LAS VEGAS – When UFC light heavyweight contender Stephan Bonnar (19-7 MMA, 6-6 UFC) steps into the cage for the main event of next week's The Ultimate Fighter 12 Finale, he'll certainly be coming full circle.
A finalist on the very first season of the Spike TV reality series, Bonnar's epic clash with Forrest Griffin is widely considered among the most entertaining – and important – fights in UFC history.
This time, Bonnar takes on Croatian grinder Igor Pokrajac (22-7 MMA, 1-2 UFC), and "The American Psycho" insists that after a recent stretch of three losses, he's currently fighting better than ever.
"I had been through a lot," Bonnar told MMAjunkie.com (
http://www.mmajunkie.com). "I hadn't gotten a win in a while.
"I was out for a while with that big knee injury I had. Then I got screwed over real bad in Australia, so it felt like I finally had justice – finally, the win. It felt great."
Bonnar's run of bad luck began in early 2008. Riding a two-fight win streak, he was preparing for a matchup with Matt Hamill when a serious knee injury knocked Bonnar out of action for the remainder of the year. When he returned at UFC 94 in January 2009, he ran into rising superstar Jon Jones, who defeated him via decision.
Bonnar returned in July at UFC 100 and suffered a shocking loss to aging UFC Hall of Famer Mark Coleman.
In retrospect, Bonnar says he tried to rush back from the injury too soon, and while the knee was fine, the rest of his body wasn't.
"I blew my knee out, and I was out like a year," Bonnar said. "I had a pretty big knee surgery. They had to fix like six different things in one operation. I'm in my 30s now, and you don't realize that coming back from that, it's not like you just heal up and in three months you're going to be in shape again and fight. That's what I thought would happen.
"I was able to get my cardio back up, but physically I was still so weak. I had atrophied a lot. My speed and power and strength weren't there. You can see that in that Jon Jones fight. Even before the fight, hitting pads, I felt so flat. I never really built my strength back. It takes a while, and I didn't realize that. I lost some of that speed and strength, and I got right back into sparring and training before I had all that built up, and it showed."
Bonnar finally returned to vintage form in a UFC 110 bout with Krysztof Soszynski, but an accidental headbutt went unnoticed, and Bonnar was handed his third-straight loss.
But in July, Bonnar claimed a win in the rematch with Soszynski, and he now believes he's turned a corner of sorts. He's finally healthy and as determined as ever, and after years of searching, he believes his support system is finally sound.
"I've got my team together now, and I feel at home," Bonnar said. "I'm at One Kick's Gym now and Sergio Penha's, and I do my strength and conditioning at Philippi Sports Institute. I've got some good training partners and guys that are helping get me ready for a fight. Before that, I didn't really feel like I had a team.
"I train hard. It's grueling, and it's painful. At the beginning of the week, I usually feel good because I get Sunday off. By Wednesday, you wake up, and you're sore as [expletive]. You have to suck it up and push through and look forward to that Sunday again to heal up and do it all over again."
Bonnar has been busy outside of the cage, too. He's handled WEC broadcasting duties in recent months, and his NGAUGE Inc. company continues to grow. At The Ultimate Fighter 12 Finale, Bonnar will debut his newest creation, Trash Talking Kids T-Shirts, a line of MMA-themed shirts inspired by the 1980s trading card line Garbage Pail Kids.
"We had a great idea to do these little T-shirts," Bonnar said. "We've made a couple of prototypes. I'll be sporting the Stephan Bonnar Trash Talking Kids shirt at the fight. It's called 'American Wacko.' It should be good.
"You fight every few months. In my downtime, I still have a brain that runs and thinks of [expletive]. To me, there's nothing better in life than just carrying out your creative ideas."
But despite his outside adventures, Bonnar insists his main focus lies in the cage. Five years after "The Ultimate Fighter" made him a household name in the MMA community, Bonnar says he's just as passionate about the sport.
"After a fight, sure, I'll take a few weeks to heal up for a little bit, but if I don't have anything scheduled, and I just fought, I go into the gym, and it reminds me why I love what I'm doing," Bonnar said. "Getting ready for a fight, you've got to go through hell. It sucks, and doubt creeps in. 'Do I really want to do this?' After the fight, when you can just go train like a normal person and go put a gi on and roll and not have to have fresh guys in on you every minute trying to kill you, it's such a joy.
"That reminds me, 'This is why I do it.' I love martial arts."
Now 12 fights into his UFC career, Bonnar sports a 6-6 record in the octagon. Fighting in one of the UFC's most competitive divisions, the 33-year-old he may not ever know the feeling of wearing UFC gold. However, Bonnar will always have a spot in MMA history, and at The Ultimate Fighter 12 Finale, he'll return to the scene of the crime.
"It is kind of cool," Bonnar said. "When you go in there, you don't ever want to put pressure on yourself. It's just another fight. But it is nice. It's kind of coming full circle to come back at the TUF Finale.
"I'm ready to put on a show. I'm always ready to put on a show. Yeah, I want to fight smart, but really, the only way I know how to fight is just go on there and go for it, and people seem to really enjoy it. I'm going to give them what they enjoy and do what I do best."
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