"At the UFC, it was like there was a noose around your neck," Mitrione says, shuffling along in Jordan flip-flops without fear of reprimand after playing along (reluctantly) with the UFC's Reebok deal. "At Bellator, it's more of a loose leash."
He likes the hands-off approach. Mitrione is relaxed. He carries that same look of bemused indifference we've come to know from his days competing in the UFC. It's a benign face, a cocksure jock Muppet — sleepy light blue eyes, eyebrows always raised in perpetual wonder, and a half smirk/smile that he breaks out when he's about to talk a little shit (which is frequent). His voice is like wire static. He has a knob coming off his collar bone at the shoulder that you can see bulging from his MTV T-shirt, a souvenir from his fight with Travis Browne where he suffered a second-degree separation — but it's an old injury, too. It goes back to his collegiate days playing football at Purdue.
....
Mitrione, who has spent his entire career to this point fighting in the UFC, is now at 37 years old opening a new chapter in his life. Mitrione, who almost never hears the scorecards — either he goes out, or his opponent does. Mitrione, who has put his foot in his mouth so many times that he's gotten himself suspended for his own meatheadedness. There was that Fallon Fox thing. There was the Tito Ortiz thing, where he cracked jokes about Tito's then wife Jenna Jameson. There was the time he fired his agent Malki Kawa live on television, and showed up to his media day for Travis Browne barefoot, so as not to get fined for violating the Reebok deal. Mitrione, the fighter. Mitrione, the football player. Mitrione, the father. Pride and identity, those silly imposters. Which wins what? It's a lot to bring to the cage, but then again, the cage was made for self-discovery.
"My ego costs me money," he said earlier that morning. "My ego is expensive. If I had not continued on after getting poked in the eye against Browne, if I had not been so egotistical, who knows where I'd be?"
He might not be moments away from fighting Carl Seumanutafa in Bellator. Such is the crossroads of every fight. Win, go one way. Lose, go the other. He lost against Browne controversially, and Browne is now fighting Cain Velasquez. He beat the late-Kimbo Slice, and sent one of the sport's most compelling stars on a five-year odyssey out of MMA. Carl can't be taken for granted. He came to St. Louis in part to battle everybody's givens.
But Mitrione is not an over-thinker. He came to St. Louis to get paid. The Wing Stop hats are being dished out. The gold necklaces with gold chicken legs dangling are being worn. T-shirts with DipYourCar.com are being slipped into while another UFC casualty, Stitch Duran, wraps his hands. The sound of tape being ripped time and again on the knuckle is the soundtrack now. Protect the knuckle, that song says, not the thing those knuckles will be crashing into.
Then referee Big John McCarthy comes in for final instructions, like a priest dressed in black.
"Big John's my ref, huh?" Mitrione says, shaking his hand while still an octave below total ease.
McCarthy runs down his expectations and the rules with the routine voice of a cop reading rights. Only, he personalizes it. Though he's never reffed a fight of his before, he calls Mitrione by name. He circles the area that constitutes the back of the head. He emphasizes signals, such as putting his whole hand on the mat instead of a couple of fingers to indicate he's downed. "I'm old, I can't see, I'm not going to see those fingers," he warns.
"If you get to a point in the fight, not saying it's going to happen, where you get hit with a shot and it hurts you, and you go down, your job is just to show me through actions that you want to be there," McCarthy says. "Fighting back, movement, if you get hold of him bring him close. That's what I'm looking for. It's when you start to hide from the fight when we're going to have a problem. If you start to do that, you're going to hear me call out your name, I'm going to say, ‘Matt, you need move, get out.' If you hear ‘move, get out,' it's telling you that ugly fucker's going to stop my fight. I want you to try and move your position, take away what he's attacking you with. I don't care if you're successful, I just care that you try."
Lytle, who has to leave back to Indianapolis after the fight with a shift at the firehouse beginning at 7 o'clock in the morning, is half-listening in, especially when McCarthy cites him as "that sick fuck in your corner" when continuing on with his instructions. McCarthy knows he's got the room. Lytle still has the gleam, too. It's why in retirement he's fishing for a fight with Wanderlei Silva, who is also lurking around the Scottrade Center. All of these guys are living through Mitrione tonight.
"No matter what happens, I'll be fine," Mitrione says, as McCarthy finishes up. "I'm a grown ass man, and I'll cry uncle if I need to. As long as I'm still awake, I'll get myself out."
He hits some pads with Henri Hooft, loud thwaps and grunts that drown out the bustling carnival that has become his dressing room. He's nearly ready. He takes one last call from his son, Jonah.
"Hey man, I love you," he says. "No matter what happens — no matter what happens — I'll be fine. I'll call you after I make this money. I love you, my dude."
LINK: Making the Walk
