10/08/2006
John Alessio - Just Getting Started
By Thomas Gerbasi of UFC.com. Picture courtesy of UFC.com.
As John Alessio describes it, he “was like a deer caught in headlights” when he made his UFC debut in June of 2000 against Pat Miletich. Just 19, Alessio had been training in mixed martial arts for less than two years and had compiled a 6-3 record when he got the call from the UFC. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“When I first started watching the sport, I was watching Pat Miletich win the title,” he remembered. “I watched him beat people, and me, just getting started, I said, ‘one day, I want to be there.’ The next thing you know, I get the phone call and I’m fighting him, and it was very overwhelming.”
Add in the fact that Alessio was fighting in Miletich’s Iowa hometown, and the pressure doubled.
“When I stepped into that Octagon I was definitely shocked,” said Alessio who was submitted by Miletich in the second round. “It was probably a little too much too soon for me. I was only 19 years old and had only been training for under two years in the sport. It was kinda premature for me. I wish I had another chance and maybe not to fight for the title in my first chance, but it was an opportunity I wasn’t gonna turn down, because what if I won? I would have been the youngest champ of the world and that would have been an accomplishment right there.”
It was the type of fight where you gave Alessio a ton of credit for having the heart to step up and take on a seasoned vet like Miletich, and you just knew that he would be back in the UFC.
What you didn’t know was that it would take six years.
“It was very frustrating,” said Alessio, who finally came back to the Octagon in May, losing a close three round decision to Diego Sanchez. “I beat some guys and then a couple months later, they’re in the UFC and I was wondering what the heck was going on. Why am I beating these guys and they’re getting the opportunities? It almost made me think that the UFC just had something against me, that maybe I did something that I didn’t know, or that they didn’t like me. (chuckles) I had no idea and I couldn’t figure it out. It was frustrating because when you’re trying to make a career of it, your ultimate goal is to be in the biggest show possible, which is the UFC. To be beating guys and not making it there, it was definitely discouraging and makes you wonder why you’re doing the sport if you’ve got to only fight in lower shows all the time. There’s no point.”
After losing to Miletich, Alessio chalked it up to inexperience and a bad night and jumped right back into competition five months later to face fellow Canadian Joe Doerksen in a SuperBrawl show. Again, Alessio was submitted in the second round, and all of a sudden, he wondered whether he was cut out for this game at the higher levels and he took off six months to regroup.
“I continued to train, not to fight, but I was just having fun with it again,” he said. “It had started to become a job. I moved from Canada to the US to fight to make money, so it became a serious job and I lost the fun in it.”
Soon, the Vancouver, British Columbia native got the fire back and got back in the ring. Over the next few years he would build up his record, losing only to 170-pound standouts Jason Black and Jonathan Goulet while beating the likes of Thomas Denny, Chris Brennan and Ronald Jhun. Yet despite winning titles in the King of The Cage and TKO (then UCC) organizations, there was still no call from the UFC while he watched fighters with less experience gain entry into the organization, some through the reality show ‘The Ultimate Fighter’.
“I think everybody deserves a chance in the UFC, a chance to show what they’ve got,” said Alessio. “So it was just a matter of time for it to happen again for me, so I hold no resentment towards these new guys. If anything, it motivates me that much more that there’s this whole new breed of fighters coming up and it makes me train that much harder to get that much better.”
In early 2006 though, the phone rang, and Alessio was invited back to take on the highly regarded Sanchez at UFC 58 in March. A virus suffered by Sanchez pushed the bout back until May, but once the bell finally rang, Alessio showed that he wasn’t just showing up to be a nice veteran victim for the rising star. He was coming to win and had a rock solid gameplan designed to foil any of Sanchez’ offensive attacks. It worked like a charm, but as far as his own offense was concerned, Alessio didn’t do enough to convince the three judges at Octagonside, and he dropped a close decision that many observers believed he won.
“Almost the whole crowd at STAPLES Center thought I won when they booed Diego out of the building pretty much,” said the 27-year-old Alessio, who now makes his home in Los Angeles. “They thought I won, and a lot of reporters in this sport thought I won, and I thought I won, so it’s really frustrating when the judges see it another way. It almost makes you feel like it didn’t matter what I did; unless I knocked him out or submitted him, I was gonna lose that fight. It was like I had one tick against me starting out the fight – him being Mr. Posterboy for the UFC in the welterweight division. But I knew inside that I won that fight, and I think Diego knew that I stopped his gameplan completely.”
Alessio left the arena that night with an ‘L’ on his record, but in giving a quality contender like Sanchez a rough go, he ensured that he would be welcomed back to the Octagon, and after a ‘keep busy’ submission win over Alex Serdyukov at a WEC show in August, ‘The Natural’ is being brought back to face hard-hitting Thiago Alves on the Tito Ortiz-Ken Shamrock card Tuesday night in Hollywood, Florida.
“This fight will be huge for me, and I’m training very hard,” said Alessio. “I trained so hard for that Diego fight and I felt like I was robbed by the judges, but now I’m in the position where I don’t want to leave it up to them. I want to walk out of there knowing 110% that it was all me, that I won that fight on just pure hard work, so it means a lot to me and I’m really looking forward to it.”
Will that insistence on finishing make him reckless though?
“I’m not gonna force anything,” he said. “What happened with the Diego fight was that I was a little too cautious with the takedowns, and that’s what I think cost me the decision, but with this fight, it’s a completely different style matchup and I don’t see this fight going to a decision, anyway I look at it. If it does, I know I’ll be able to dominate. He’s the type of guy who’ll come and engage on his feet and he’s scrappy on the ground. It’s a completely different matchup.”
That’s the sound of a veteran talking, one with close to a decade in the sport. It’s a far cry from Alessio’s first UFC appearance six years ago, and having that type of fighting and training experience is something you can never put a price tag on.
“It’s really valuable,” he admits. “I’ve been put in just about every position in a fight, I’ve been around the block, I’ve trained with so many people, and I’ve fought fighters with so many different styles, so experience plays a big part in my game because now I’m just as cool, calm, and collected as I can be, and I don’t get nervous for anything. I’m just really focused and I don’t have to deal with the nerves part anymore. Now it’s just go out there and do my job. There can be a million people out there watching me, and I actually like it. The more the crowd cheers or boos, I just feed off that energy, whereas before, it was nerve racking.”
Now all John Alessio has to do is win, win, and win some more. That’s a tall order in one of the sport’s most talent-rich divisions, but he’s ready for whatever the UFC throws at him in the months ahead.
“This is the way I look at it – I think I beat Diego Sanchez,” he said. “Sanchez is now ranked number three or four in the world. So as far as I’m concerned, he’s taking my spot. I consider myself a serious threat in the 170 pound weight division against anyone and I will fight anyone. Hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to fight the best. The rematch with Diego, I would love that, to have the chance to be a little more aggressive and really show people that I can beat him, but I’m not too concerned about that. I just want to fight the best I can. I’m taking this sport more seriously, I’m training on a whole other level with a whole other level of training partners, and I’m just gonna continue to get better and better. All I can say is watch out for me because I’m coming.”
Psupplements.com would like to wish "The Natural" good luck in his upcoming fight against "The Pitbull".
John Alessio - Just Getting Started
By Thomas Gerbasi of UFC.com. Picture courtesy of UFC.com.
As John Alessio describes it, he “was like a deer caught in headlights” when he made his UFC debut in June of 2000 against Pat Miletich. Just 19, Alessio had been training in mixed martial arts for less than two years and had compiled a 6-3 record when he got the call from the UFC. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“When I first started watching the sport, I was watching Pat Miletich win the title,” he remembered. “I watched him beat people, and me, just getting started, I said, ‘one day, I want to be there.’ The next thing you know, I get the phone call and I’m fighting him, and it was very overwhelming.”
Add in the fact that Alessio was fighting in Miletich’s Iowa hometown, and the pressure doubled.
“When I stepped into that Octagon I was definitely shocked,” said Alessio who was submitted by Miletich in the second round. “It was probably a little too much too soon for me. I was only 19 years old and had only been training for under two years in the sport. It was kinda premature for me. I wish I had another chance and maybe not to fight for the title in my first chance, but it was an opportunity I wasn’t gonna turn down, because what if I won? I would have been the youngest champ of the world and that would have been an accomplishment right there.”
It was the type of fight where you gave Alessio a ton of credit for having the heart to step up and take on a seasoned vet like Miletich, and you just knew that he would be back in the UFC.
What you didn’t know was that it would take six years.
“It was very frustrating,” said Alessio, who finally came back to the Octagon in May, losing a close three round decision to Diego Sanchez. “I beat some guys and then a couple months later, they’re in the UFC and I was wondering what the heck was going on. Why am I beating these guys and they’re getting the opportunities? It almost made me think that the UFC just had something against me, that maybe I did something that I didn’t know, or that they didn’t like me. (chuckles) I had no idea and I couldn’t figure it out. It was frustrating because when you’re trying to make a career of it, your ultimate goal is to be in the biggest show possible, which is the UFC. To be beating guys and not making it there, it was definitely discouraging and makes you wonder why you’re doing the sport if you’ve got to only fight in lower shows all the time. There’s no point.”
After losing to Miletich, Alessio chalked it up to inexperience and a bad night and jumped right back into competition five months later to face fellow Canadian Joe Doerksen in a SuperBrawl show. Again, Alessio was submitted in the second round, and all of a sudden, he wondered whether he was cut out for this game at the higher levels and he took off six months to regroup.
“I continued to train, not to fight, but I was just having fun with it again,” he said. “It had started to become a job. I moved from Canada to the US to fight to make money, so it became a serious job and I lost the fun in it.”
Soon, the Vancouver, British Columbia native got the fire back and got back in the ring. Over the next few years he would build up his record, losing only to 170-pound standouts Jason Black and Jonathan Goulet while beating the likes of Thomas Denny, Chris Brennan and Ronald Jhun. Yet despite winning titles in the King of The Cage and TKO (then UCC) organizations, there was still no call from the UFC while he watched fighters with less experience gain entry into the organization, some through the reality show ‘The Ultimate Fighter’.
“I think everybody deserves a chance in the UFC, a chance to show what they’ve got,” said Alessio. “So it was just a matter of time for it to happen again for me, so I hold no resentment towards these new guys. If anything, it motivates me that much more that there’s this whole new breed of fighters coming up and it makes me train that much harder to get that much better.”
In early 2006 though, the phone rang, and Alessio was invited back to take on the highly regarded Sanchez at UFC 58 in March. A virus suffered by Sanchez pushed the bout back until May, but once the bell finally rang, Alessio showed that he wasn’t just showing up to be a nice veteran victim for the rising star. He was coming to win and had a rock solid gameplan designed to foil any of Sanchez’ offensive attacks. It worked like a charm, but as far as his own offense was concerned, Alessio didn’t do enough to convince the three judges at Octagonside, and he dropped a close decision that many observers believed he won.
“Almost the whole crowd at STAPLES Center thought I won when they booed Diego out of the building pretty much,” said the 27-year-old Alessio, who now makes his home in Los Angeles. “They thought I won, and a lot of reporters in this sport thought I won, and I thought I won, so it’s really frustrating when the judges see it another way. It almost makes you feel like it didn’t matter what I did; unless I knocked him out or submitted him, I was gonna lose that fight. It was like I had one tick against me starting out the fight – him being Mr. Posterboy for the UFC in the welterweight division. But I knew inside that I won that fight, and I think Diego knew that I stopped his gameplan completely.”
Alessio left the arena that night with an ‘L’ on his record, but in giving a quality contender like Sanchez a rough go, he ensured that he would be welcomed back to the Octagon, and after a ‘keep busy’ submission win over Alex Serdyukov at a WEC show in August, ‘The Natural’ is being brought back to face hard-hitting Thiago Alves on the Tito Ortiz-Ken Shamrock card Tuesday night in Hollywood, Florida.
“This fight will be huge for me, and I’m training very hard,” said Alessio. “I trained so hard for that Diego fight and I felt like I was robbed by the judges, but now I’m in the position where I don’t want to leave it up to them. I want to walk out of there knowing 110% that it was all me, that I won that fight on just pure hard work, so it means a lot to me and I’m really looking forward to it.”
Will that insistence on finishing make him reckless though?
“I’m not gonna force anything,” he said. “What happened with the Diego fight was that I was a little too cautious with the takedowns, and that’s what I think cost me the decision, but with this fight, it’s a completely different style matchup and I don’t see this fight going to a decision, anyway I look at it. If it does, I know I’ll be able to dominate. He’s the type of guy who’ll come and engage on his feet and he’s scrappy on the ground. It’s a completely different matchup.”
That’s the sound of a veteran talking, one with close to a decade in the sport. It’s a far cry from Alessio’s first UFC appearance six years ago, and having that type of fighting and training experience is something you can never put a price tag on.
“It’s really valuable,” he admits. “I’ve been put in just about every position in a fight, I’ve been around the block, I’ve trained with so many people, and I’ve fought fighters with so many different styles, so experience plays a big part in my game because now I’m just as cool, calm, and collected as I can be, and I don’t get nervous for anything. I’m just really focused and I don’t have to deal with the nerves part anymore. Now it’s just go out there and do my job. There can be a million people out there watching me, and I actually like it. The more the crowd cheers or boos, I just feed off that energy, whereas before, it was nerve racking.”
Now all John Alessio has to do is win, win, and win some more. That’s a tall order in one of the sport’s most talent-rich divisions, but he’s ready for whatever the UFC throws at him in the months ahead.
“This is the way I look at it – I think I beat Diego Sanchez,” he said. “Sanchez is now ranked number three or four in the world. So as far as I’m concerned, he’s taking my spot. I consider myself a serious threat in the 170 pound weight division against anyone and I will fight anyone. Hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to fight the best. The rematch with Diego, I would love that, to have the chance to be a little more aggressive and really show people that I can beat him, but I’m not too concerned about that. I just want to fight the best I can. I’m taking this sport more seriously, I’m training on a whole other level with a whole other level of training partners, and I’m just gonna continue to get better and better. All I can say is watch out for me because I’m coming.”
Psupplements.com would like to wish "The Natural" good luck in his upcoming fight against "The Pitbull".
