So here I am, five years later. Not sure exactly what day it was, but it was around this time five years ago that I decided to start writing about MMA. Its been “interesting. I was at first critical of MMA, calling it things like “hump fest” and other dumb stuff. I considered it inferior to boxing. Blame Tim Sylvia for that. But then I began to see drive, hunger, determination, and sheer passion for the fighters, and I began to understand -- this is something great. It helped that my buddy, Darell Fuentes, kept bringing over old Pride FC DVDs. Thanks, D. It was because of a layoff from a job as an insurance adjuster that I decided to start writing about a sport I now enjoyed. It grew from there. I made my own blog, NahmMMA, and sent countless requests to the UFC for credentials. But, of course, they were denied. Cue sad face. But then I started writing for Bleacher Report, which provided me my biggest career jump. The editor at the time paid me out of his own pocket to write, and he continued to do that until he left and recommended to his superiors that I take over his role. My time at BR was stressful, but it was a great platform. Eventually it gave me what I was looking for: cage-side reporting. From there, I met the best editor Ive ever had, Ken Pishna, and he took a gamble in giving me a chance to write for a publication that I read on a daily basis, MMAWeekly. It was there that I truly put in the work as a hard-news reporter, teaming up with guys like Damon Martin and Jeff Cain to break a ton of news in 2011, giving other outlets fits in trying to keep up with our hustle. Great times. Unfortunately, my time there ended when I needed to find work in the same horrible insurance industry that put me through an almost unrecoverable layoff, only to have it happen again in 2012. But by contributing to Yahoo Sports and other outlets, I found myself landing a job as the assistant editor at GRACIEMAG, heading up their MMA section for a year. That was an amazing experience, one for which Ill always be grateful to Luca Atalla. When my time at the magazine ended, I scrambled to find something as quickly as possible. Luckily, Ken from MMAWeekly reached out to me again and said, So, Erik, whats your situation with GRACIEMAG? I said there wasnt one, to which he replied, Lets talk. And now here I am as the lead writer and associate editor at MMAWeekly. Damon has moved on to FOX Sports, but still regularly communicates with me, Ken and Jeff, and we all still complain about the same things (because thats what MMA writers do, after all). So here I am, five years later. I feel MMA has peaked in the U.S., and unless things change, they wont get better. But thats not up to me. Ill continue to cover it as long as I am able, reporting the news, searching for truths, keeping all who consider me a valuable source of information informed. Thanks.
Posted on: Sun, 20 Jul 2014 18:17:07 +0000
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