Fight Night in Sin City

This, like combat sports in general, is a male dominated field—hence the title “cutman.” A cutman is the person in charge of preventing and treating the physical damage to the fighter between the rounds of a fight. Slowly but surely women have been appearing in this role, most notably Swayze Valentine, the first female cut person to corner in the UFC. In the start of her career she’d had fighters refuse to let her wrap their hands or corner them.

Fortunately, that has largely changed, and has paved the way for people like me to get a foot in the door. That said, I’m nervous. This is my first real fight, and if I do well in this match I will be invited back to corner more fights, and then eventually corner some of the bigger fights like Bellator, and then maybe, just maybe, the coveted UFC.

I’d been apprenticing under a former UFC Cutman, John Nelson, learning how to wrap fighters’ hands, and how to mend cuts and bruises in the 60 seconds between rounds. In the weeks leading up to my first event I’d flown back and forth from Burbank to Vegas, visiting Sukhumvit Muay Thai Gym, wrapping John’s hands as he timed me, trying to get my speed down to five minutes per hand. “There will be times when you need to wrap multiple fighters’ hands, and you might be the only cutman there to corner a whole team,” John explained. Wrapping hands for boxing is an arm form, and it has to comply with the state athletic commission’s standards. “A Nevada State Athletic Commission official will stand by to monitor how you wrap the fighter’s hands, to make sure you’re not hiding anything sharp in the gauze, or that you’re not adding too much tape or not enough,” John had warned.

Walking out the automatic doors of the airport is like walking into a wall of heat. It’s around 102 degrees in July, and I can feel my t-shirt and jeans sticking to my body. The heat is fatiguing, and my legs feel heavy as I pass a crowd of people waiting in the taxi line. Many of them fan themselves with their boarding passes, magazines, or, in one particularly amusing case, a small battery operated fan. The energy from this crowd is buoyant, and I overhear talk of seeing Britney Spears perform at Planet Hollywood. I am reminded that there is always something happening every weekend in Las Vegas, whether it’s live shows, fights, or bachelor/bachelorette parties, or weddings. Las Vegas is a party destination smack dab in the middle of the desert.

John is waiting for me in the parking structure, and takes my carry-on suitcase, loading it into the trunk of his small SUV. John, a Las Vegas native, is impervious to the stifling heat, and he moves briskly, unencumbered, as I practically trip over my own feet to get into the air conditioned comfort of his car. As we exit the parking structure, I observe the vast open sky of Las Vegas, the expanse of desert, and the city that seems almost out of place. Phrases come to mind as we make our way to the Las Vegas Strip: “Adult Disneyland,” “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” and “Sin City.” All of these suggest escape and fantasy, and as I look at a scantily clad model on a billboard advertising Deja Vu Showgirls near another billboard advertising an upcoming UFC event, I can’t help but feel overstimulated just from the proliferation of images, flashing lights, and the bizarre, incongruous structures, like the replica of The Eiffel Tower outside The Paris Hotel.

My trips to Vegas leading up to tonight had involved me landing at the airport in the morning, taking an Uber to the Muay Thai gym, eating lunch at the restaurant next door, and then taking an Uber back to the airport and flying home in the evening. The flights were less than an hour, which was less time than it took me to get from my house in the San Fernando Valley to West Hollywood. My love of combat sports is what had brought me to Las Vegas, which has become a fight hub, especially with Floyd Mayweather’s boxing gym and UFC headquarters being situated right here. Having been a boxer for six years—Western boxing, which means fighting is done with hands only, I’d been intrigued by the cut men I’d seen at boxing matches. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m a mother, a nurturer who garners great satisfaction in helping and healing my own (and also someone who has never been put off by blood, broken bones, sweat or snot) that I was drawn to learning how to do cut work. The cut work I’ll be doing in Vegas this trip is for Muay Thai, a style of fighting that is done not only with punches, but with feet, knees, and elbows as well.

This godforsaken city is the Mecca of fighting, ever since promoters like Don King and Bob Arum moved boxing here. The I mention this to John, as he maneuvers the car onto the freeway, and he says “Vegas is synonymous with boxing.” We pass by another billboard with beautiful showgirls wearing glitter and not much else. This Mecca of fighting is also a Mecca of showgirls, which makes sense, I suppose, if our preoccupations ultimately come down to sex and violence. The hedonism makes me think of Ancient Rome—the gladiator games and the sexual debauchery. I remember my former accountant telling me he liked to go to Vegas, do a bunch of cocaine, watch a live boxing match, procure a prostitute, and then continue the party until dawn. He was fond of betting on the fights, and explained to me the myriad levels of arousal these trips to Vegas satisfied. For these fighters and these sex workers, the exchanges were often a means of survival. For my accountant and his ilk, the exchanges were strictly for pleasure.

The sun begins to set, and the twinkling lights of the city get brighter. Primm is about 40 miles from Vegas, and as we approach on the I-15 Freeway, it has the vague appearance of an amusement park. In fact, I can see a rollercoaster and a structure resembling a castle from the freeway. John begins to explain the plan for tonight. He will oversee my work with two of the fighters tonight—the main and co- main events. In the event that something unusual happens beyond my scope, a fighter cannot stop bleeding, or an eye swells shut, he will be prepared to take over if necessary. I nod, and am at once relieved that John will be there as a kind of security precaution, but also afraid that his intervention could preclude me from ever being invited back. After all, what’s the point of hiring me if I can’t handle a real emergency? Should I freeze up or fumble while trying to apply a mix of vaseline and epinephrine to a fighter’s eye, it might bolster the belief that cutwork is too gritty for a woman.

Buffalo Bills is exactly how you’d imagine, decorated in a Western theme, it’s touted as a family friendly resort. There are certainly a lot of families walking toward the arcade, and a Denny’s, as I make my way to my room to clean up and change into my uniform of sorts—black tactical style pants with lots of pockets for extra tape, latex gloves and hand sanitizer, a T-shirt bearing the name of the Muay Thai boxing club, and sneakers. I gather my tray, which has epinephrine, vaseline, wash cloths, q-tips, tape, gauze, scissors and plastic bags with which to create ice packs.

The trek from my room on the 10th floor to the lobby feels long and arduous as I snake my way through the casino. I pass by the Denny’s, which emits an oddly comforting smell of bacon and hash browns. There is a deliberate absence of clocks, and a sense that time is either moving very quickly or not at all. Cocktail waitresses glide past with frozen smiles as children race past me yelling at each other, seemingly delighted to be in this funhouse of clanging slot machines, flashing lights, and pop music. I finally find the front entrance, where John, similarly dressed, is waiting for me.

The dressing room for our fighters is fairly large, and has been outfitted with some mats on one side for stretching, and, in the case of James, a 21 year-old fighter from Brooklyn, a place to sleep. Joe, the coach, a slender and wiry bald man with glasses, stands off to the side with some people I don’t recognize, though one of the men is definitely a NSAC official, based on his suit and badge. John motions me over to a table where I can lay out my supplies. After setting up my station I survey the room. In the distance I can hear the low rumble of a crowd watching the undercard fights. It is almost soothing, like white noise. Joe comes over to say hello and tells us that we should start wrapping James and Pete in about twenty minutes. I look over at James, who is snoring lightly, and mention to Joe and Adrian that I find it surprising he can sleep before a fight. Joe laughs and tells me that James has always been like that. Pete, however, can’t sit still to save his life. I ask where he is, and Joe tells me he is running up and down the hall.

Pete comes running into the room, and the energy suddenly shifts into high gear. Joe sends him over to me, and Pete sits down. He is baby-faced and blond, with a crew cut, and reminds me of a young soldier. I look down at his feet and see that his toenails are a little long. John notices, too, and tells me to cut them. “If he kicks his opponent, he could cut him with those toenails by accident.” Pete smiles sheepishly, and I go to work. Over on the mat, James finally opens his eyes and stretches languidly before sitting up and running his hands over his short dreadlocks.

“I’m really excited. I’ve been training so hard for this,” Pete tells me as I carefully set a thick padding of gauze across his knuckles. A NSAC official stands next to me, watching me as I tape the gauze and then run thin strands of tape between the fingers to keep the padding in place. I try to relax as the man scrutinizes my work. Pete goes on to explain he’s been fighting since he was eight years old. He grew up poor, and was picked on because of it, so he had to learn to fight. He grins as I finish his hands, and the official signs off on them. Pete looks so innocent, it’s hard for me to imagine him fighting, but I’ll be seeing it soon enough.

James is quiet—the opposite of his teammate. While Pete warms up with Joe, throwing kicks and punching mitts, James yawns and listens to music on his headphones while the official observes my work. John points to his watch when I glance over at him, reminding me to work at a faster pace. I do my best, and find myself getting nervous as we get closer to fight time. Wrapping hands is one thing—it’s soothing and predictable—but cornering a fight, where anything can happen, is another thing altogether. John has taught me how to manage everything from a fighter vomiting in the corner, to how to extract a mouthguard from a fighter’s mouth in the event he or she is knocked unconscious, and while I’m prepared for most situations that have happened in the past, namely to John, there is still room for something new and unexpected. “You have to maintain composure—as much for the fighter as for yourself,” John had instructed a month before, as he lay on the ground, having me demonstrate the correct way to prop a fighter’s head. I remember Manny Pacquiao lying face down on the canvas, after being knocked out cold by Juan Manuel Marquez in their fourth and final fight. At that point, a doctor was required—not a cutman. I look around the room as James’ hands get signed off by the official. Everyone is ready.

A lot of people think of fighters as rough, blustering, or mean, and while that may be true of some, it has not been my experience. As I watch Pete and James warm up I think about the fighters I’ve met in Las Vegas. Some, like Pete, grew up here, and many, like Pete, are fighting their way out of poverty. Similar to the showgirls and dancers, the fighters’ bodies, and the way they use their bodies, is a means to an end.

Many, like James, have come here seeking fame and fortune. Fighting has become a way in as much as it has been a way out. A lot of these guys are quiet, almost solemn. They are more like monks than brawlers. They find peace in the exchanges in the ring, the openings they find in those exchanges are as much a meditation as they are a clean shot. 40 miles outside of Vegas, 40 miles away from the MGM Grand, where Canelo Alvarez, the middleweight champion of the world, boasting a 365 million dollar contract, is defending his belt, Pete and James work diligently, their dreams floating around their heads like halos.

A voice shouts into the room “It’s time!” As we make our way to the ring, John and I following behind Joe and Pete and the rest of the gym’s entourage, the low rumble of the crowd grows louder as we make our way closer to the arena entrance, and once we pass through the double doors, the sound is deafening. Pete is delighted, and he skips and pumps his arms in the air as ACDC’s “Thunderstruck” plays on the loudspeaker. I grease Pete’s face as he stands in the corner of the ring, using my pinky finger to apply vaseline inside his nose as he is prone to nosebleeds. His opponent could be his twin, though his blond hair is in cornrows rather than a crew cut. I sit down next to John and Joe as the bell rings, and watch the first of five rounds. Pete moves confidently, and for the first three minutes he dominates the fight, wobbling his opponent with a right hook to the jaw. During the first three rounds he only requires ice on the back of his neck and water. After the fourth round I apply more vaseline to his eyebrows and mouth, and in the first twenty seconds of the fifth round Pete knocks his opponent out with a kick to the chin. As Pete’s opponent hits the canvas with a dull thud, Pete runs to the ropes and climbs on top, pumping his glove in the air triumphantly.

James’ fight is much harder, as his opponent, like James, is undefeated. The first round is close, with James knocking his opponent down after having taken a clean shot to the eye. By the end of round two, James’ eye starts to swell, and no amount of compression will bring it down. I hold the back of James’ head with one hand, while pressing the enswell as hard as I can with the other, against his eyebrow. In the old days, a cutman would have lanced the swollen area to relieve pressure, but now we just use enswells, which are frozen pieces of metal that we press against the swelling to bring it down. The coach tells James that he can still win the fight, but he needs to maintain distance, and only go in when there’s a clear opening. By round five James can only see out of one eye, but despite that, the fight is a draw, a testament to James’ sheer will and skill. Joe reminds James that a draw is not a loss, but he is not satisfied, and chooses to go home rather than celebrate with everyone at a nearby steakhouse.

John gives me notes after the fight, telling me I needed to anticipate the need for enswells sooner, once James had taken the shot to the eye. “You need to anticipate what you’ll need ahead of time. Don’t watch the fight—watch the fighters’ faces, and see what’s changing,” he says. I nod, wishing I could have somehow fixed James’ eye in between rounds. I tell John this, and he assures me that there was nothing that could have been done, but next time I’ll be able to save myself time and make the best use of the 60 seconds between rounds by having the tools I need on the ready: enswells, washcloths, or maybe extra q tips. “You did good,” he says as we reconvene with the fighters in the dressing room. I cut the wraps off of James’ and Pete’s hands. James is stoic, holding an ice pack to his eye. He thanks me quietly before going over to his duffel bag in the corner.

The night is warm but pleasant as we exit the event center, a welcome relief from earlier that afternoon. I decide that a shower and room service sound better than steak with everyone, and wave goodbye as they head towards their cars. Pete has a spring in his step despite all the punches and kicks he took. In the distance ahead of him I see a UFC billboard, and wonder if that will be his destiny. As I turn toward the hotel, I see James, alone, walking to his car. Far from his home in Brooklyn, and far away from his family, navigating his way through a maze of cars, a literal rollercoaster looming above him amidst twinkling lights.