Two months before his 40th birthday, the last male veteran of "TUF 18" left on the UFC roster still can't believe his luck at where life has taken him.
Two months before his 40th birthday, Davey Grant appears before me with all the enthusiasm of a white belt at his first grading ceremony.
His 2013 arrival to the UFC was fraught with injuries, but with 14 trips to the Octagon now in his rear-view, the English bantamweight — the last male veteran of "The Ultimate Fighter 18" left on the UFC roster — can equal his best promotional win streak with a victory over Canada’s Charles Jourdain at UFC Vancouver this weekend. And when Grant says he has no visions of hanging up his gloves, he absolutely means it.
His family took some convincing this past year when he pitched moving away from their lifelong home, the historic market town of Bishop Auckland in Durham. He wanted to maximize the time he has left in the sport and saw Dubai as the perfect location to do so. Yet, two weeks into his new life in the United Arab Emirates' most populous city, even after organizing schools for his children, Grant had a change of heart.
“Everything I was doing in Dubai felt like it was setting up my life for after fighting,” says Grant, smiling in the midst of his weight cut. “I just thought, if I’m going to move the family somewhere, while I’m fighting, it needs to be Vegas.”
As his wife wrapped up her business back home, Grant arrived in “The Fight Capital of the World” this past summer with three kids in tow. Just like in Dubai, his immediate concerns were finding a home and getting the kids’ educations sorted. Two days after landing on U.S. soil, as if it was a sign from the fight gods themselves, he was offered the Vancouver showdown with Jourdain.
Trips to the UFC’s Performance Institute as well as sessions at Syndicate MMA — the home of his division’s current champion, Merab Dvalishvili — convinced Grant that he made the right decision.
“I think it’s the best gym in the world at the minute, especially for my weight. I’ve been very lucky with the people I’ve got to work with over the years, and John Wood is very special MMA coach,” he says.
Fighters can delude themselves in their twilight years. The same excited eyes that twinkled during their heydays often begin to roll — in too-often brutal fashion — as the fight announcements continue to come in. Grant, however, appears impervious to aging.
He showed the world exactly why he’s known as “Dangerous” in his past two outings. As usual, he strode in as an underdog and the elder statesman against Ramon Tavares and Da'Mon Blackshear over the past 10 months, but had his younger opponents hanging on for dear life when the final bell sounded.
“When I signed for the UFC, I would’ve thought I’d be well done by this age," Grant acknowledges, "but I know that I’m getting better. I know this is the best I’ve ever been. I’m putting together some good performances and I feel amazing when I’m in there. It might sound crazy to some people but I know I’m on the rise. I feel like my best fights are still in front of me."
Fourteen fights is not an optimum return for an almost 13-year tenure with the UFC. After making his debut in 2013 off "TUF 18," injuries forced Grant to the sidelines for two and a half years. Other setbacks provided unwanted stopgaps on different occasions too, but it’s all helped get Grant to where he is today.
“When I think about what I was doing before, it was pretty crazy. I was very stubborn in the way I used to train," he says. "I wouldn’t accept bad positions, I wouldn’t tap even if someone was cranking the f*** out of my neck, and I thought that’s what I should be doing.
“Looking back now, all the hard training, the sparring sessions with bigger guys — it turns out that wasn’t the right things to do.”
Here, Grant laughs at his own revelation.
“I probably could’ve looked after my body a bit more to tell you the truth," he finishes, "but it’s all a learning curve and it’s got me to where I am now.”
The most striking thing about Grant is not his fighting ability, his staying power or his resilience. Instead, it’s the joy that he goes about his business with. When he began his fighting journey in 2008, MMA in the U.K. was in a completely different place. Fighters would arrive at events knowing nothing about their opponents, only laying eyes on them for the first time after weighing-in.
“You’d see a big lad in the corner and you’d think, ‘I hope it’s not him [I'm fighting], he looks hard as f***!’ That’s just how it was,” he remembers.
Everything has changed around him, but his adoration for the pursuit has never wavered. This weekend marks Grant's 15th time competing for the UFC and he’s as eager as any debutant at the fighter check-in.
“I’m cutting weight and I’m having the time of my life," he says. "You know that free bag of gear they give you when you check in? I still get so excited about all of that stuff — I’m like a kid at Christmas. I’m in this beautiful city and I’m about to do what I love in front of a crowd that have paid to be there, and I’m going to get paid to do it. Sometimes I can’t believe that this is happening to me.”
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There are many lessons to be learned from Grant. Other fighters of his vintage and prestige become so attached to their identities as fighters that they can’t even imagine a world without competition. Grant isn’t counting the days, he’s savoring them — and even if it all goes away, his most important roles will be waiting for him.
“I’m just a family man,” he says.
“My main job in life is to be the best father I possibly can be. After that, it’s to be the best husband I possibly can be. Fighting comes after both of those things. I just feel so lucky to be in this situation, to be given the opportunities and to have been born with this mindset and ability. I think it all gels together to make me a pretty good fighter.
“These things don’t last forever. I’ll be retired for a long time, so I just want to enjoy it while I can.”
Category: General Sports
