This might not mean much to anyone other than me, but it is something I really wanted to post. Last March I decided that I wanted to pursue my dream of being an MMA journalist. I was 18 at the time and didn't have a clue as to what I was doing. I decided that the best thing to do would be to start a blog off of blogspot.com where I just cover events.
Well at UFC 96 I attended my first live MMA event. From the start of the very first fight I absolutely fell in love with the atmosphere. I looked down and seen the people at the press table and instantly knew that I wanted to live that life.
I went home that night determined to get to that point. I decided to start sending out emails to fight managers hoping that I could somehow land an interview with a C-level fighter to get down on my resume. I made up an email about who I am and what my goals were in life to send out to the managers. You can imagine how shocked I was when I received an email from Wanderlei Silva just the very next day.
I remember calling up Wand for that interview and I wasn't nervous at all for some reason, just excited. Wand answered the phone and sounded so happy to talk. It shocked me because here he was talking to some nobody kid that hosts a blog that nobody reads, but he was giving me great answers! At one point I asked him about fighting in UFC as opposed to fighting in Pride in which he replied that the UFC should let you do soccer kicks because "it's a fun thing to do." After the interview he said to call him back any time for another interview.
That one line made that interview spread like a virus. The first night being up it had over 10,000 views, which lead to me landing a job with MMA Authority Magazine. I just wanted to publicly thank Wanderlei for being such a classy guy and helping me get my start.
Great story, sometimes all it takes is some initiative and an opportunity for great things to happen. Win, lose or draw, Wand's legacy will remain in tact forever and his accomplishments in this sport will never be forgotten.
Everyone who meets Wand loves him. Everyone. He's just so genuine and enjoys life so much it's infectious.
Just to throw in another personal note, I can't remember what event it was at, but Wand was accompanying Demian Maia to a media workout. I had talked to Maia and was hoping to talk to Wand but his group slipped out when I was talking to someone else. I looked down the hall and I could see them waiting for the elevator. I jogged down the hall and just as they were getting on, I called his name.
He had literally just stepped into the elevator, and easily could have ignored me, but he popped his head out. I told him I was hoping for an interview, but said if he was leaving I understood. He couldn't have been nicer, insisted we do the interview, left his crew behind and got off the elevator to talk to me. Total and complete class act.
The guy is amazing, so nice and so genuinely thankful to his fans.
During one of the UGGP's last summer I was in Vegas with UGer Nanook. I had seen Wanderlei at one of the Tuff-N-Uff events I was working and asked if we could interview him sometime soon and he readily agreed.
We showed up at the gym and when he arrived he greeted us like old friends and did the interview for us and even picked up Jay's 7 year old daughter for a picture and didn't even devour her.
SecondBase - Wouldn't it be funny if you found out that it wasn't Vanderlei that answered the phone that day, and you owed your career to one of his friends.
LOL that would be fuckin great. Can't mistake Wand's voice though, took me 9 hours to type up that interview cause I couldn't understand a thing. It was when he first opened his gym and had that bad cold so he was coughing the whole time too.
Awesome story, Awesome fighter and champion... There was a video posted on here a few days ago that I think evry fan (especially newer MMA fans should watch). One of the fighters it focused on was Wandy. Here is a link to the video...
HYBRID JON - Awesome story, Awesome fighter and champion... There was a video posted on here a few days ago that I think evry fan (especially newer MMA fans should watch). One of the fighters it focused on was Wandy. Here is a link to the video...