Sokoudjou Arrives in the UFC

Sokoudjou Arrives in the UFC with Power, Expectations, and a Smile

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>For someone who talks freely of the daily beatings he takes at the renowned Team Quest gym in Southern California, you wouldn’t expect Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou to be as happy go lucky as he is after another long day of training.

Yet for each day of torture at the hands of Dan Henderson and company, he gets a little bit better and moves one step closer to victory on fight night. That would make anybody smile.

“I’d rather get beat up in the gym than in the ring, and trust me, I’ve seen some other guys in the gym laughing and enjoying it as well,” said Sokoudjou, who at 23 years old and with just five pro MMA fights under his belt, makes one of the most highly anticipated UFC debuts in recent history when he takes on Lyoto Machida at UFC 79 on Saturday. “I get yelled at and kicked at every day in the gym, and I love it, but that’s the price you pay.”

Willing to pay that price, the native of Hom’la, Cameroon, comes to the Octagon with high expectations, the likes of which you usually don’t see placed on the shoulders of young men who haven’t hit double digits in their fight careers yet. But with a year like he’s had already, it’s hard not to get excited about the prospect of him throwing hands with the best in the world in the UFC.

Starting off his second year as a pro fighter with a 2-1 record, and coming off a loss in a WEC show against Glover Teixeira, Sokoudjou could have been one of any faceless prospects in a sea of competitors. But fight insiders spoke highly of ‘The African Assassin’, who came to the United States at 16 in order to train more extensively in judo, with the eventual goal being a spot in the 2004 Olympics.

It was supposed to be a stay of six months.

“My family knew I was in love with judo and I wanted to go to the Olympics, so I was going to come here for six months,” he recalled. “After that I was supposed to go back, but I got here, I loved it, and I stayed. I wanted to go to school as well and I heard there were more opportunities and there was always something to do.”

Visa issues kept Sokoudjou from the Olympics, yet despite being far away from his home, he found a new one with Henderson and the Team Quest squad, and also discovered a new love in the process – mixed martial arts. But while he attacked the sport with a fervor, he was still dealing with life in a new country, something he admits he still is coming to grips with.

“As of today I still have a culture shock because there are some things I do that I think are normal to do, but then I always get frustrated when I think maybe I should have done something different,” he said. “So I’m still dealing with the cultural differences and the culture shock. As far as language, I do the best I can.”

By 2006, Sokoudjou – who speaks English better than plenty US natives – was deemed ready for the pro game, and he quickly won two bouts before getting caught and stopped early against Teixeira. Next came the offer of a fight in PRIDE in February against world-ranked Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. On paper, it was a mismatch; in reality, it was anything but that, and Sokoudjou didn’t hesitate to take the bout.

“If they had told me ‘hey, you’re fighting Nogueira tonight,’ I would have been like ‘uh, maybe not,’” he laughs. “But I had eight weeks to get ready for it, I had a whole camp of them beating my ass every day to get ready for it, so I had enough time to prepare myself for that fight.”

All that work in the gym got Sokoudjou a 23 second night of work in the ring, as he blasted Nogueira out with a single left hook in the first round. It was a coming out party like no other, shocking the MMA world in the process.

“People didn’t know me before that fight,” he said. “I was just the random guy coming out of nowhere. But the people who knew me weren’t surprised with the outcome of the fight because I had done it before.”

Less than two months later he did it again, knocking out Ricardo Arona in less than two minutes in the final PRIDE show on April 8th. There would be no more quizzical looks, no more ‘Soko-Who’ from casual fans. Sokoudjou had arrived on the world scene in less time than it takes to complete one round in a mixed martial arts fight. But while message boards and blogs sung his praises, back home in Cameroon, his parents assumed he was just another student trying to carve out his piece of the American Dream.

“My parents don’t know I’m a pro fighter,” said Sokoudjou when asked his parents’ reaction to his success in MMA.

They don’t know?

“Hell no, they’d kill me.”

His brother, a doctor, does know of his younger brother’s profession though, and tried to get him to reconsider.

“I have a brother who studied in Russia, he’s got two PhD’s, and he’s the smart guy of the family,” said Sokoudjou, one of four brothers, who hasn’t been home since leaving at 16. “My brother knows that I’m a fighter and he tried to talk me out of it. He said ‘Why do I need to do this when I could go to school, and how am I gonna tell my parents?’ We had a big talk about it.”

To no avail though, as Sokoudjou can’t shake the fighting bug, at least not now.

“I’m going back to school next semester,” he said, “but I’ve always been in sports and it’s just something I do and I love it. There’s nothing else there I want to do more than fighting right now.”

After he knocked Arona out though, Sokoudjou’s fight career was on hold after PRIDE was sold to UFC ownership and he became a free agent. Organizations around the world wooed the highly-touted prospect, but when all was said and done, he inked a deal with the UFC.

“The UFC’s got the toughest fighters and I like the challenge,” said Sokoudjou of his decision. “It wouldn’t make sense for me to go anywhere else, where there will be what people call ‘easy’ fights and I’ll get all lazy. When you fight in the UFC, you know every single fight will be a war, and I have to stay in the gym every day to stay sharp.”

He’s not kidding, and Sokoudjou didn’t get any favors with his first Octagon opponent – Machida – a crafty veteran whose patient counterstriking style can wreck havoc with anyone’s gameplan when the bell rings.

“He’s pretty much a complete fighter,” said Sokoudjou of Machida. “He’s a tough guy, he’s never lost, and he’s a good counterpuncher, but this is the fight game and I’ve had eight weeks to study his style and make it as comfortable as I can for me to get out there and do what I need to do. I’ve been watching a bunch of tapes trying to figure out his weaknesses.”

And he’s got Henderson doing his best to pound out his stablemate’s weaknesses in the gym.

“He’s been a mentor,” said Sokoudjou of the former two-division PRIDE champion. “Whenever I’m down he always finds a way to talk to me, and in the gym whenever I slack off, he always punches me on the nose and hurts me (Laughs), so he’s been a good mentor. He’s been punching and kicking me and helping me a lot mentally and all that stuff.”

But all joking aside, many expect Sokoudjou to step into the UFC and continue on the same road he began earlier this year in PRIDE, walking through the best in the world en route to the 205-pound belt worn by Quinton Jackson. Don’t expect the soft-spoken West African to be the one driving the hype train though.

“I’m there to learn,” he said. “I’m not gonna get there thinking I’m the big thing or whatever they want to call me. That’s one of the reasons why I don’t get on any of the forums, and I try to stay away from people coming with all that stuff. I’m just learning, I’m new to the sport, and all I know is getting in the gym, training, and getting some good fights. And that’s what I’m doing right now.”

It’s hard not to get excited about a fighter who has knockout power in both fists and feet, who has world-class judo skills and who is training with one of the best teams in the business though. And while Sokoudjou downplays all the attention surrounding him, he is enjoying the ride so far.

“I enjoy the sport,” he said. “For me, it’s much more of a passion than making it all serious and as if my life depended on it. I’m a fan first, and I enjoy watching the fights, but it’s even more exciting when I’m part of it, so for me it’s a pretty exciting experience.”</div>