At 40 years of age and 50 fights into his career as a professional
mixed martial arts,
Tim Means can
sense time’s walls closing in on him. Even so, he plans to go out
swinging whenever he decides to call it a day.
“The Dirty Bird” will strap on the gloves under the
Ultimate Fighting Championship yet again—his 28 appearances
inside the Octagon place him in the Top 20 on the all-time
list—when he does battle with
Uros Medic
in a
UFC on ESPN 55 lightweight attraction this Saturday at the UFC
Apex in Las Vegas. Despite the considerable tread on his tires,
Means still sounds like a man willing to go through all the hassles
associated with his chosen vocation.
“There’s always something hurting or aching,” he said during
pre-fight media day. “It’s just the name of the game. Training
camps suck. That whole cutting weight s--- is getting ridiculous. I
know my time’s coming, [but] it’s not today or Saturday. Passed all
the medical stuff. Got my training camp in. I’m here to pick a
fight and get violent. If we’re following the whole science
process, I hit puberty late, so hell, I’m 33. Here we go.”
A former two-division
King of
the Cage champion who has endured his share of adversity since
he debuted as a 20-year-old on March 13, 2004, Means has lost no
love for the sport. He continues to find the purity of hand-to-hand
combat appealing.
“It has to be, right?” Means said. “You see your opponent walking
around at times, and you’ve got to have some kind of craziness to
get punched in the face. There’s nothing better than getting to
beat up a co-worker and then go on about your day. I think the
world’s gotten two pussified. You can’t say some things: ‘Oh my
gosh, let’s don’t hurt each other’s feelings.’ At the end of the
day, we’re going to shake each other’s hands, get in the cage and
beat the s--- out of each other.”
As he traverses the twilight of his career, Means has started to
put a safety net in place. “I’ve had to set plans up, for sure,” he
said. “There’s definitely got to be a plan. I don’t want it to end
and be like, ‘Oh my God. It’s over. I’m sorry. Whatever.’” Part of
those plans involve his ongoing commitment as a wrestling coach for
Moriarty High School, which sits just outside of Albuquerque in his
native New Mexico.
“We got a lot of tough kids over there,” Means said. “We come from
a poor community that doesn’t have a lot of cash, but we’ve got
some mean ass kids that want to show up. Wrestling practices suck.
Nobody wants to do that s---, but you want to get out there and get
your hand raised. Once you get that first win, you fall in love
with it. Like I tell the kids, you’ve got to love the grind. If
you’re not in love with the grind, you’re not going to like life,
in general, so just get after it.
“It’s the thing I enjoy the most,” he added. “For the most part,
kids are onboard, kids work hard. I’ve got a group of great kids. I
see them struggle. They go to school all damn day, then have to
come into another two-hour wrestling practice five days a week,
plus wrestling on Saturdays. Life isn’t easy. You have to accept
it. You have to understand the grind is part of the process.”
Before he moves on to the next phase in life, Means must map out
what remains of his MMA journey. The latest stop sees him paired
with Medic, a
Kings MMA rep and
Dana White’s Contender Series graduate who has delivered all
nine of his victories by knockout, technical knockout or
submission. However, the 32-year-old Serbian finds himself on the
rebound after he submitted to a neck crank from
Myktybek
Orolbai in the second round of their UFC Fight Night 232
pairing in November.
“I think he’s a dangerous guy,” Means said. “He’s going to meet me
in the middle, and we’re going to figure it out. He’s left-handed.
He’s very, very aggressive, and I don’t think either one of us like
to back up, and that makes [for] a very, very fun fight. We went
through a lot of opponents to get tied down to him. A couple guys
were pulled off and put on other cards. I got ready for whoever
they were going to put in there. I’ve had my ass whooped and I’ve
handed out some whoopins, so let’s just go out there and have
fun.”
Means, who closed the book on a three-fight losing streak with a
Sept. 23 stoppage of
Andre
Fialho, never imagined he would get this far when he set out on
his adventure into the unknown two decades ago.
“My first fight was [for] like $50,” he said. “My parents were
pissed I dropped out of school to be a pro fighter. I didn’t know
what the hell was going on, but it panned out and here we are. I
just made a decision and went with it, and they were not happy
about it at all. I was a young dumb redneck kid driving an El
Camino.”