morning, I awoke to hear my parentstalking in the kitchen. The month was almost up, and they needed money for the rentand other bills. They were coming up short, and were at their wits’ end trying to gureout how they were going to get over that first-of-the-month hump.I huddled in my room. I felt terrible. My mother had given me all that money andnow they didn’t have what they needed to pay their bills. How selsh had I been? Whothe hell was I to ask for seventy-ve dollars when my parents were trying to make endsmeet?It was a pivotal moment in my life, one that nearly brings me to tears when I thinkabout it today.I resolved never to ask my parents for money ever again. I would nd a way to makemoney and keep making it. And if I could gure out a way to help them, too, then Iwould.From that moment forward, I devoted my free time to conceiving, building, andmarketing a business to my fellow high schoolers. Never in a million years would youguess, knowing me today, what I sold.Jewelry.
I made it myself, in my bedroom, cranking out beautiful necklaces and earrings usingturquoise stones and various metals I got at a craft store. The girls in school loved it.The boys loved buying it for them, and plenty of people even bought them to give asgifts to people in their families. Soon I was doing well, earning about $800 to $1,000 amonth in 1970s dollars. I remember my jewelry once getting me out of trouble with mygym coach. In my senior year I had cut a number of gym classes and used to go tobreakfast at the diner across the street instead. And now I was in danger of failing gym,of all things. So I built the world’s most beautiful necklace and presented it to the coach.“This is for your wife,” I said. “No charge.”He was flabbergasted and accepted it gratefully.“But there’s just one thing,” I said.“You’re failing,” he said. “This doesn’t change anything.”“I know, but couldn’t you please just give me a passing grade? I know I don’t deserveanything better.”“You don’t!” And then he softened and added, “I’ll see what I can do.”I know you probably don’t want your kids doing this at school, but it shows that at ayoung age, I was already learning how to make deals.THERE was no high school in Malibu, so my brother and I went to Santa Monica HighSchool. Weekends, all of us kids used to hang out on the beach. Finding the right spotwas usually a hassle. Our school had a erce rivalry going with nearby Venice HighSchool. If there wasn’t a football game on the weekend, there was a street ght alongthat strip of coast between the kids from those two schools. Beach culture naturallyseems to breed turf wars.One night we were all hanging out at a big party on a stretch of Northern MalibuBeach called Zero’s, in front of a number of houses that were scheduled to be demolishedbecause the county was turning this small stretch of surng paradise into public beachaccess. It was a big night for us local kids. Almost every teenager from Malibu who wentto Santa Monica High was there, plus a bunch of kids from other locales, as fate wouldhave it. We had a bonfire. A live band. Beer. Girls. Everything a teenager could want.No one had shown up to hassle us. Everything was going great. And then, all of asudden, a guy who I later found out was the middle linebacker for Loyola High startedarguing with people on the beach, including a female friend of mine. None of us knewwhat it was about. All we saw was the football player punch and drop my friend’sboyfriend in the sand. My friend started yelling at him. The football player hauled oand punched her, too. Down she dropped into the sand.Everyone was shocked. Oh my God, how could this happen?But no one, no one, stepped forward.This guy just loomed over these two kids and kept taunting them while they held theirfaces. The girl was crying. Her girlfriends were afraid to go over and get her out ofthere.Then someone walked out of the crowd and said to the big lug, “I think you should
Page 3 and 4: Copyright © 2013 by Bruce BufferAl
Page 5 and 6: CONTENTSCoverTitle PageCopyrightDed
Page 7 and 8: PROLOGUETORONTOLike everyone else o
Page 9 and 10: I stalked over to Georges and locke
Page 11 and 12: Worse, I’d done it all to myself.
Page 13 and 14: an away. He never messed with me ag
Page 15 and 16: father’s tough-guy persona dwelt
Page 17: 2FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!When I was in
Page 21 and 22: “What happened, Bruce?”I could
Page 23 and 24: Áreas que evalúaEl ECELE23
Page 25 and 26: eective. When it dawned on me that
Page 27 and 28: doing a lateral transfer to the Red
Page 29 and 30: At one point, telemarketing rooms w
Page 31 and 32: 4SECRETSEvery family has its secret
Page 33 and 34: Then he looked back at the road.Fin
Page 35 and 36: market it in any way, and no one wa
Page 37 and 38: 5SELLING THE VOICENow that I had Mi
Page 39 and 40: I’d been a big video game player
Page 41 and 42: trademark. You need to license it s
Page 43 and 44: 6TAP OUT“Tap,” he said.I was ab
Page 45: invited me to do some sparring with
Page 49 and 50: He was, after all, a former Marine
Page 51 and 52: mainstream sporting franchise was o
Page 53 and 54: thing to watch.The businessman in m
Page 55 and 56: 8WHITE KNIGHTIt wasn’t until afte
Page 57 and 58: feel it would be a good move for me
Page 59 and 60: TUF 14 Finale and was completely ov
Page 61 and 62: ef has to stand them back up and re
Page 63 and 64: Now, of course, the next day Zua st
Page 65 and 66: people never do. You chase somethin
Page 67: easily wipe yourself out from heats
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one good leg, I was able to work ou
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My parents, Joseph and Connie, in t
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UFC 8 in Puerto Rico was my first U
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At a club with Rampage Jackson: Ram
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If you ask me, Chuck Liddell is one
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A couple years after my 360 triumph
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12BRAWL IN THE FAMILYPat Miletich,
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do, and don’t realize how intelli
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started punching Bo. Tito saw his f
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the last time we saw that happen. I
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myself ready to bring it if that ha
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13ON THE ROADA big reason I love my
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They were remarkable, almost spirit
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He whacked me loud and hard. I went
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How far we’ve come.
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ghter I’ve ever known, and I thin
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enjoyed doing it, because it’s wo
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see played on the World Series of P
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out more than a hundred yards or in
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when they’re holding “premium
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16THE ICEMANThe funny thing about M
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infamous Chinawhite—where he was
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17FANSOne December, a young man wro
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and he admitted jokingly that he ha
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the night we had our largest attend
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18RAMPAGE“My nose hurts,” Rampa
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of my old girlfriends, a beautiful
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chains around his neck and howls at
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which was held at a ballroom in the
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But a lot of people simply don’t
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Ken, who was pissed at something Ti
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ground and got up, going three roun
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He nodded. “Yes, Bruce.”I love
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wrestling. But it was only later, w
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lot of the ghters, because he train
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Chuck Norris is another of the grea
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uidity of movement, speed, and powe
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22360When I set out to become an an
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the ght started. (Well, okay, maybe
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say because, to my mind, it’s gon
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Sometimes guys up the ante: “Want
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Brian and my VP, Kristen, have both
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affairs.Kristen is my right arm. Wi
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24INTO THAT GOOD NIGHTIn 1999 I neg
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through the restaurant, and just as
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In the days after he passed away, I
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EPILOGUERETURN TO THE OCTAGONAs Aug
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who’ve known the thrill of the gh
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All I’m trying to do is get some
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I’m about to ascend the steps of
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wonderful “team”: Chris, Henry,
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