Combat sports is – more often than not – a truth. Any shortcomings, any flaws (physical or otherwise), all will come out in the cage or ring.
MMA is not a place for fairy tales or happy endings. Rarely does a fighter bow out in glory, ending their career on a high. It’s peaks and troughs and it generally ends in the deepest of troughs. Hollywood endings are for Hollywood, not fighting in a cage.
Alex Reid is 40 years old and has fought in “300 competitions, over 200 kickboxing fights, 50 different style martial arts fights, wrestling, jiu jitsu, thai boxing, and 50 MMA style fights.”
Alex Reid believes in Hollywood endings.
FROM BOOS TO CHEERS
As someone who has lived his very own Rocky story – more than once – it’s easy to see why Alex Reid believes his return to MMA at Bellator 158 on July 16 in London, has the potential to be another real-life “Balboa”.
“I lived my life in the Rocky story. This next chapter in my life is a combination of four films; Rocky (all), Cinderella Man, Rags to Riches (back to rags, back to riches again) and Southpaw.”
“In that Rocky Balboa film he wants to have another go, he gets offered the world champion. I don’t have any grand illusions about being the next ‘super champion of the world’, I’m doing it for fun! To regain, to fight for my pride. I didn’t win the Tom Watson fight, but I set out what I achieved to win, and I won. I won pride, I won honour, I won respect – it was another Rocky film. It was one of my proudest moments, apart from winning Big Brother and, of course, my daughter being born, that Tom Watson fight.”
“Like in the Big Brother house, I turned from boos to cheers, I got punched on the way to the cage – I was a joke. I’m only getting a fight cos I’m ‘married to some famous bird’, I’m not credible, ‘blah blah’. Hold on a minute, I got a hostile crowd booing me, chanting my name. It was like: ‘If I can change, you can change!’.”
THE REIDERNATER
Whilst keen to make it clear “I don’t live in films, I do live in reality”, Reid has built for himself a persona straight from a movie script, an alter ego that can deal with anything life throws at him – and if you read the newspapers, it’s thrown a lot at him.
“Part of the reason I’m talking about films so much… I’m a scaredy cat, I sound like Prince Adam, I don’t know if you remember He-Man?”
I take the fear of a big competition away, almost I’m an actor. I love my acting, I become a character, I’m playing a computer game, I’m a super hero, a ninja, it’s not real.
“I do lots of hypnosis and that stuff. I’ve brainwashed myself for many years to be… you punch me and I transform.”
Despite answering his phone in character “It’s the Reidernater!”, and even wearing his own branded trainers, the real Alex Reid is aware of the need for separation from this public persona. In the cage, and in the spotlight, the Ric Flair-esque woos and the often flambouyant showmanship are as much for the benefit of others as they are for Reid.
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“I’m a little bit crazy, I wouldn’t say I’m multiple personality or schizophrenic, when Prince Adam says the magic words he turns into He-Man, I turn into Reidernater.”
“I’m big on mind, brain power… when it’s Reidernater time, woo! I’ve done 20 plus years of indoctrination, brainwashing, hypnosis. When I’m in there, when I start punching and striking I’m a whole… I’m an entertainer.”
THIS GUY’S SERIOUS
Entertaining people is something Reid obviously values, he projects a desire to be liked, to be accepted, and to be respected. It’s evident within a few minutes of meeting Alex Reid that he’s here to make friends, he wants to like you and for you to like him. And it’s hard not to. He’s a conductor, an amiable, larger-than-life, outgoing personality who firmly establishes himself as the centre of the room.
But for all his showmanship, his need to entertain, this comeback is about much more than that. This is about acceptance in a sport that, he feels, he’s helped to build.
“A lot of people think I’m a joke and they say horrible things – a few people who know me – [but] I still have a lot of respect in the community. If I switched, a lot of people would shut up.”
“I remember Tony Giles, mocking me about cross dressing when we had our fight. I had the whole MMA community at that fight. Shut up Tony, nobody gives a toss! That was lovely.”
Winning may be important, but it’s not the driving force behind Reid’s decision to get back into the gym. Just as Rocky Balboa won without winning, the real victory is in proving something to himself, and to others. There’s an idea of what Alex Reid is now and it appears, at least to him, that we’ve all forgotten where he came from.
“I’ve got a salacious past thanks to all the trashy tabloids, [but] what I’m doing now, I’m getting back to what I love, making a few quid, it’s doing something I absolutely love. Re-branding myself, to remind people: I’m a serious athlete who has fought at the highest level. 300 competitions, over 200 kickboxing fights, 50 different style martial arts fights: wrestling, jiu jitsu, thai boxing, 50 MMA style fights. This guy’s serious.”
LOOKING IN THE MIRROR
Having not fought since earning a unanimous deicions victory over Sam Boo in the BAMMA cage in 2012, it seems an odd decisions to return now. What made Reid walk away then and what is driving his desire to regain the respect he once commanded and, he believes, he should once more?
The Reidernater wasn’t there in 2012. I almost did that as therapy, almost like self harm. I was so upset, I just split up with my partner, I had some bad things going on in my life.
“Dean Amasinger, who I fought on The Ultimate Fighter, he once looked up to me. He fought me on TUF and beat me, and I always respected him, and he did an interview in The Sun a year or two ago and he said “look, Alex Reid is almost a joke now,” and it hurt, that really hurt me a lot.”
Reid is under no illusion about stepping straight back into the cage a world beater, it’s one day at a time improvements. Talking to him immediately after a sparring session at London Shootfighters in Acton, he’s noticeably worse for wear, but wearing a smile throughout.
“Today I was nervous, because shit’s getting real! It’s been a while for me, I’m 40 years young and it’s been a while. I’ve not properly trained in two years, and one of the reasons why I’m doing this, I was just in the changing rooms and looking at my love handles. I’m a bit achy.”
“When you’re an athlete, you have a real motivation to train because if you don’t, you’re going to get hurt. And also, there’s your ego, you wanna look good. So I’m looking in the mirror, and one guy, one of the guys I’m training with, he’s got an amazing body and I say ‘how’d you get your body like that?’ And I thought he might be really young, but he’s only three years younger than me!”
“So I was very impressed, and he was saying to me, ‘you’re actually looking a lot better, when I saw you a month ago you looked really fat.’ I was like… I felt good today!”
For the first time in a long time, Reid is training, and he’s enjoying it. He just got “tapped by everyone I rolled with,” but is clearly relishing the opportunity to be back in the game, a sport he’s been in “more than 20 years, as a pioneer of this community.”
ONE MORE ROUND?
As a pioneer of the community, and one of the more recognisable names in UK MMA, Reid’s return has found him with something of a target on his back. His decision to compete again has made him the prize fight for a number of UK athletes.
One name in particular that’s been doing the ‘rounds’ is that of Welshman, David Round.
“One More Round?” Reid knows exactly who people have been asking for him to fight. “He keeps Twittering me. I like him!”
“Listen. I’ve been offered this opportunity… I don’t want to fight the baddest asses on the planet. I got tapped by everyone tonight, I’ve got injuries, I’m out of shape… This guy’s active! He offered me out a couple of years ago I said: ‘Mate, I’ve watched you, you’re hungry, I’ve lost the hunger!’”
“I said this two or three months ago, I do a lot of MC’ing and I see the young fighters when they win, they get on the cage and they’re like ‘Yeah, I’m the champ!’ And I’m like, ain’t got that anymore, don’t feel that. I’ve got somehing different now, it’s not about being the champ, I’m not fighting to be the baddest ass on the planet, I’m fighting for myself, to enjoy it. I don’t need to prove myself, I know I’m a badass.”
“Dave ‘One More’ Round, I don’t think he’s anywhere, he’s…[thinks] When I’m on? Perfect! But I’m not on yet. I need to be careful, I’m 40! I wanna have some fun, get back into it.”
“I’ve agreed to a three-fight deal. Let’s look after myself, let’s see how the first one goes, yeah?”
So, perhaps not David Round as the first fight back then?
“Yeah, I’m not ruling out anyone,” he adds. “I remember one of my inspirations, Randy Couture, 42 was just a number for Randy Couture. He took a year out, rested, come back and started beating everyone’s arse – Captain America! I think ‘hang on, if he can do it, I can do it’.”
What about old foe, Tom ‘Kong’ Watson – against whom Reid put on the performance of his life in (what is currently) the most watched fight in UK MMA history?
“I couldn’t rule out a rematch with Tom Watson in the future perhaps, and there are various other people on my radar.”
“I’m a gentleman, I’m an athlete, I’m a martial artist – I don’t consider myself a fighter. I like to play a sport with two consenting adults, and in all those competitions, there’s only twice I’ve wanted to kill them, and it’s got very personal. Well, three times if you include some of the horrible stuff that Tony Giles was saying, but I didn’t really take that too seriously. The two were Lee Murray and Tom Watson. There was a lot of bad blood, but do you know what? Not getting all soppy, l get all spiritual.”
“When you nearly kill each other you almost have a weird, different respect for another person, you push yourself… you share something with that person for the rest of your lives.”
YOU’RE A BADASS
So where is Alex Reid at now, just under three months out from Bellator 158? What are we to expect from The Reidernater, and what does he expect from himself?
“I’ve been out, I’m getting my arse beat, I’m feeling fear in there with younger guys, guys half my age. But there are moments where I’m like ‘hang on a second, you’re a badass’. I’ve got more than 15 belts, I’ve got trophies, there’s gold, silver everywhere. ‘Hang on a second, you’re a badass’.”
I have to remember there’s moments where I get that magic back, I’ve got one more opportunity to have one more little run at it.
Honest to a fault – something that will no doubt give his manager Phil palpitations, (choosing as he did to give his own answers to our questions, as opposed to those advised) – Alex Reid wears his heart on his sleeve. This may often be to his detriment, but it makes for an endearing personality. A personality that divides the MMA community, but almost always draws attention. Those bemoaning his inclusion on the Bellator UK card will almost certainly be watching it.
The cage has a way of bringing even the biggest dreamers back down to earth. It dishes out reality in its purest, most brutal manner. You can’t lie your way out of danger, and no fictional character can make you something you’re not.
Alex Reid is 40 years old and has fought in “300 competitions, over 200 kickboxing fights, 50 different style martial arts fights: wrestling, jiu jitsu, thai boxing, and 50 MMA style fights.”
Even with the odds stacked against him, Alex Reid believes in Hollywood endings.
Bellator 158 takes places on July 16 at the o2 in London, tickets are available HERE.
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