That's Gonna Leave A Mark (On Me)

I've been quiet and alarmed all day as my mind replays images last night's cage match at the convention center.

To say Brent Roth was knocked-out is accurate, but not precise. To say he lost to a knock-out suggests he was outskilled, outfought. And that wasn't the case, at least to my untrained eye.

I had been looking forward to the fight for weeks, since I interviewed the 19-year-old Brent for this story.

I went to watch him practice and talked to his dad and mom and trainer, and came away from the story with an appreciation and relative understanding of mixed martial arts and cage fighting. This article in Slate helped a lot too.

Brent was 3-0 before the fight and had daydreams of turning professional in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

After school at Wright State, five days a week, Brent trains with his Gracie Jiu-Jitsu instructor in mixed martial arts and another instructor in boxing. I even made this video of his training to go along with the story.

You'll see (if you use Firefox as your browser, Safari won't show it) he is soft-spoken, seemingly sweet and without a hint of the hubris or cockiness found in cage fighters. Though skilled, he doesn't seem like the guy who'd lock himself into a steel octogon and want to fight his way out.

Nonetheless, I was excited to see him try, and I knew his parents, classmates and family would be there as well.

A few days before the match Brent's opponent was changed, unbeknowst to him. He'd been training to fight a wrestler who was on the original card. But I noticed the change after writing the story and emailed Brent to see if he knew why. He didn't.

From then on, I had a bad feeling about it. I don't know why, I just did.

His was the second to last fight and I sat there nervous the whole time waiting. The rest of the fights were pretty entertaining. I can see why people like it. One fighter, who had an entourage of people wearing blue Team Demon t-shirts, suffered what I guess was a humiliating loss because he came back from the fight and hugged his mom for a good long while, then his girlfriend, and then his friends before he went to the consession stand for nachos. (Nachos being the official snack of cage fighting, I decided last night.)

Another guy, who was older than anyone else and kind of graying, was a little sad to watch because he was far too inexperienced to be in the ring and took a good pummeling before the ref called the fight. Not to mention his pony-tail fell out, which made me kinda sad for him.

But the rest of the fights were pretty tame. A few guys got knocked around pretty good, but not much. There was minimal blood and no knock outs. Mostly, it was guys throwing a few punches and rolling around on the matt before the other, usual the better man at martial arts, pretzeled him into submission.

Then it was Brent's fight. I was videoing it thinking I'd post it on CinWeekly so people could see how he did. Win or lose, I thought it'd be interesting.

Brent and his opponent boxed for about one minute, both getting off a few good hits with some kicks mixed in. Then as Brent went to kick him again, his opponent grabbed his foot and within seconds, Brent was above the guys head. Several fighters last night got body slammed without peril, but I felt like when it was happening, it was bad.

And then Brent came down on the back of his head and neck. He was unconscious as soon as he hit the mat, I imagine. But his opponent seized the opportunity, pounced on him and started punching him in the face as Brent layed there, unconscious and quivering. The crowd went crazy, then silent. I felt sick.

The ref tackled his opponent as soon as he realized Brent was unconscious. Three medics rushed into the cage, along with his trainer. For about two minutes, Brent didn't move or speak. I turned off my video camera horrified that I was taping his final moments. That not only was I privy to his death, but that I was filming it.

With a lump in my throat, I grabbed ahold of my Tall Drink of Water to have him help me down from the chair I was standing on.

After several agonizing minutes and stunned silence from the crowd, Brent finally lifted his head. About that time, the medics brought in an orange stetcher and I wondered how it happened that the only person to be hurt and carried out on a stretcher would be Brent. It seemed so surreal.

But he refused it, and with the help of his trainer and the medics, he stood up and walked out of the ring on his own. Wobbling and in need of assistance, but not on a stretcher.

All last night and today I've been challenged to remove the images from my mind. To think of him landing the way he did, without a chance of fighting back, and then being pummelled while unconscious is to tough to wrap my mind around.

It finally got the better of me tonight and I was able to track down his trainer's phone number. So I called him. On a Sunday night. I told him how much it shook me up and that I'd been worried all day and just wanted to make sure Brent was all right.

"It's hard to see," he assured me. "It's violent. We were all scared. But Brent's fine."

Then he kind of laughed, saying how nice it was that I was concerned.

"We talked about the mistake he made in letting himself get airborne," he went on. "Actually, we just finished some jiu-jitsu training tonight. He's doing fine. You want his cellphone number?"

I called and left Brent a rambling message, telling him my first cage match was fun, except that I worried about him all day and hoped he was feeling OK. Then I told him that I was going to email him tomorrow and if he could write me back assuring me that he is all right, I'd appreciate it.

It surprises me how affected I am by this, but if you saw the video, you'd see why.