To Reinvent His Life, Unheralded Chris Miranda Fights On

By Frank Forza

When you’ve been cramming fights into your brain for more than 30 years, only beyond extraordinary will surprise you. Something special has to play out for me to tell others about it, for me to vividly remember a performance, for inspiration to strike.

And what I witnessed at last month’s Tuff-n-Uff event qualifies as all of the above. Promising amateur prospects such as Felicia “Fee Nom” Spencer, Paola Ramirez, unbeaten Corey Conway and Josh Rodda shined that night in Las Vegas, yet it was a bout between fighters with a combined 1-9 record that most captivated me. Strange, because I’m not in the habit of feeling impressed after watching two guys collide whose combined record would get many NFL or NBA coaches fired.

Yet as it turned out, the best story of the night featured Chris Miranda and Joe Allen — two fighters I had never heard of. The Miranda-Allen tussle happened to be the first fight of the night. Before a punch had been thrown, virtually all I knew about Allen was his 0-2 record. Ditto for Chris Miranda and his 1-7 stain. Haven’t encountered that record much in MMA. Or at least I don’t pay much attention when I do. 1-7 is the kind of record where MMA coaches sit down with their fighter after a tough loss, look ’em in the eyes and tell them, ‘Maybe it’s time for you to do something else.’

Miranda-Allen wasn’t the predator vs. prey matchup you see so often in pro boxing; Miranda-Allen seemed fair, on paper at least. Saying the bout was cloaked in intrigue and dripping with suspense would be a stretch, of course. But when I imagined mindmelding with Miranda and Allen for a moment, the contest held the utmost gravity: Within the next 10 minutes, one of these two fighters was going to feel like he had climbed Kilimanjaro. The other might feel like he had failed a driver’s test for the umpteenth time.

So I see Chris Miranda step into the cage at Cox Pavilion on the UNLV campus, screaming like a madman. Pacing around like he’s the second coming of Matt Hughes, glaring at Allen across the cage like a lion stalking a zebra.

“This dude is pretty pumped for a 1-7 fighter!’

Couldn’t help thinking that.

I know and respect Tuff-N-Uff’s matchmakers from the Evoke Sports Group, the guys who put Miranda and Allen on the card. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, yet still couldn’t shake my skepticism.

Were the matchmakers just unable to find two fighters with better records? Maybe Allen and Miranda are gunblazers with a reputation for being exciting and getting after it? Or: Do the matchmakers secretly train with one of these guys? Maybe that’s why they’re on the card!

Seriously, what’s up with this?

Round 1 commenced and those questions died almost as quickly as they entered my mind. With every punch and kick thrown, nearly every assumption I held about Chris Miranda was instantly under siege.

JUST SCRAP

Chris Miranda is 21 years old. He happens to be Hawaiian. If you’ve ever trained with Hawaiians then you undoubtedly know why “Just Scrap” has become an unofficial anthem for young Hawaiian males. To the best of my knowledge, President Barack Obama doesn’t tell fight stories about his time on the islands. But pretty much every other Hawaiian male can run off fight stories with the same kind of encyclopedic recall and fervor of John Madden talking turkey and pigskin. Indeed, Hawaiian dudes are to fight stories what country musicians are to crying-in-my-beer, lost-my-wife-and-my-dog stories. They’ve got a lot of ’em.

It’s not hard to find a guy with a firecracker personality in Hawaii willing to “scrap” over the slightest perceived insult. They’re a dime a dozen on the islands. As it so happens, Miranda’s first amateur fight occurred in a well-known Hawaii-based organization appropriately named “Just Scrap.” He was 18 years old, still a senior in high school.

Said Miranda of his decision: “I wanted to punch people in the face for a living.”

With less than a year of formal training under his belt, Miranda entered his first fight and remembers feeling “shell-shocked.” It was a short night; he lost by rear-naked choked in round 1.

Then, on a mere two days notice, the high school version of Miranda agreed to fight one of Hawaii’s most highly-regarded prospects, Louis Smolka. Miranda lost via 1st-round guillotine to Smolka, now a UFC fighter.

Then came cause for celebration: Miranda won his next fight via first-round guillotine!

Followed … unfortunately … by a dizzying flurry of losses:

Via first-round TKO.

Via first-round guillotine.

Via first-round TKO.

Via first-round KO.

In particular, Miranda remembers something his father – never fond of his son’s cage exploits – said to him amid the losing skid:

“Good, I told you that you’re going to lose! Join the military!’

Defeat #6 hurt the most, literally and figuratively. For most of his career up until then, Miranda trained at a gym where they were long on toughness but short on technique.

“I took a lot of tough and stupid fights,” he reflected. “Most of it was due to the gym I belonged to; They didn’t really pay attention to building a fighter. They just wanted to throw guys out there.”

But before Defeat #6, in desperate search of a cure, a frustrated Miranda had switched over to former two-time UFC champ B.J. Penn’s famed gym.

“I trained there a good four or five months,” Miranda said of B.J.’s gym. “I didn’t get to train with BJ but I got to train with Troy Mandaloniz and Shane Nelson. I had a lot of good guys around me and a great weight cut. But I didn’t really believe in myself at that time and that’s what caused me to get knocked out in that fight. I was weak-minded.

“I needed to take some time off after that because I had a minor concussion. My pride was hurt. I was like, ‘Why am I still losing? Why am I still here?’

“I had a lot of losses and it kind of killed my confidence. After I lost that fight I was depressed and thinking, ‘Man, I should just hang up these gloves. It’s a rough sport. I don’t belong in there.’”

A year later, the 1-6 Miranda laid his soul-searching to rest.

“I decided to reinvent myself as a fighter,” he said.

NO PLAN B

Your Outer is merely a physical manifestation of your Inner. Nothing more. And so, in the purest terms, how someone fights (outwardly) reveals a great deal about how they feel (inwardly). If you’re lacking confidence inside the cage, you’re almost certainly lacking confidence outside of it.

Supremely confident champs such as Anthony Pettis – who was born on mean city streets and forced to endure his father being murdered – are pretty much needles in a haystack. The maybe-I-can psyches of guys like Chris Miranda are omnipresent. Poverty is the demon that strips so many of something precious. The great slave-turned-U.S. Ambassador Frederick Douglass offered the ages this jewel of wisdom when he said,“It is easier to build strong kids than fix broken adults.”

Chris Miranda was living, breathing proof of that wisdom. In America we excel at throwing feel-good slogans and quotes around on Facebook on social media, singing Kumbaya and pretending that turning around a life that has been crappy for 20 years can be done in 20 seconds after reading a quote over the Internet. The reality is, fixing broken adults is extremely hard, long-term work – as Douglass succinctly and poignantly expressed. Chris Miranda was one of those broken adults. For the young Miranda, a tumultuous past had become a predictor of his future. Inside the cage and out. And so he, like so many others, hoped to literally fight his way out of the pain. Crazy as it sounds to some, the cage is a sanctuary of sorts to a poor kid like Miranda. A chance to escape. A chance to grow. A chance for change. A chance to be somebody.

It is cruel and ironic that a man who has already taken so many lumps from Life would consciously choose – and, in fact delight! — in a profession that delivers so much physical misery. Which is perhaps why the great boxing trainer Freddie Roach once said, ‘If you’re not good enough to be a world champion, choose another profession.’ Yet millions who will never be a world champion, nor make life-changing money in the fight game, do choose the hardest of sports. And millions more will follow them. Hunting for a ticket out. Chasing the Dangling Carrot. Trying to conquer their fears. Comfortable being uncomfortable.

Chris Miranda, at 1-6, didn’t have a Plan B. The powerful urge to win another fight was a big deal to him. So he made the pilgrimage to Las Vegas, the way many Hawaiians do. Relocating to the so-called “Ninth Island” was as much about starting a new life, as it was about learning the X’s and O’s of the fight game. It was about clearing his conscience and trying to change the mental programming that played over and over again in his head like a broken record.

After a camp in Vegas, a reinvigorated Miranda took to the cage once more. Competing as an “independent,” Miranda faced Andrew Lopez, a 2-2 local fighter. Again, the 1-6 Miranda shot his best Matt Hughes stalking glare at Lopez before the opening horn (a stare that might be intimidating coming from a champion). After they touched gloves, Miranda showed a fiery spirit, winging punches and throwing combinations with heat. Looking nothing like a 1-6 fighter.

Now, put Miranda’s gusto into perspective: Did you happen to catch a YouTube video of actor Mickey Rourke’s most recent “fight” – and I surround that word with quotes because the well-publicized bout in Russia felt strangely akin to watching a scripted pro wrestling match. Before a punch had been thrown, you already knew the outcome. Rourke was going to win.

But anyway, if you saw Rourke’s opponent, Elliott Seymour – a 1-9 fighter who moved about the ring like a zombie and seldom punched back – then you know ZombieNess is exactly what the crowd expects from a guy who loses 90 percent of his fights. You get to stand in the ring and take aim at a punching bag, basically. You get a guy who, inwardly, has little to no belief that his hand is getting raised. There were reports in the British newspapers after the fight that Seymour was homeless and was paid $15,000 for the fight. (TMZ Sports quoted Seymour as saying Rourke’s “people” paid him to take a dive, but indicated Rourke himself had no knowledge of the arrangement).

Now, it’s just my hunch, but I say that Miranda absolutely pummels the 62-year-old Mickey Rourke if they ever fight in Russia or anywhere else. Even in a boxing match. And I pray that matchup stays in my imagination and never actually happens. Because Miranda, despite his lop-sided record, is young and aggressive. The kid gets after it and is not afraid to get hit. And he will eat one to give one, which is exactly what he showed against Andrew Lopez when they met in summer 2014. Miranda looked hungry and determined against Lopez – so hungry and determined that it apparently shocked the Tuff-n-Uff commentators who were calling the fight.

“He doesn’t look like a 1-10 fighter to me!” one announcer said.

And later: “Is he the best 1-10 fighter you’ve ever seen?!”

For the record, Miranda was 1-6 that night when he entered the cage opposite Lopez. And he fought valiantly during that fast-paced and entertaining affair, but was again undone by the relative infancy of his ground game; Miranda got taken down again in the 3rd round and ate punches until the referee halted it.

From a fan’s perspective, it’s part of the beauty of a Chris Miranda fight: Somebody always gets finished. And most of the time it was Chris Miranda. He hated his record, hated hearing it announced. The loss to Lopez, however, wasn’t a low point for Miranda. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“Experience-wise, the Andrew Lopez fight was the highlight of my career,” he said. “It was a grueling, tough fight that forced me to fight through tough situations.”

Something else fortuitous happened immediately after the fight. Another coach who saw the fight live at the venue, Dave Gavic, approached Miranda and extended an invitation.

“Hey buddy, come to my gym to train and see if you like it.”

THINK LIKE YOU’RE 0-0

Suite 110 off West Hacienda Avenue in Las Vegas is home to Hybrid Performance University, the place where Miranda feels he was reborn.

“I came in and fell in love with everybody there,” he said. “Everyone is super easy to get along with and pushes you to the limit. Everyone started telling me, ‘Don’t think about your record. Your record doesn’t matter. You’re a new person now.’”

Gavic’s cozy gym is loaded with bells and whistles. Plenty of mat space, ropes to climb, tires to turn and weights to lift. Even some super-soft turf for indoor sprints. But when Gavic embraced Miranda, he knew that high-tech equipment doesn’t build fighters – intangibles do. They were Miranda’s biggest hurdle. The Mental Game. And a reticence to deeply trust someone.

“Being humble is a huge deal for me,” Gavic said. “Chris came in with a chip on his shoulder. He was a little fiery, which is cool. He had heart and he liked to fight; you know, he’s an island kid. A lot of those kids are down to scrap even though they don’t really know what they’re doing. So he definitely had that warriorness about him.”

Foremost, Miranda’s psyche needed re-programming. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Michael Jordan confidence and 0 being a hermit, where was Chris Miranda on the confidence spectrum when he first walked through Hybrid Performance’s doors?

“I’d say a 3,” Gavic said.

Gavic saw evidence of something greater. For one thing, most fighters with a 1-6 record would have packed it in and walked away from the sport. Miranda was still here. Five, six days a week. Still grinding in the gym. Still feisty and proud. The other thing Gavic noticed and admired about Miranda, “every time you hit him he will fire back.” The downside: Miranda was a slave to his testosterone once fists started flying with a habit of entering the cage minus any real strategy or gameplan.

“A lot of his outcomes could have been different if he had the right mentor and guidance,” said Gavic, who was himself raised in a home where his mom often played Tony Robbins motivational audio tapes. “So with Chris I said, ‘Hey man, you’ve got a lot of talent and you hit hard. I just need you to listen so we can do this right. You need to calm down and focus and harness your energy. Even though you’re tough, you don’t want to always show how tough you are. It’s much better to go out there and pick somebody apart.’”

Strategy over fury. Miranda tended to stand straight up – Gavic modified him into a lower stance and drilled lots of takedown defense with him. But aside from technical refinements, how do you build a fighter’s confidence? Gavic’s old-fashioned approach with Miranda is something of a paradox, somewhat counter-intuitive, as if he pulled a page out of the Special Forces or U.S. Marines Corps manual. Gavic and his team tore Miranda down even more. Roughly four weeks ahead of Miranda’s fight, Gavic tried to break Miranda in the practice room, swarming him with intense sparring sessions. He made Miranda mostly the nail, rather than the hammer. He forced the 21-year-old to the brink and into a gut check. Instead of resenting Gavic, Miranda opened up to him.

“We really had to rough him up. That’s what lit that fire,” Gavic said. “We actually lit the fire to the fullest extent by bloodying him up one night. He was freakin’ furious. He broke. We kind of unleashed the beast on him and I think that was the turning point. He was real pissed off but that beat it out of him. He went from fractured to broken in half.

“After that session he and I sat down and talked, and he let a lot of things out. We connected on a more personal level, a deeper level. Chris explained to me that he had been through a lot of things in his life. He said that was why he acted the way he did (chip on his shoulder). And I told Chris about where I came from. That’s what I think gave him that spark he needed to realize he’s not alone. It can be tough to get people to trust you. When you show that you care it makes it easier for them to trust you.”

Pushed to the brink, Miranda now trusted every word Gavic said to him. He began “buying in” to everything Gavic told him. He began to absorb the “you’re better than your record” mantra in Gavic’s messages.

“He didn’t care about my record,” Miranda said, “and that made me not give a crap about my record, either.”

CALM BEFORE THE STORM

Basketball and football players like to say, “Ball Don’t Lie.” Grapplers say, “Mats Don’t Lie.” MMA fighters could say, “Cage Don’t Lie.” I’ve said it for many years now and it bears repeating: The cage shines a crystal ball on someone’s character. Your soul is naked there. Everyone is watching and there is nowhere to hide, no way to BS your way out of things, no who-you-know power or Rich Uncle that can solve your problems. The cage is, at its best, the last real meritocracy left in the world.

And so the night of Nov. 7 would be a referendum of sorts for Chris Miranda. How far had he come? How much can a man change in three months? How much further should a 1-7 fighter carry on with a dream that, to others on the outside, looks more like a nightmare?

Because, let’s face it, 1-7 may stink but 1-8 stinks even more (although it is worth noting that former UFC champ Frank Mir started out 0-9 in his high school wrestling career, so go figure). Suffice it to say that other than a dozen or so people at Cox Pavilion that night, probably no one else cared what was at stake between Chris Miranda and Joe Allen. Yet November 7th had the potential to become one of the Greatest Days of Chris Miranda’s life.

The mind of Chris Miranda was now essentially the mind of Dave Gavic. And Gavic preferred to leave nothing to chance. No detail was too small. He liked to dot every ‘I’ and cross every ‘t.’ You had best believe that when a pop superstar like Madonna or Usher steps on stage, they and their dancers have choreographed almost every dance move over and over again. When Apple or Microsoft launch a product, they have probably run at least hundreds of tests on that product to test its effectiveness and troubleshoot for errors that would embarrass their reputations.

In a similar vain of diligence, Gavic implored Miranda to step back and visualize not just how he would fight inside the cage, but the hours leading up to his performance. Making weight the day prior. Arriving at the venue. Hitting mitts. Getting his hands taped. Walking through the hall to the cage once your name has been called and your fight is up. Hugging your coaches. Are you gonna take two deep breaths? Are you going to say a prayer inside the cage? Then visualize it. See it unfolding. See yourself standing in the cage and having the announcer yell your name. And then touching gloves with Joe Allen.

In Gavic’s estimation, in the hours and minutes leading up to the fight, a Miranda win was a forgone conclusion. On a scale of 1 to 10, he pegged Miranda’s confidence that night at “an 11” – meaning Michael Jordan himself might have been envious. From Gavic’s embedded viewpoint, all signs indicated Miranda would deliver the finest performance of his unheralded and underwhelming career.

“When I sit down and talk to a fighter while he’s getting his hands taped I can usually tell where they’re at,” Gavic said. “I can tell if they’re nervous, over-confident or maybe too relaxed. That’s a good time for me to find where my fighter’s mind is.

“But Chris was ready. I told him, ‘You’re going to put those gloves on that guy. You’re going to do great.’

“I asked him over and over again, ‘What are you going to do? What are you going to do?’”

Miranda didn’t hesitate. Repeating to Gavic all of the strategies and dominating scenarios that he and Gavic had been talking about for weeks.

“He had a great energy about him,” Gavic said, “and I sensed that it was his time.”

It was almost Go Time. Miranda, Gavic and a small group took an elevator ride before their walk to the cage. Gavic offered some final words.

“You’re an animal, man! You’re one of the best! You have so much potential so don’t doubt yourself at all when you’re in there. Just stick to the gameplan and do what you do.”

GO TIME

As Miranda and his tiny entourage walked toward the cage, he began to feel the energy of the crowd – one of the greatest pleasures for an athlete, the moment when all eyes are on you.

Miranda began to smile and soak in the atmosphere, telling himself, ‘There’s no place I’d rather be.’

There are a tiny row of steps a fighter must walk up to enter the cage. As Miranda did, he reminded himself “This is what I want to do for a living. I’ve got to knock this guy out. There’s nothing I won’t do to win this fight tonight.’”

Improved wrestling had bolstered Miranda’s confidence. He intended to completely unleash his hands and kicks without hesitation or fear of being taken down.

“Once I heard the announcer say my name I knew it was Gametime.”

Miranda and Allen touched gloves. Allen, the 0-2 southpaw, came out aggressive and pumping his jab.

Miranda stood southpaw before switching to an orthodox stance.

“I knew his weakness would be my right hand,” Miranda said, “and I was more comfortable throwing my power hand than he was.”

The ultra-aggressive Miranda slipped Allen’s jab and countered with crisp punching combinations, topping them off with hard kicks to the body. If Moranda got a little wild, as he is prone to, Gavic would yell key words from the corner to try and settle him. When Moranda would score with a big combo – as he did early and often – Gavic was there cheerleading and reassure him that the blows were scoring and inflicting damage.

Gavic architected a plan to attack Allen’s body and it was working to perfection early.

“I wanted to beat the guy’s body to lower him (his hands),” Gavic said. “It also builds confidence because the body is a bigger target.”

30 seconds into the bout, my pre-fight thought of “Maybe this 1-7 fighter should retire” had been replaced with “What the …. this guy isn’t fighting like he’s 1-7!”

Truly amazing and refreshing to see a guy with a losing record fight like a winner.

By now, Miranda’s vicious body attack was taking a toll; Allen’s body lit up red. Soon every time Allen lowered his hands to protect his body, Miranda threw a nice hook and a heavy right cross to the chin. One of those big right hands dropped Allen; Miranda followed him to the canvas and ripped off a storm of punches, forcing a referee stoppage just 61 seconds in.

The crowd spontaneously erupted, signaling its approval. Miranda basked in the glow of victory by dropping to his knees in front of Gavic, miming the shape of a heart and yelling, “I love you! You’re the man!”

Suddenly 2-7 felt like 27-0.

“It’s been a long tough road,” Miranda said. “A long tough road. It was just an amazing feeling to get that first KO. That’s something I’ve always wanted on my record. I want to knock guys out and show that I’m one of the best strikers in the Tuff-n-Uff 145-pound weight class. It was a huge accomplishment. Hearing the crowd erupt, there’s no better feeling.”

For the 30-year-old Gavic, it was a bona-fide “Rocky” moment, a highlight he’ll never forget.

“It meant as much to him as it did to me,” Gavic said. “It was more than just knocking a guy out. That’s what I love about this sport. There are a lot of roller coasters for fighters and things people don’t see leading up to a fight or even why someone is fighting in a cage to begin with. It’s not for everybody.

“It was about more than just overcoming his (1-7) record and proving that he belonged. It was more than just showing how skilled he is and proving that he’s a tough guy. It was a moral and a personal victory. That’s what means the most to me. Not all of us are going to become “The Next Big Thing” or a belt-holder who makes a million dollars. But I think that was a moment that will carry over to whatever Chris decides to do when he’s done fighting. He will know that he can overcome anything with persistence, hard work and dedication. It’s not about listening to other people. If you believe it, just go out there and do it.

“I’ve noticed a big difference just by the stuff Chris posts on his Instagram account. He’s got faith in everything now! He’s giving other people advice! Which is great. Some people on the island used to think negative things about Chris. He had so many hardships, so he had a chip on his shoulder and used to take things so personal. But now my wife and I can see that something has changed in this kid.

He’s opening up a lot more and starting to blossom.”

A few days after his emotional win, while working his day job, Miranda suffered a hairline fracture on his hip when a heavy piece of wood spit back and struck him on the hip.

“It felt like a bus hit my hip,” he said.

Out of action for the next three months and maybe even a year, Miranda envisions returning to the cage sometime in 2015 and dropping to 135 pounds.

“I plan on sticking with it,” he said. “I’ve talked to a lot of my aunties and uncles and they talk about, ‘I should have done this, I should have done that.’ I don’t want to do that. I want to go out and chase my dreams. I realize what my true potential is and I plan on chasing my dreams until there are no more dreams to chase. I’m going to be around for awhile. I plan on winning three, four, five fights in a row to get my confidence going. Then I’ll turn pro.”

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