VANCOUVER — For Jesse Bongfeldt, life is all about mixed martial arts these days.
He even goes as far as saying what has to be considered blasphemous for a Canadian boy.
“I’m not a huge hockey fan,” Bongfeldt admitted on Wednesday night, while doing some final training at Tactix gym — at the same that the Vancouver Canucks were playing the Boston Bruins in a pivotal Game 4 of the Stanley Cup final.
While he certainly appreciates hockey, his lack of passion for the sport comes from not playing while growing up. And there’s some irony to that too.
“My mum didn’t let me play, she said it was too violent,” Bongfeldt said. “So I ended up getting into martial arts instead!”
The 31-year-old from Kenora, Ont., who takes on Chris Weidman in the first live UFC preliminary fight on Saturday (Sportsnet and sportsnet.ca, 5 p.m. PT / 8 p.m. ET) at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, said he also doesn’t have enough time in the day to sit down and watch an NHL game. The former welterweight, who has been bulking up for the past year with sights on the 205-pound division, is preparing for his second straight UFC fight at middleweight following more than a year’s absence from competition.
He said he’s always so busy training that there’s hardly time for much else. And he’s been doing what he loves for so long that other sports just don’t connect with him the same way.
“It’s hard to appreciate the beauty in anything else when you’re in martial arts. To see the constant, constant action that’s involved in fighting. So for me to sit down and watch any other sport, it almost seems boring.”
Bongfeldt benefited from a little extra notice for this fight than in his UFC debut last Decemeber, when he was a late replacement on seven-weeks’ notice to fight Rafael Natal in Montreal. He hurt his ankle in that fight, which ended in a three-round majority draw, and had to take some time off. But he recovered quickly and jumped right back into training.
The best news for him — his boss at Accurate Plumbing let him have time off to train, and even sponsored him.
“Now I’m a full-time martial artist,” Bongfeldt said.
Bongfeldt, who lived and fought out of Lethbridge, Alta., earlier in his career, is back home in Kenora and for the past four years has been training out of United Fighter MMA, the gym he started with his coach Chris Harper.
“It’s two hours east of Winnipeg, but 45 kilometres into the border of Ontario, so it’s like a 24-hour drive almost from Toronto. It’s up in the middle of nowhere,” said the low-key Bongfeldt, who did add that he loves it there.
He said he also spent some time training back in Lethbridge as part of this camp as well as a week at BDB Martial Arts in Calgary with Nick Ring, who is also fighting Saturday night, and Jordan Mein (who fights on another promotion’s card Friday in Mississauga).
Bongfeldt (15-4) has fought in Vancouver before and three other times in B.C. He lost in this city to former WEC champion Jamie Varner in his third pro fight in 2004. But the last time he competed in the province he beat Sean Huffman in Vernon, B.C., in 2007.
Those fights seem like ages ago now for the former welterweight champion in the Montreal-based TKO promotion, who is now giving the UFC a run.
Now he’s just focused on Weidman (5-0) and hoping to hand the 26-year-old his first pro loss. But Weidman is coming off a decision win over Alessio Sakara in his UFC debut in March. So he’s not taking the New York native lightly.
“He’s a fantastic wrestler, well known in the UFC community,” Bongfeldt said. “I’d like to change his game on him a bit though. I’d like to throw a couple angles on him, put some different pressure on him.”
He hopes by doing so he can avoid the fight going to the judges like his last one. Not only was the draw decision odd, just having to wait for a decision was a unique experience for Bongfeldt. None of his fights as a pro had ever gone the distance before.
“It was partially my fault. I saw some opportunities that I could have capitalized on. It’s the way it goes.”
Live and learn. Another important trait of the pure martial artist.
COMING TO A HEAD: Calgary’s Ring, who fights James Head on the undercard Saturday, also hopes to end his fight before it goes to a decision so he can emerge a clear winner, as opposed to his last one against Riki Fukuda in his Octagon debut at UFC 127 in Sydney, Australia, in February. There he won by unanimous decision but it was one that many thought should have gone to his opponent.
“The judges gave me two rounds, they gave him one round, so I mean you can call it controversial or what, but that’s like long past, eh,” Ring said. “Riki Fukuda is a very tough fighter. He’s a world champion. If you’re going to fight tough guys, you’re going to have close matches. It’s just how the ball bounces sometimes, eh.”
The 32-year-old Ring, who was born in Iowa but has lived in Calgary since he was one, definitely considers himself a Canadian — can’t you tell, eh? — and relishes this opportunity to fight in relatively nearby Vancouver.
“I love it. This is like my backyard.”
Ring (11-0), a former cast member of Season 11 of The Ultimate Fighter who had to pull out of the reality show with a torn ACL but was able to recover before taking his last UFC fight, said he doesn’t know a whole lot about the Illinois native and UFC newcomer Head (7-1).
“He looks like a big, strong, athletic, corn-fed boy,” Ring said. “I knew a little bit more about Riki actually, credential-wise. But James Head did beat Gerald Harris, and I think Gerald Harris is a very good fighter, so that should say something.”
