Martial Plan

Grapple of their eye: Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which Tamdan McCrory and Erik Charles train in three times a week at a studio in Liverpool, features a lot of brute-strength wrestling moves. 

Erik Charles, 33, and Tamdan McCrory, 21, are the antithesis of the stereotypical thug that has plagued the image of their sport. The duo, who easily pass for brothers, are near mirror images of each other down to matching black-rimmed bifocals. They're both considerably more than 6 feet tall and considerably less than 200 pounds with long, lean limbs, and admit to looking more like two guys coming to fix your computer than skilled cage fighters.

McCrory is an up-and-coming fighter in the world's pre-eminent mixed martial arts (MMA) fighting league, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and is currently preparing for an Aug. 9 fight with Luke Cummo at UFC 87. Charles recently starred on the UFC fighting reality show, The Ultimate Fighter, on cable’s Spike TV, where he and 31 other middleweight fighters competed in a winner-take-all tournament for a six-figure UFC contract. The two are also in the process of opening a new training complex in Cortland.

But at 3:45 p.m. on a Tuesday in March, the future seems to be both out of sight and out of mind. McCrory is teaching two boys—both

wearing white CNY MMA T-shirts that appear to have lost a battle with their school lunches, training gloves and mouthpieces—how to drop each other to the mat. When one of the boys whines about hitting his head, McCrory is calm and continues, unfazed, with the lesson. Fifteen minutes later, Charles enters the tight quarters of the aluminum-sided CNY MMA gym on the outskirts of Cortland. “How’s he doing?” Charles asks. “You wouldn’t know it, but Tamdan is still getting used to doing this.”

And while this may seem somewhat saintlike, or at the very least a testament to their good guy persona, it’s more a result of where both Charles and McCrory came from than from a desire to enhance their image.

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Brothers in arms: Tamdan McCrory and Erik Charles spar inside their Cortland mixed martial arts studio, CNY MMA.

Enter the Dragons

Charles and McCrory were both born in Ithaca, although Charles was never in one particular place long enough to consider it home. He was born to a self-proclaimed party mom who he says was never around when he was young and whom he saw get shot. Every time they moved, he had to fight to assert any kind of standing within the neighborhood. After regularly getting the shit kicked out of him, he’d go to the library and flip through Bruce Lee fighting manuals in an attempt to learn the Dragon’s techniques.

Shortly after moving to Cortland and after getting jumped by three boys, he came across a school that taught Lee’s brand of martial arts. “Back in the day, they didn’t call it MMA, but that’s basically what it was,” Charles says. “I learned grappling and punching and kicking and wrestling. It was all involved. I was doing MMA back then and this was about 22 years ago.” The school, East West Martial Arts Academy, changed Charles’ life and he now calls its owner, Kevin Seaman, dad. Seaman has since closed the academy to assist Charles and McCrory with CNY MMA.

McCrory’s upbringing was admittedly more stable than Charles’, but that’s relative. McCrory won’t go into great detail, but his mother and father divorced when he was young and one event involving a middle school fight and his mother’s boyfriend changed him forever. After getting a black eye during the fight, McCrory was told that if it happened again, he’d have another fight to face at home. This led to a lack of confidence and growing insecurity, which he still struggles with today. Fearing the result of another fight, he became extremely timid and non-assertive during conflict.

“After I was out of that environment during senior year of high school and in college I came out of my shell a little bit once some of the pressure to stay out of trouble was off,” he says. “But you don’t act a certain way for six years and then just all of a sudden turn it off.”

Now removed from those phases of their lives, to whatever degree can be expected, Charles and McCrory find themselves at the precipice of burgeoning and financially lucrative mixed martial arts careers. 

Two years ago, Charles and McCrory didn’t know each other. McCrory’s twin sister Tegan contacted Charles through Myspace and the two had a chance meeting at a SUNY Cortland wrestling match in April 2006. There, McCrory, who had wrestled through high school but never attained the success he desired, convinced Charles and former manager Ryan Ciotoli to train him in the art. McCrory was tested and showed promise.

From that moment on, he trained a minimum of four hours a day, including morning workouts before classes at SUNY Cortland. He caught on quickly, mopping the mats and cleaning the bathrooms to pay for the training, absorbing everything he saw like a sponge. Within the first week he had already fallen underneath Charles’ wing. 

“Tamdan is like Jim Beam,” he explains. “When I drank my first shot of Jim Beam, it made my mouth burn. It was a rough-tasting drink, but now I love it; I drink it all the time.”

As the two continued to beat on each other twice a day, a deep bond formed between training partners. “Even if I was getting the better of the exchanges in the beginning, you still have respect for someone that shows up the next day after getting their ass handed to them,” Charles says.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” McCrory responds, “big brother beating on little brother. You keep on coming back for more, trying to get better.”

Two months after he began training, McCrory entered the cage in his first professional fight against John Jenner at World Fighting League Judgment Night II in Revere, Mass. After 80 seconds he left victorious. Two weeks later, McCrory defeated Bobby Diaz as a huge underdog at Full Force Productions Untamed 5 in Mansfield, Mass. Diaz was a last-minute replacement for an injured fighter and an established coach with more than 20 fights under his belt. “That win really got the ball rolling and I steamrolled everyone I fought after that,” McCrory says.

“Every time Tamdan fought, his opponent would be a little bit better than the last guy,” Charles explains. “So the competition steps up pretty quickly and he was still beating guys so quickly. No one could even finish a fight with him. The next thing you know, he’s fighting for a championship and that guy gets knocked out.”

Seaman trained McCrory in striking and told him he had never seen anyone like him. “Erik’s dad said I had a gift. I just didn’t believe him, I didn’t think I was that good,” McCrory shrugs. “It might have been a lingering self-confidence thing. I’m not sure.” 

But he was good, good enough to be become one of the youngest North American Boxing Commission MMA welterweight champions ever and good enough to become a contracted UFC fighter shortly thereafter. He wouldn’t register his first loss until his 11th fight last November at UFC 78 in front of 14,000 fans at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. Akihiro Gono, a Japanese fighter who began competing when McCrory was 8, submitted McCrory with an armbar three minutes into the second round.

“Yeah, it was my first loss,” he says. “But at the level of competition I was at, it wasn’t as hard on me as it could have been. I legitimately lost to one of the top fighters in the world at my weight. Losing to a guy like that, you can’t really say, ‘Jesus, I suck.’ I hadn’t lost in this sport yet. I had gone on such a streak and then I finally get knocked off the high horse, it kind of sucks. It’s a rough fall. But it’s given me the opportunity to step back and finish up some things in my life that I need to finish before I can be 100 percent at the level I need to be at.”

All the while, Charles, who is 9-5 as a professional fighter, was also positioning himself to make his own splash. When the UFC began looking to cast their seventh season of The Ultimate Fighter, Charles’ name came up as both a fighter and as McCrory’s training partner. Charles flew out to Las Vegas, where the UFC is headquartered for a sit-down interview with the show’s producers. Once he was back in Cortland, he got a call saying he was in.

The taping for the show took place from Jan. 24 through the first week of March. Unlike past seasons, every cast member had to win a preliminary fight, to fight their way into the house, so to speak. In his preliminary fight, Charles drew Tim Credeur, an experienced black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu with a 10-2 record. Credeur, who made it to the show’s semifinals, pulled Charles to the mat with a single leg take-down and after transitioning to side control, submitted Charles via armbar.

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Fists of fury: Tamdan McCrory is an emerging force in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Says his friend and sparring partner Erik Charles, “Tamdan is like Jim Beam. When I drank my first shot of Jim Beam, it made my mouth burn. It was a rough-tasting drink, but now I love it.”

Gym Dandies

Following Charles’ loss, the duo finally found a few seconds to breathe. McCrory took an extended break from competition and finished his kinesiology degree, while Charles waited for the show to run its course. During that time, the two concentrated on teaching and working on their grappling at Tai Kai Jiu-Jitsu, 680 Old Liverpool Road, Liverpool, where they train three times a week.

“Tamdan and Erik just have great personalities,” says Scott Schultz, who trains McCrory and Charles and founded Tai Kai Jui-Jitsu some 30 years ago. “They love the arts, they’re scholarly guys, they’re very smart. It’s not just this image of thug-type guys and people with no minds. They have a lot of discipline because they really love the training and want to do well.”

Soon both would be rewarded for their dedication. McCrory took first place at April’s New York State Grappling Championships in the 190-pound

gi division, while Charles won the 220-pound no gi division. Both wins came via armbar submission.

With McCrory’s graduation and The Ultimate Fighter wrapped, the duo’s focus has since shifted to preparing McCrory for his August fight. “The night before graduation I got really hammered,” McCrory says. “Ever since it’s just been training and getting ready for the fight. Now that I’m done with school, it’s just training for fights and fighting, which is pretty much all I’m going to be doing for the next 10 years of my life.”

And when they’re not training, they’re planning the opening of their facility, a subject they can’t go five minutes without bringing up. “Two years ago, opening our own gym wasn’t the vision at all,” Charles says. “My dad owned a school and I had no interest in it. There just wasn’t enough money in it for me, but I couldn’t elude it. It {teaching} kept pulling me back and running at my heels and eventually I realized that if you do something you love, money will come.”

Their current gym space in Cortland, which they rent from Ciotoli, houses no more than 20 students comfortably; they also teach in Binghamton. Their Cortland gym is also a place where Charles and McCrory feel that they have outstayed their welcome. After disagreements with Ciotoli concerning the direction of their careers, the two sides decided to go their separate ways.

After the split, Charles and McCrory turned to Chris Palmquist, a former fighter and friend they made while coming up through the Massachusetts MMA scene, to manage their careers. “Tamdan and Erik were two kids doing things right and being excited, really just all-around good guys,” Palmquist says. “I don’t do this to make money, I just want to help out people I have become friends with, guys I think are dedicated to getting to the next level who train the right way and aren’t idiots.”

Palmquist had put in a good word on behalf of McCrory with World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC), arguably the second most recognizable fighting organization in the United States, and it was only three weeks after the call that the UFC (which owns WEC) contacted McCrory. It was then that Charles and McCrory knew that Palmquist was a man they needed to align themselves with.

And with the weight Palmquist had lifted off of their shoulders, Charles and McCrory have been able to fully concentrate on finding a new home for CNY MMA. “You know, we’ve grown our business from the freakin’ pole barn out in the middle of nowhere and now it’s time to upgrade our facility,” Charles says. “The facility itself is going to be sick. It’s going to be the best within hundreds of miles. There’s not even a facility like this in New York City and we’re going to have one in Cortland.”

If all goes as intended, renovations to the recently leased building, the location of which Charles is keeping a secret until plans are finalized, will begin soon. It will feature a 1,200-by-1,500-foot mat area, heavy bags, speed bags, full ring and cage, weight room and a retail area. “One day it’s even going to have a bar,” Charles jokes. “If you watch the UFC on TV and you go, ‘Wow, that guy right there has a school right down the street,’ that’s going to motivate people, because now they can actually get involved with the sport.”

They’re also hoping that the public campaign the UFC launched the second week of March to legalize and sanction MMA fighting in New York—which includes a $10,000 a month check to the Albany lobbying firm Brown McMahon & Weinraub—is successful. Eleven years ago, then-Gov. George Pataki banned the sport, taking issue with the bloodthirsty nature of the infantile UFC of the mid-1990s. “Someone who wins by using choke holds and kicking people while they are down is not someone our children should be looking to emulate,” Pataki said. But since the ban, 32 states have sanctioned MMA, including New Jersey and Ohio, both of which have hosted multiple 15,000-plus crowds for fights in the past year.

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Fight Club

The UFC was bought by Station Casinos executives Frank Fertitta III and his brother Lorenzo in 2001. With UFC president Dana White acting as the face of the organization, the trio quickly remade the UFC’s barbaric image. They adopted a rulebook, which did away with the no-holds-barred format, and added licensing, medical examinations, weight classes, mandatory drug testing and a round-by-round scoring system.

On March 10, Zuffa, the parent company of the UFC, unveiled the Web site, www.mmafacts.com, to persuade New York lawmakers to legalize the sport. Their argument was that the organization had transformed itself from bloodsport to a legitimate, corporate-sponsored business. 

“As the athletic commissions continue to sanction it and as more states that outlawed it start accepting it, the more the public will start accepting it,” McCrory says. “People will realize that it’s not all a bunch of people going into cages to beat the crap out of each other. It’s a science, it’s a real martial art.”

But for whatever reason, the New York State Assembly Tourism, Arts, and Sports Development Committee botched the vote on June 9 that would have begun the process of legalizing the sport. The bill was re-evaluated on June 18, but will not come up for a vote again until January. That setback essentially quashes the UFC’s hope of putting on a fight in Madison Square Garden this year, while also ending any speculation that smaller, regional fighting organizations, like the World Fighting League where McCrory got his start, would move into the state’s smaller markets, like Syracuse.

But Charles and McCrory aren’t exactly sweating the sport’s future in New York; their school continues to thrive on word of mouth alone. When Charles re-enters the gym around 4:15 p.m., McCrory is running the boys through a circuit workout. One of the boys is doing wall squats with a medicine ball while the other is working on leg kicks with a heavy bag. Thirty seconds later McCrory tells them to move on to the next station.

“When we started this program, the kids would just slouch on the walls and wouldn’t show us any respect,” Charles says. “Now it’s like, ‘Yes, sir’ and ‘No, sir.’ You could see the change almost instantly once they realized we wouldn’t be taking any attitude.”

And as far as jealousy between the two goes, there doesn’t appear to be any. Most of their arguments arise from little things that get on each other’s nerves. “In the earlier days, Tamdan would get upset with me when I’d hit him and then he would try to knock my block off and then he’d get hit more,” Charles says.

But the two say that kind of thing doesn’t happen much any more. McCrory is just waiting for the day he can finally kick Charles’ ass, a day that Charles says will never happen. “He’s gonna be an old man pretty soon and I’m gonna get him,” McCrory says.

“It’s the big brother rule: You’ll never be able to beat your big brother up,” Charles shoots back. “I’ll be 95 years old and he’s still not going to be able to do it.”