#darrell gholar

[cagesidepress]

UFC 18 Vet, Wrestling Champ Darrell Gholar Dead at 63

Read the full story on cagesidepress.com

[reelinplace]

[tobeagoodman]

The UFC

I love violence as long as no one gets hurts.  I played high school football (badly) and thought my days of getting the spit knocked out of me were over once I graduated high school.  I was wrong.  I knew Tank Abbott in college.  I was pretty good friends with UFC vet and ADCC third place finisher Eddie Ruiz.  I've been good friends with UFC vet and two time grecco national champion Darrell Gholar for more than 10 years.  When he was readying himself for fights he would throw me around the gym as a work out. 

Darrell was coaching Vitor Belfort for his fight with Tito September of 2001.  Tito had to pull out due to injury so Darrell was in Vegas with nothing to do.  He called me.  Darrell had his coaching credentials as was allowed back stage.  I didn't have a ticket or credential but drove to Vegas on Darrell's assurance that someone would have an extra ticket or pass.  Well, after 5 hours of driving no one a pass or ticket.  The only thing Darrell could scrounge up was a backstage pass from an event two years prior.  This was two weeks after 9/11.  Certainly security would be very strict at a major PPV event like this, right? 

Then I remembered that the median IQ in the U.S is under 100. The pass worked perfectly.  Got in back stage and wondered the halls with Darrell popping into rooms with the athletes getting warmed up for their fights. At one point, the guy who gave me the pass and Darrell stuck me in a room and took the pass to let another friend in.  So I'm sitting in a room with Royce Gracie, Renzo, Ricardo Almeida (fighting Eugene Jackson), Gil Castillo (fighting Dave Menne), Murillo Bustamente (fighting Chuck Lidell) and me.  They were all speaking Portuguese but I'm sure I hear "what the hell is this white dude doing in here?".

I'm finally rescued from the world's smallest dressing room and Darrell and I follow a fighter making his way down to the cage to fight.  We sit in the seats that are literally cage side and watch what Dana White said was the "only one (UFC) I can remember where every fight sucked."  I love the experience even if the fights sucked.  I've been hooked ever since.