THE CANADIAN PRESS
As the sun sets on the WEC, veteran Ivan (Pride of El Salvador) Menjivar is looking for a new beginning.
The 28-year-old mixed martial arts fighter from Montreal takes on bantamweight Brad (One Punch) Pickett on the undercard of WEC 53 on Thursday at the Jobing.com Arena in suburban Phoenix.
It’s the last WEC card before being absorbed by the UFC and only Menjivar’s second fight since November 2006.
The time away from the sport was due to a knee injury and his wife’s pregnancy. The Menjivars had a little girl and Ivan decided to put fighting on hold. A baby boy followed, extending the hiatus.
“I never stopped training,” said Menjivar, whose kids are now three and one and a half. “I just focused my energy on family.
“Now my kids are a little bigger. . . . I have time to go the gym and train.”
There are two title fights on Thursday’s card.
Ben (Smooth) Henderson defends his WEC lightweight title against Anthony (Showtime) Pettis, with the winner advancing to take on the winner of the UFC 125 bout between UFC lightweight title-holder Frankie (The Answer) Edgar and Gray (The Bully) Maynard.
Also Thursday, WEC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz fights Scott (Guns) Jorgensen to decide who will be the UFC’s inaugural 135-pound title-holder.
While it’s officially the final WEC card, fighters from the organization have already featured on UFC cards since the two companies merged at the end of October.
The five-foot-six Menjivar says he always planned to come back but admits to being a “sad” at missing three years at a time when his sport experienced such a spurt in popularity.
“After that I said ‘Wow, maybe I made a bad decision.’ But at the same time, that’s life,” Menjivar said philosophically. “I enjoyed the time I had with my family.”
While not fighting, he had a full-time job in airport security and is continuing with the day job.
Menjivar (21-7) has featured on a big stage before. In 2004, he fought in the UFC, losing a unanimous decision to Matt (The Terror) Serra at UFC 48.
“The only guy I ever fought who was shorter than me,” Serra recalled in a YouTube interview. “But he was a tough little pug, man.”
Serra had Menjivar’s back and was trying to choke him out, while Menjivar was reaching back over his shoulder to punch him.
“And every time he’d hit me in the face, he’d go — with his accent — ‘Sorry, sorry,”‘ Serra said.
“He’s a cool dude, Ivan Menjivar. I like that guy.”
Said Menjivar: “He was big. At the weigh-in, he looked small like me. And after that, he was like ‘Oh my God, he ate a lot of pasta in one day.”‘
“He was good,” he added.
Menjivar is also linked to Georges St-Pierre, who lost his UFC welterweight title to Serra and then won it back.
St-Pierre made his pro debut against Menjivar in January 2002, winning by TKO with 10 seconds left in the first round.
“It wasn’t the same Georges . . . he’s changed so much,” cautions Menjivar, who had fought just four times himself before meeting the future champ.
Still the early GSP showed promise.
“He was good, he was athletic, he had good abilities,” said Menjivar.
Still he believes that the referee stopped the fight too early.
St-Pierre and Menjivar went on to become friends and training partners at Montreal’s Tristar gym. And St-Pierre has used Menjivar as an example of why he would never fight a friend.
Menjivar had to fight outside of his weight class to stay active. The GSP bout was at 170 pounds while the Serra bout was at 155.
“It’s hard to knock out a bigger guy only with a jab,” Menjivar said.
Menjivar believes his true weight class is 145 pounds, but he is trying an outing at 135 pounds against Pickett “for fun.” Whether he stays there depends on how well he does.
He normally walks around at 160.
Menjivar stepped back from the sport after injuring his knee in an IFL split decision loss to Bart Palaszewski in November 2006. He did not fight again until this past June, when he needed just 2:25 to submit Aaron Miller in a bout contested at 145 pounds.
Given his inactivity, he would not have minded the fight going a little longer. “But that’s sport,” he said.
Menjivar’s reputation is solid with experience in K-1 Hero’s and Pancrase. Still he knows he faces an uphill battle regaining a foothold while juggling family and a full-time job while others eat, sleep and breathe MMA.
“I’ll do my best,” he said. “The sport is not easy. The sport changed a lot in three years.”
In his past life as a fighter, he only worked part-time.
Menjivar says he is taking it one fight at a time, “because you never know what can happen.”
“Have fun and enjoy the moment,” he adds.
He considers Pickett (20-5), an Englishman now based in Florida where he trains with American Top Team, to be dangerous on a number of fronts.
Menjivar’s strategy is basic.
“Chin down, hands up, protect myself and play the game,” he explained.
Menjivar left El Salvador when his family was 11. He hasn’t returned recently because of his family and work.
“Maybe when my kids get older. And when my country gets a little bit more safe,” he said. “Because right now it’s really hard over there.”
NOTES — Canadians Ryan (The Big Deal) Jimmo (13-1) will meet Dwayne (D-Bomb) Lewis (13-6) will meet for the vacant Maximum Fighting Championship light-heavyweight title at MFC 28: Supremacy in 2011. No word on date or location yet from the Edmonton-based MFC, which is looking to put on a show in Ontario … Montreal’s David (The Crow) Loiseau (19-10) is taking on American Leopoldo Serao (17-7) for the vacant Tachi Palace Fights middleweight title on Feb.. 18 in Leemore, Calif.
