Grounds To Pound

Despite the high-profile victories, Post’s record is an unimpressive-sounding seven wins, nine losses, and one draw. “If you can’t take a loss, you don’t belong in the sport,” he says with a grin, his words thickened by a pierced tongue. With so many ways to lose a bout, it’s true that every mma fighter must get used to defeat. Post’s losses, though, have all been by technical knockout, and the last two were particularly brutal.

At the Rumble, set for the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena in Hagersville, he’s matched up against Chuck Monture. Organizers have revealed only that Monture is five-ten, this is his first fight, and he’s the son of the event commissioner. But Post recently received grapevine notice that his opponent is in fact an experienced member of a Brazilian jiu-jitsu club in Niagara Falls. The omission, coupled with the nepotism and Post’s losing record, suggests that he’s being set up for defeat.

The demands of training for a high-profile fight are more than Post can afford right now, and his regimen has been spotty compared with the one Denis followed. Though he still drives down every Saturday to work with Goodridge in Barrie, Post has otherwise resigned himself to a little ground fighting, a little takedown defence, and a little heavy bag, with not much in the way of cardio. Although he would prefer to fight as a 185-pound middleweight, this time out he will be a 205-pound light heavyweight. His 205, he acknowledges sheepishly, is “a little flabby.”

The Punishment Pound’s comparatively haphazard approach is especially worrisome because Post will have to keep Monture away from a partially detached retina suffered in his last fight. The doctor told him he should take a year off before fighting again, that one solid strike could lose him his sight. But the chance to fight before an Ontario crowd — including his mother, Irmgard, who will see him in action for the first time — is too good to pass up. Mustering what would be unconvincing bravado had he not once fought with a broken arm, Post says that if the lights go out, they’ll go out his way — “guns blazing.”

Fight night on the Six Nations reserve is a pale reflection of a Vegas main event. The fans dotting the neon orange seats are overshadowed, and at times seemingly outnumbered, by gigantic glossy banners displaying Iroquois lacrosse players. Tickets for the event are pricey, especially for a first-time affair taking place hours outside Toronto: $50 for the stands and $75 for the floor, with tables around the traditional elevated boxing ring where the fights will take place going for $1,200 each. The concession stand is churning out popcorn and hot dogs at a steady pace, however, and local businesses such as Sit ‘n’ Bull Construction and the Lone Wolf Pit Stop have rallied around the event. The event’s organizers have also flown in burly and genial ufc veteran Dan “The Beast” Severn to glad-hand patrons in one of the washed-out hallways skirting the arena seats.

Such is the hardscrabble lot of many North American promotions, a patchwork assembly of roughly three tiers. At the lowest level are fly-by-night and start-up operations such as the Rumble. Then there are the established minor leagues, which include the US Army–sponsored International Fighting Championships, Canadian online gambling magnate Calvin Ayre’s Bodog Fight, and King of the Cage, whose Western Canadian offshoot is run by a professional gunslinger out of the Wild West Shooting Centre at West Edmonton Mall. Above them all sits ufc.

The Rumble’s promoters have kept tonight’s lineup a secret, for fear the Ontario Athletic Commission (oac) will punish combatants for participating in a renegade event. Despite the absence of the oac, safety and medical protocols have been a priority, which is not always the case with lower-tier events. Each fighter has submitted the results of a recent blood test, and a doctor is on hand for pre-fight checkups. He’ll be at ringside for the bouts, backed by a half-dozen medics.

Prior to the event, the promoter, Jack Bateman, a thin and intense twenty-nine-year-old from Newmarket, Ontario, hustles about the arena in a dark suit. Pausing for a moment in one of the dressing rooms, Bateman, an electrician by trade, explains the decision not to release names. “We didn’t know 100 percent whether we’d missed anything legally,” he says. “Better safe than sorry.” He is, he adds, working with backers from Calgary and Montreal to lobby the oac.

Out on the floor, in the first row of seats behind a neutral corner, sits Irmgard Post. Sporting a shock of dyed burgundy hair, two dazzling green triangles that sway beneath three sets of studs in each ear, and a pierced tongue in common with her son, the vivacious Mrs. Post confides that she has already made her presence known to the referee, a granite-based life form known as Kaz. She wagged a finger at the official, an experienced fighter whose real name is Wojtek Kaszowski, admonishing him to keep the combatants away from the edge of the mat, where they might become entangled in the ropes or fall to the floor.

Rumours about Chuck Monture are floating around the arena. He’s had fifty fights down in the States. He’s a former hockey and lacrosse player. He likes to go to the ground. He likes to stand and trade. In response to the hearsay, Post has decided on a late strategy change: he’s going to bring a little Rumble in the Jungle to the Rumble on the Rez, accepting whatever punishment Monture doles out early, then taking advantage of his fatigue late, à la Ali in Zaire. He already took his first blow a few days ago, he says: an air conditioning unit fell on him at work, leaving a gash on his right shin.