THE CANADIAN PRESS
The bond between Court McGee and UFC Hall of Famer Chuck (The Iceman) Liddell started during Season 11 of “The Ultimate Fighter.”
But it will extend long after the reality TV show.
McGee named his new baby boy Crew Charles with the middle name a nod to Liddell, who coached him all the way to the title of Season 11 winner.
“You know what I didn’t know a lot about him,” McGee said of the former light-heavyweight champion and MMA icon. “Of course I followed him, I mean he’s Chuck Liddell. But I never knew how good of a dude he really was and how normal he was.
“That’s definitely somebody you can (model) yourself after. He’s a great guy. He’s a great guy to his fans, he’s a good family guy. I mean, I can’t say enough good about him.”
Watch Season 12 of The Ultimate Fighter Wednesday night following the baseball playoffs (check local listings).
Liddell and longtime trainer John Hackleman, who was an assistant coach on the TV show, share the same affection for the 25-year-old middleweight from Orem, Utah.
“Chuck and I just fell in love with the guy,” Hackleman said.
“He was one of the most raw guys on the show but he just powers through everything. He’s a non-stop, no quit, no excuses guy . . . He’s the kind of guy you want right there in your foxhole,” he added.
“He’s the kind of guy you can trust with your favourite puppy, your kids or your fortune. He’s that guy. That’s a one in a million right there.”
Hackleman and Liddell have continued to help McGee as he looks to his next UFC challenge. McGee (11-1) takes on Ryan Jensen (16-5) on Saturday night in a televised fight on the undercard of UFC 121 in Anaheim, Calif.
In preparing for Jensen, McGee went to Hackleman’s famed Pit outside San Luis Obispo, Calif., and then Hackleman went to Utah.
McGee defeated Kris McCray to win the reality TV show in June, a second-round submission victory achieved despite breaking a foot two weeks before the fight and needing 10 stitches to close a cut under his left eye some 18 days beforehand.
“He’s a beast,” said Hackleman, who has seen McGee deadlift 617 pounds and run a mile under five minutes wearing a 20-pound vest.
“He has power, cardio. He’s just a freak of nature. He’ll never get tired, he’s a machine. . . . You watch him spar. You can always tell, if there’s a bunch of people in the room, where he is because there’s people up in the air flying. He just picks people up and is throwing them all over the place. You go ‘Oh, Court must be in that corner.”‘
McGee, whose first name is short for Courtney, has already beaten the odds. Addicted to drugs and alcohol, in 2005 he was declared clinically dead by paramedics after a day-long binge of booze and heroin, only to be revived.
He went to rehab and, after a few missteps, stopped using April 16, 2006.
Perhaps as a result, he has a good handle on the kind of opportunity he has in the UFC. McGee, with an eye on wife Chelsea and three-year-old son Isaac as well as baby Crew born Oct. 2, is not about to waste it,
“I have a family, this is my career and I want to take it serious, to the best of my abilities and really see what it is that I can do,” he said.
“I want to see how far I can go and how well I can do. None of this means I made it, this is just the start of my career even though I put in over 4,000 hours (in the gym). Really now’s the time where I take it serious and I focus and I show up and I win.”
McGee, whose battered jug ears frame a head that comes with buzz cut up top, beard below and intense eyes inbetween, is a former plumber whose nickname The Crusher comes from his days bending pipes into submission.
McGee says life has not changed much since winning the TV show, although he and his family hope to leave their apartment for a house soon.
“The bill situation’s been a bit easier. More people know who I am, but I haven’t changed anything.”
He fights not just for family and friends but for those trapped in the same downward spiral of addiction that he once was.
“This is my way to show them that they can make it out. And if I can do it, anybody can do it,” he said. “If you put forth the effort, you have a dream and a goal, that anything is attainable.
“So if I can do what I’m doing right now, anybody can do whatever it is that they want to do.”
