The World's Oldest UFC Fan?

"The strategy involved is the most amazing part. It’s also very mentally challenging for anyone to enter the ring or the Octagon." - Sam Chinkes Fill in the blank: The oldest UFC fan I have ever met is __ years old.

63? 67? 72?

You can stop scanning your brain. I got ya beat.

I’m confident that the man who would set the record for oldest UFC fanatic lives right here in the fight capital of the world, Las Vegas.

He is a native New Yorker and World War II Army veteran. He has worked extensively as an ad exec, painter and sculptor. And, in his spare time, his daring choice of television programming has prompted his wife of 62 years to ask him on many a night: “Why are you watching that again?”

“Cuz’ it’s the best thing on television!” he responds in an affable tone, citing humor as paramount to his long-lasting union.

The name of this unique superfan: Mr. Sam Chinkes. Born in 1923. 88 years young. And living proof that although the UFC impressively reels in the male 18-34 demographic, and has hooked a surprising number of female fans on the sport as well, that the elder statesmen among us are not immune to the allure and artistry of a cagefight. After all, a fascination with fighting is in every human being’s DNA.

Since the early 1990s, Chinkes said, he has been faithfully watching UFC. Back when Royce Gracie put UFC on the map with mind-blowing victories over 250-pound Goliaths.

“My wife doesn’t care for it,” Chinkes confided, “but she has her own TV. I watch (UFC) whenever I can and most of the time I find it’s the best thing on TV … except for some old movie favorites of mine. I watch movies about the mafia all the time. I mean, I’m from New York. But I’ll still watch UFC instead of my favorite movies because I’ve seen the movies many times before. I make sure to catch the statistics before all of the fights. I’m crazy about the announcer, Bruce Buffer. He’s terrific! Very dramatic. He’s a real pro.”

Track and field was Chinkes’ forte in his prime, though he was always smitten with the sport of boxing. As a child growing up in the Bronx, he and some friends would test themselves on a makeshift punching bag made from a potato sack. They donned gloves and lightly sparred under a fire escape stairway.

“We never hit each other hard – though I saw stars one time,” Chinkes reminisced.  “I’m not a fighter. I’ve never been in a fight in my life. But if the UFC were around when I was younger, I would have liked to have coached a fight. I’m absolutely sure I could have done it. I would understand my fighters, be a good strategist. I was a survivor of World War II, so I think in those terms.

“So I’ve always liked the sport. It’s athletic. There’s an art to keeping your balance, hitting someone and avoiding getting hit. The strategy involved is the most amazing part. It’s also very mentally challenging for anyone to enter the ring or the Octagon.”

I ask Mr. Chinkes to name his favorite UFC fighters.

“The Canadian guy … what’s his name? … GSP,” he replied. “The heavyset guy who was beat recently… the heavyweight champ … Brock Lesnar! Yeah. He’s a guy I got to like for awhile. But then I saw that as tough as he is, as big as he is – he can’t take a punch. Am I wrong?”

Bonus Material: How I (Accidentally) Met Sam Chinkes

Good stories, like $100 bills, aren’t supposed to miraculously fall from the sky and into your lap. Cosmic luck caused mine and Mr. Chinkes’ paths to cross. I was reading alone at what seems like the world’s last bookstore when a gentleman sat down at the table next to me. For as long as I can remember I’ve had a soft spot for most of my elders, particularly those of upbeat energy and the glass-is-half full cheer. The laid-back but self-assured stranger beside me fit the bill. I asked what he was reading and the conversation flowed easily from that point on, as if I had known this man for many years.

He seemed super-sharp, showing off a very agile mind.

“You must read a lot,” I presumed.

“As a matter of fact, not all that much,” he countered.

That veered us in to more interesting turf: He’d been married 62 years to the same woman. 62 years! How many things, other than food and water and a toilet, do you think you’ll enjoy a 62-year relationship with?

I’ve always been fascinated by seniors, by the wisdom they’ve accrued that could save the rest of us the suffering of wisdom by Trial & Error. I’ve always been irked by what seems, in my opinion, a society that treats seniors as second-class citizens. There are other cultures where seniors are treated with reverence. Here we tend to treat them with deference, as if they are all senile, all something none of us wants to be.

And I’ve always, always, always been fascinated by people that can make their marriage work for a long time. 30 years. 40 years. 50 years. And not suffer the marriage, but enjoy it. A divorcee myself, I perk up when marriage marathoners share their secrets and advice.

“You want to know what it is?” he tells me. “It’s humor. We’re always making each other laugh. I used to think that the younger years would be the best. But the truth is, our older years are the best. We laugh more now than ever.”

He asks me to guess his age. I concentrate on his face and build. I’ve always possessed a whacky (and incredibly useless) skill of being able to guess how much people weigh within two or three pounds. I get it from my wrestling background. People’s ages stump me more, because some people age prematurely and others so gracefully.

“76,” I tell Mr. Chinkes.

Stumping me makes him smile.

“88.”

We talk some more and somehow or another we start discussing television programming. I live in a four bedroom home and have 20-inch television that I have never, not once, turned on or watched. My instant friend watches his fair share of television.

“You know the best thing on television these days?” he asks rhetorically. “It’s UFC.”

I didn’t instantly perk up. I didn’t make the connection. UFC? That must be three initials that stand for some senior citizen organization.

He couldn’t be referring to the UFC I know and love – Ultimate Fighting Championship.

But just to be sure … “What do you mean by UFC? You don’t mean cagefighting UFC, do you?”

“Yeah, the cage fights! I love watching that!”

And there you have it. Apparently every demographic on the planet is susceptible to the UFC, which is one of the few places left on earth that is truly a meritocracy. Unlike almost every other business, UFC isn’t a who-you-know industry. It isn’t about who has the most money, or the best lawyers, or the prettiest mug. It’s mano y mano. May the best man win. Sam Chinkes “gets it,” reminding me – reminding all of us – that we should learn and evolve and stay open-minded for as long as we are here.

I walk him to his car. He wants to show me something. He opens the trunk of his car. There are dozens of black shirts in a box. He holds one up: It is a sketch of one fighter front kicking another to the face. Reminscent of the breathtaking technique that Anderson Silva used to knockout Vitor Belfort.

“I drew that sketch right off the top of my head in seconds,” Chinkes said.

Sam Chinkes gave me one of his shirts. And I thought so highly of this extraordinary fan, and his love of UFC, that I wrote a story about him.

Sam has never been to a live UFC event. The UFC and myself are going to change that very soon.

Do you know a UFC fan who breaks the mold, or are you one? Email a picture and description to fanpic@ufc.com to be considered for a future feature!

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Alves: World's Happiest Welterweight

"I’m just concentrating on winning the fight, and whatever it takes – standup or on the ground – I think I’m better than him everywhere and I’m just gonna go out there and get business done.” Long after his boxing career was over, I had the opportunity to speak to former world champion Jesse James Leija, and I asked him what it was like to miss weight for one of the biggest fights of his career – a 2003 title bout against Kostya Tszyu. He didn’t hesitate in his response, likening it to seeing both your parents shot in front of you.

UFC welterweight contender Thiago Alves won’t go that far, but it’s close.

“It’s very frustrating,” he said. “You put in all the work, and you expect the results, but they’re not there.”

In two high-profile fights, at UFC 85 against Matt Hughes, and at UFC 117 against Jon Fitch, Alves came in above the 170-pound limit, drawing scorn from fight fans and irritation from opponents and UFC brass. After the August loss to Fitch, UFC President Dana White even insisted that Alves would be moved to the 185-pound weight class.

But as Saturday night approaches at Montreal’s Bell Centre, Alves will be back in the Octagon and fighting as a welterweight against John “Doomsday” Howard. And he can thank former Ultimate Fighter cast member and current nutritionist Mike Dolce for that.

“He’s changed my whole life, my whole attitude, and my whole mood when it comes to getting ready and getting prepared for a fight,” beamed Alves. “I’m actually having fun again. At this time before, I was miserable and stressed and just wanted to get through with the day. Now I’m enjoying every second of the day and having fun. I feel healthy and I’m eating a lot, and that’s even better.”

You can hear the recharged energy in Alves’ voice, and despite knowing that he will field dozens of questions about his weight cut in the days leading up to Saturday’s bout, he’s taking it all in stride, knowing that once he makes weight, he can get back to the business of being the welterweight contender who won seven in a row (five by knockout) from 2006 to 2008, and not the lethargic one-dimensional striker that dropped back-to-back decisions against Fitch and welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre. Now we will get to see Alves elevate his game, since he’s focusing on the fight ahead and not the scale.

“Before, my biggest fear was making weight,” he said. “I couldn’t rest, and five weeks before a fight I would be thinking about it and it was a constant stress in the back of my head – you gotta make weight, you gotta make weight. And I didn’t know anything else; for me that was normal to be worried about the weight and stuff like that. Today, I know that it’s not, and I look at the past and wonder how I was so naïve. But you have to make a few mistakes to get to the right place so thank God I teamed up with Mike and now life is good.”

Especially since Alves believes that a move to the middleweight division would have sapped him of some of the things that have led him to the top of the 170-pound weight class.

“I feel that’s where I’m at my best,” he said. “170 is perfect for me. I’ve fought all the top guys there, strength wise I feel stronger than all of them, and if I moved up to 185 I’m gonna give up a lot of the advantages that I have, and in this game, you don’t want to give up everything, you want to just take. So 170 is perfect for me, especially right now. Maybe 155, you never know.”

He laughs, and yes folks, he’s kidding about the 155 part. But it is clear that a new day has dawned for the 27-year old, whose career was in jeopardy back in March when he was forced to pull out of the original date of the Fitch rematch due to an irregularity on his CT scan stemming from a pre-existing condition. A subsequent surgery separated an artery from a vein in his brain and soon after he was given a clean bill of health and allowed back into the gym and into competition. Then came the Fitch disaster, but now things are back to normal in the world of Alves.

Things couldn’t possibly get better, could they? Well, he is facing a non-wrestler for the first time since he stopped Karo Parisyan in April of 2008. That’s Hughes, Josh Koscheck, St-Pierre, and Fitch in consecutive bouts. It’s almost enough to make a guy run out and buy a singlet, but now Alves gets fellow Muay Thai practitioner Howard, someone who has gone on record saying that he hopes the ‘Pitbull’ will stand with him.

“John Howard’s a pretty tough guy,” said Alves. “He lost his last fight (against Jake Ellenberger) so I’m pretty sure he wants to get back on a winning streak just like me. He’s a striker and he likes to go out there and throw punches, and let’s see if he really likes that and wants to do that with me. Most guys say they’re strikers but once they get hit in the face they try for the takedown. But we’ll see how it goes. I’m just concentrating on winning the fight, and whatever it takes – standup or on the ground – I think I’m better than him everywhere and I’m just gonna go out there and get business done.”

And after going the route to the tune of 11 combined rounds in his last three fights, Alves would like nothing more than to end this bout before the final bell sounds.

“That would be really nice,” he said. “But at this level, I learned my lesson a few fights ago that once you chase the knockout, it’s really, really hard for you to get it. And when you just fight and think about scoring and hurting your opponent, that’s when I get most of my knockouts. I’m not gonna chase the knockout, I’m just gonna go out there and try to hurt him every single moment of the fight and bring the pain.”

That’s the old “Pitbull” talking, and after a tumultuous 11 months in 2010, he’s ready to end things on a high note in month number 12.

“It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish, and now I have the opportunity to finish the year just the way I want it,” said Alves. “So what happened in the beginning of the year is in the past right now, and December 11th I get a chance to redeem myself and do what I was born to do, and I’m gonna make it happen. I’m not gonna waste it this time.”

Free Prelims on UFC.com/Live
For the first time ever, two preliminary bouts will be aired live and free online at http://www.ufc.com/live. The Dustin Hazelett vs Mark Bocek and Dan Miller vs Joe Doerksen fights will be available to everyone worldwide at no charge starting at 9pm ET/ 6pm PT/ 2am GMT. 

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The World’s Greatest McDojo

ELMWOOD PARK, N.J. -- Walk through any neighborhood in New York, and odds are, you will see one. The glimmering equipment spreads out over hundreds of square feet, dotted with everything from grappling mats to heavy bags. Each facility looks like a neophyte mixed martial artist’s dream, but they seem more likely to draw belly laughs than anything else. Welcome to Tiger Schulmann’s Mixed Martial Arts -- the best McDojo around.

The term “McDojo” has long been the ultimate putdown for any school that teaches the kind of “martial arts” that are more tragic comedy than sound self-defense. Some still stick that tag on Tiger Schulmann’s MMA, thanks mostly to the chain’s previous incarnation as Tiger Schulmann’s Karate.

A karate dojo masquerading as a mixed martial arts gym is hardly new. Ever since the UFC evolved into an obscenely profitable business, traditional martial arts schools have been tacking on faux Brazilian jiu-jitsu and muay Thai classes. However, the explanation is not quite so simple when it comes to the how and why behind Schulmann’s switch to MMA.

The answer is a long one, more of a story, really, and it starts in Germany.

As World War II raged, living in Germany was a dangerous proposition for anyone who was not buying into Adolf Hitler’s propaganda. The Schulmann family had to make a choice.

“My grandfather decided to leave Nazi Germany because of everything that was going on, so he just gathered his stuff and took his three boys with him, including my father, David.” Schulmann says in a reserved tone that fits the stark subject matter. “There was no way to get to America, so they went east and ended up living in a Shanghai ghetto.”

Growing up in China during the Japanese occupation made for a unique experience. While the Japanese military was notoriously cruel to the native Chinese population, the Schulmann family’s European appearance kept them as safe as they could have been under such circumstances. That tenuous grip on safety was mostly lost on young David Schulmann, who spent his days entranced by imagery that would serve as fuel for the following generation of the Schulmann family’s success.

“My father would sneak out of the ghetto and watch the Japanese military do their formations and martial arts drills from behind a chain link fence … just watching them do that all day, he grew to admire their strength and discipline,” Schulmann says, as he unconsciously creates a fist with his hands. “It was something he wanted for himself and his kids.”

When Schulmann makes a fist, his knuckles tell a story all their own. They are calcified, blunt force objects that only come from a lifetime of fighting. Those knuckles have been putting in work since before Schulmann knew what to make of girls.

“Eventually, my family ended up in New York after the war, and because of the war, my father wanted me to start training,” Schulmann says. “He wanted me to be tough and he wanted me to learn martial arts in a Japanese school. So here I am, this 9-year-old kid, and he drops me, my brother and my cousin at a Mas Oyama Kyokushinkai Karate school in Spring Valley, N.Y.”

At first, Schulmann was turned away because of his age, but his father insisted the school give him a chance. Schulmann, determined to prove himself, quickly won over the skeptical instructors and even Mas Oyama, who dubbed him “Tiger” after realizing his prodigious pupil was born in 1962 -- the Year of the Tiger.

Over the years, Schulmann stuck with the notoriously brutal training regimen emphasized by Oyama -- namely full contact, with no pads; the only limitation was the exclusion of punches to the head. Schulmann eventually started competing on the full-contact Karate circuit as a representative of the Mas Oyama Kyokushin Karate team.

“I was competing, winning all my tournaments in America. There were only two weight classes: 165 and under and 165 and over, lightweight and heavyweight; that was it. I weighed about 135pounds, but I made it to the World Open Full Contact Karate Championships in Tokyo at the Budokan. This was in 1979, and I was a 17-year-old kid fighting men. It didn’t bother me, though. I didn’t know any different,” Schulmann says before jumping into an anecdote that made him realize just how serious this tournament was. “There were no weight classes at the World Open, and when I first got to the Budokan, I remember it being like the movie ‘Kickboxer,’ just a big stadium with this huge gong and a crazy crowd.

“So I start watching one of the fights, and there’s this huge guy, like 6-foot-5, 220 pounds, fighting someone maybe a little bit bigger than me,” he adds. “The big guy hits him right in the face with a knee kick and totally breaks his jaw. They put this poor guy on a stretcher, and as soon as they get him out of there, the next fight starts.”

The massive slab of humanity that shattered Schulmann’s teenage illusions of invincibility was Dolph Lundgren. Still, Schulmann made it to the second round of the tournament and managed to keep his jaw intact. It was a moral victory quickly overshadowed by the creep of adulthood and the decisions that go with it.

At first, Schulmann resolved to go the traditional route and earn a college education, but the lure of fighting proved too great.

“I said, ‘Screw it, I’m gonna make a run at it with martial arts, and I don’t care if I never make any money,’” Schulmann says without a hint of irony, as he sits inside the headquarters of the wildly successful business that bears his name.

The decision was made all the more complicated by a falling out with his instructors, a falling out Schulmann maintains was caused by the Japanese nationalism that pervaded the hierarchy of Mas Oyama’s dojos.

“I got a call from one of the Mas Oyama instructors asking me to go down to this tournament in Alabama on three weeks’ notice. I didn’t want to go, but they begged me into it, basically,” Schulmann says. “So, anyway, I get there, and instead of lightweight being 165, it’s 170. Then I find out that they did that because there’s this Japanese guy, Hioki, they were trying to build into a superstar so they could have a Japanese guy on top, basically.”

The details are all summoned from memory, since it all happened nearly 30 years ago. Schulmann does recall one event with the utmost clarity.

“I wasn’t gonna make a fuss about anything, y’know? I was there to fight, so I figured I’d fight and whatever happens, happens,” he says. “At first, I’m handling him pretty good, but out of nowhere, he kicks me in the balls, and I knew it was intentional. You fight for long enough, [and] you learn when someone is hitting you low just to get out of trouble.”

A second kick to the groin soon followed and Schulmann, frustrated that the referee was doing nothing about the situation, warned his opponent that another foul would end poorly for him. Sure enough, a third kick to the groin landed, and Schulmann responded by hitting Hioki with a left hook to the jaw. It got Schulmann disqualified, but the satisfaction of the knockout was enough for him.

That decision fractured his relationship with the entire Mas Oyama organization and eventually led to his exile.

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