OUR VERY OWN LOCAL FIGHT CLUB

I T WAS NEARLY 8 P.M., AND RETREAT WAS impossible. It was too late to talk the talk. Now, nothing could save Dustin Fellows, Justin Goodall and Alex Iriarte from having

CLUB Above, Lee County Mixed Martial Arts fighters Alex Iriarte, Dustin Fellows and Justin Goodall. Right, Naples fighter Adam Deane. PHOTOS BY FLORIDA WEEKLY STAFF, MR. DEANE'S PHOTO COURTESY KURT EGGERING to walk the walk.

Although each man would walk in proud, he might very well walk out humbled — or more precisely, stagger out of a chainlink cage a few minutes later, bruised, bloodied and hurt — if he wasn't carried out first.

What fate had in store for the trio on Saturday night at Robarts Arena in Sarasota remained to be seen in a 10-fight card of Mixed Martial Arts, known as the Rumble at Robarts.

From Naples to Fort Myers and beyond, small fighting clubs that practice MMA have grown increasingly popular among men and even some women in recent years. The three Lee County men, all friends in their 20s, were there to prove it at the highest level they could reach.

Lee County Mixed Martial Arts fighter Alex Iriarte, top, puts a leg hold on Carlos Gonzales Saturday in the cage at Rumble at Robarts in Sarasota. Mr. Gonzales won the fight by technical knockout. Since no sanctioned amateur MMA association exists in Florida, anyone who wants more than the skills and fitness training available at gyms or dojos in Collier and Lee counties must become professional. They hanker to draw blood and prove willing to shed it, and risk humiliation, in return for a chance at glory and some money.

At Robarts Arena, the process was not simple.

Robed and hooded like sacrificial victims, the fighters presented their hands for wrapping by coaches or trainers about 45 minutes before the action. In the dressing room beneath the bleachers, Florida State Boxing Commission officials inspected and initialed the wraps. The FSBC requires that officials watch for tricks — plaster on the wrap, exposed knuckles, a roll of quarters or a cut-down horseshoe taped into the palm — as each fighter is readied.

Once ready, the men were restricted to the grim concrete confines of the dressing room. An irascible, beak-nosed official announced that particular rule in motionless air rank with sweat, anxiety and bridled ferocity: Any man seen leaving the dressing room before fight time after his hands were wrapped and gloved in the carbuncular little knuckle pads characteristic of cage fighters could be disqualified.

There were a lot of other rules, too. FSBC referee John Hosegood gathered the fighters to describe them. It was not a list for the faint of heart.

"No small-joint manipulation — you can try to grab four fingers and pull the hell out of them, but not one finger," he said.

"Observe the 'Mohawk rule' — from that part of your head to your butt bone, no strikes.

"All elbows are legal except for one: You can't come from the ceiling to the floor.

"You can't kick or knee to the head of a down opponent, and down means anything but the soles of his feet." To demonstrate, Mr. Hosegood crouched on two feet. "This is not down," he said. Then he rested a palm lightly on the floor. "This is down.

"Do not throw the axe kick straight down. Do not grab the fence, or your opponent's trunks or his shirt. Do not grab his gloves by fish-hooking your fingers in at the wrists.

"And even if you CAN do it, you CAN'T throw your opponent out of the cage" — the fighters broke into amused chuckles — "and you cannot spike your opponent on his head. That's a judgment call for us; sometimes he will land on his head."

More amused chuckles.

"Don't disrespect your opponent — no spitting or cussing. Keep your mouthpiece in at all times. If it's knocked out, when the moment presents itself, we'll get it and put it back.

"Defend yourself at all times — on a break, when we're standing you up and after the bell break. AT ALL TIMES, that's your responsibility."

The long, anxious minutes before

Back in the dressing room, the fighters sat, stretched or stood to bob and weave, occasionally throwing shadow punches and ducking imaginary counter punches.

The Lee County men conferred in brief moments with their coach from the Lehigh Combat Sports Club, Mike Dowling, a veteran boxer who understood better than anyone, perhaps, what was about to happen. Then they conferred some more with the club's judo coach and a former world champion, Marcelo Pereira.

Finally, each man followed his own prescription to get through the uncomfortable minutes before fighting.

Mr. Fellows, the club manager at Lehigh Combat Sports, mainlined a steady elixir of rap and up-beat music through his earphones. Tonight was his debut in the cage.

Mr. Iriarte, recently laid off as a biology and chemistry teacher and the wrestling coach at Ida Baker High School in Cape Coral, maintained his customary smile while chatting with his cousin, a former fighter who had inspired him to try the sport. Entering the Rumble at Robarts, he had one win and two losses under his belt.

And Mr. Goodall, also with a 1-2 record, walked up to his older brother Jason, an XFC (Xtreme Fight Club) bantamweight champion, and stood inches away while the two simply stared into each other's eyes. Then he wrapped his arms around his brother and held him tight. A moment later, the Goodalls were shadow boxing, talking strategy and moving to stay loose.

Above the fighters — up the short tunnel that would lead each man out at the center of a small parade of coaches, corner men, FSBC officials and fellow MMA practitioners — almost 2,000 fans delivered a steady, testosterone-fueled roar from the darkened seats. It was the barely restrained sound of blood lust, of heightened expectations emitted by those from whom nothing would be expected this night, except beer consumption.

"Ultimate Fighting. Superior Drinkability. $3 drafts," proclaimed the banners for Bud Light that patched the arena like huge Band-Aids.

Three bars were open and doing brisk business. Waitresses in skimpy dresses served customers seated at round tables flanking the cage. Each of those tables went for about $450, according to fight sponsor Nick Smith. A former Army boxer who joined his brother to manage their St. Petersburg business, The Art of Fighting, Mr. Smith noted that even in the down economy, the fight crowds keep coming.

Fan Bryan Sisk confirmed that notion. He had arrived at the arena at 4 p.m., three hours before the doors opened, and was first in line. "I've always wanted to fight, but I can't afford the training. I'm unemployed," he explained.

That didn't stop him from paying $20 for a ticket, "but they could charge $50 and I'd still get here," he said. "These guys put it on the line, and later they'll come out and talk to you, and sign autographs, or whatever."

Later, indeed, Mr. Sisk approached and congratulated winners and losers alike, collect- ing autographs from men who were swollen, limping, broken-nosed and invariably pleasant.

Out front near the ticket windows, four United States Marines in starched camouflage utilities had set up a recruiting table, in case any of the bleacher jockeys — predominantly young and male — decided it was time to drink up and sign up, wedding their patriotism to their manhood.

But Staff Sgt. Daniel Lashley, a Louisiana native, was circumspect about the Marine Corps' presence at a cage-fighting event, and reluctant to draw stereotypes about tough guys, either in the cage or in the Corps.

"A lot of people have a misunderstanding about us," he noted. "It's toughness this and toughness that and toughness the other. Toughness is good, but the Marine Corps relies on a lot of technology and a lot of other things, too, from planes to you name it. So it takes toughness and brains, both."

In the middle of the crowd sat the sole visible exception to this martial display. Jenny Mansfield was surrounded by her husband and almost 40 relatives who had driven the 80 miles from Lee County to watch her son, Mr. Fellows — Dusty, she called him lovingly — fight. A former state champion wrestler from Riverdale High School in east Lee County, Mr. Fellows would soon experience the cage-fighter's baptism of fire.

As the time approached and the crowd grew more frenzied, Mrs. Mansfield delivered no growls, no grunts, no knowing guffaws and no lupine snarls of sit-onyour ass ferocity, like many spectators.

Instead, she surrendered her tears.

"I'm his mother," she said later. "I didn't want him to get hurt. I was so, so scared, but I was so, so confident. And I'm so, so proud of him."

Pound for pound, dollar for dollar

The previous afternoon, the three Lee County fighters had arrived in Sarasota with their coaches to fill out the FSBC paperwork, to be tested by a state-sanctioned doctor and to "make weight," together with the competition. Before stepping on the scales, each repeated a similar mantra.

"I just want to eat again," said Mr. Fellows, whose walking-around weight is about 170 pounds. He'd spent weeks working out daily for hours and sticking to six very small meals a day comprised mostly of chicken and broccoli or a salad, so he could hit the 150-pound limit, he said.

" I t ' s the toughest time. It's taken me a month to make

weight," added Mr. Iriarte, who would fight at 170 but typically weighs about 190 pounds. "You want to pack as much strength and as much endurance into as small a package as you can."

That day had ended happily at an allyou can-eat Italian buffet with the relaxed camaraderie that typifies the team. There was even a special reason for careful jubilation: Mr. Goodall's opponent had not made weight and was significantly heavier than Mr. Goodall's 130 pounds, but Mr. Goodall agreed to fight him anyway, and boxing officials OK'd that decision. That was especially encouraging to Mr. Goodall, because he needed the money to help support his wife and two children to whom he is devoted, a friend said.

For this event, each fighter would get $500 to show up, $500 to win and bonuses for such crowd-pleasing spectacles as knockouts or brutal submission holds — a choke hold capable of rendering an opponent unconscious, or a grip that would break bones if the opponent did not submit by slapping a hand three times on the pad, for example.

Coach Dowling managed to negotiate an extra $300 for Mr. Goodall, too, since he agreed to fight a heavier opponent. That meant Mr. Goodall's minimum take for the night would be $800, and he might go to $1,300 if he could win, or higher if he could do something brutally decisive to finish the other man.

But nobody would really fight at the advertised weight. Having made weight the day before by starving themselves, the fighters would gain between 6 and 10 pounds each by fight time, they estimated.

Body and mind

As the gathered for the evening combat, the fighting men and their entourages were a study in contrasts, either behaving graciously toward each other, or ignoring each other completely.

Black, white and brown, most were Floridians who live in or between Miami and Tampa. They sported shaved heads or neon-red Mohawks or Medusa-style Afros. They displayed tattoos as elaborate as spider webs or as bluntly to-the-point as a woman's first name. Some swaggered, while others avoided any suggestion of showing off.

In the dressing room, Coach Dowling worked his jaw muscles unconsciously, the tension rolling off him in proverbial waves as he taped hands and checked his fighters.

Their time to put up or shut up had arrived. Weeks and months of training was about to be tested: miles of daily running, thousands of pushups, pull-ups and crunches, along with countless "circuits" of two- or three-minute intervals hitting bags, pads, sparring, working the strength machines, jumping rope and executing throws, holds, kicks and punching combos. And then running some more.

The physical part for the well-prepared clearly isn't easy, but the mental part might be even tougher, according to Coach Dowling.

"When they say this sport is 90 percent mental, that's not an exaggeration," he observed.

"These fighters are a breed of their own. They're as tough as they have to be to get in there and put their lives on the line.

"But mentally, they're some of the softest and gentlest people outside the cage. My bantamweight champion (Jason Goodall, Justin's older brother) is a killer in the cage, but he's a fragile personality ality

outside the cage.

"And my undefeated heavyweight, Matthew Sposato — I can't get him worried about anything. I'll be worried to death, but he doesn't get scared. With him, it's, 'Whatever. No big deal.' He can be a lazy trainer, but close that kid in a cage and somebody's going to get beat up."

As a coach, he added, "I'm a janitor, I'm a baby sitter, I'm a psychologist, I'm a cop."

But not now. Now he had to step back, and so did Mr. Sposato and Jason Goodall, who were both in the locker room supporting the night's fighters.

As he watched his brother pace anxiously, the elder Goodall, undefeated in five fights, explained the compulsion to fight as "a God-given gift," and thus worth pursing.

"I'm neurotic about training — you just have to work harder than anybody else. They damn near well have to kick me out of the gym every day," he said of his success.

Married to an emergency room doctor in Lee County, he compared MMA cage fighting to gambling. "A gambler knows what might happen and knows the odds better than most people, but he's still gambling. And when you gamble, anything can happen, no matter how much you know."

Although battle was about to be joined and each man would gamble with his health and safety, MMA cage fighting is not quite the no-holds-barred warring that the stereotype sometimes suggests.

The rules, remarkably detailed, are the state's attempt to manage and control MMA fighting, said FSBC official Joey Gentile, a former boxer who was working the Rumble at Robarts as a corner official.

"This part is just like boxing," he explained. "I'm in the corner to make sure nothing is illegal — there's nothing in the water, there's no Vaseline, all of that."

But the fighting style is only marginally like boxing. It appears to spring from the rough hide of American machismo almost without a single identifiable tradition or precedent — but practitioners explain that it's a mish-mash of precedents. Cage fighting on this level requires the skills of boxing, wrestling, karate and judo, plus the instincts of the street.

It comes down to this

As the fighters finally stood to be called into the arena — Justin Goodall, Mr. Iriarte and Mr. Fellows were scheduled one, two and three on the 10-bout card) — the brilliantly spotlighted cage, raised about four feet above the main floor, appeared in the arena's center. There, promoter and ring announcer Jeffrey Santella began his spiel.

"GOOD E-VEN-ING LA-DIES and GEN-TLE-MEN!" he shouted into the microphone.

Typically dressed in white wraps and a simple black belt at his Cape Coral dojo, Street Defense Systems Institute, Mr. Santella (also a veteran Lee County sheriff's deputy) appeared resplendent in a dark suit and raspberry-colored shirt with tie for the Rumble.

"This is FULL CON-TACT ENTERTAINMENT!" he bellowed. "We have some modern warriors here tonight to fight three five-minute rounds."

Those modern warriors would nevertheless be fighting under some contrivance, "not like the street at all," he had pointed out earlier. "The Ultimate Fighting Championship motto is, 'As real as it gets.' But the motto should be: 'As real as it gets without being real.'"

Forgetting that notion, Mr. Santella worked to inspire the crowd, delivering some real entertainment and even appealing to fan patriotism before the singing of the national anthem and the parading of buff women in black holding up signs to announce the round.

"Let us remember, we have thousands of troops overseas and FREEDOM ISN'T FREE," he boomed.

The crowd erupted in a great cheer, and then the violence started.

In a matter of moments, Justin Goodall was in the cage and facing a furious onslaught from a bigger man. For about four minutes, he was on his back, taking intense punishment and fighting just to survive — but grimly, coolly, courageously refusing to quit.

Almost in the blink of an eye, that changed. He snapped to his feet and savagely attacked his tiring opponent's head and neck, then drove the stunned fighter into the mat face first, like a railroad spike.

The spectators exploded with hungry pleasure, their enthusiasm punctuating an inarguable fact: Fighting is back (if it ever went anywhere), its popularity reminiscent of American tastes in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, at least for a devoted subsection of the population.

Unlike in that era of celebrated fisticuffs, however, this was fighting not only with fists, but with elbows, knees, feet, grappling, choking and kicking, and the Marquess of Queensberry be damned.

Nobody was crying foul, and the results would speak for themselves.

RESULTS FOR THE NIGHT:

• Justo Martinez vs. Justin Goodall. WINNER: Goodall via submission (rear naked choke) at 4:34 in round 1.

• Carlos Gonzales vs. Alex Iriarte. WINNER: Gonzales via TKO at 0:48 in round 2.

• Domingo David vs. Justin Fellows. WINNER: Fellows via submission (rear naked choke) at 0:45 in round 1.