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Heavyweight Eric (Big E) Pele combines fighting and tattooing |
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Written by Neil Davidson, THE CANADIAN PRESS
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Wednesday, 07 May 2008 |
American heavyweight Eric Pele, seen here in heavier days, will weigh in around 265 pounds when he takes on Chase Gormley in Friday's co-main event at the MFC 16: Anger Management mixed martial arts card in Enoch, Alta., on Friday. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO
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Eric (Big E) Pele reckons moving to Sin City may actually have helped him clean up his life. It certainly resulted in a career change or two.
Today his boozing days are behind him. And the former ironworker now doubles as a pro fighter and tattoo artist. The heavyweight takes on fellow American Chase Gormley on Friday in Enoch, Alta., in the co-main event of the Maximum Fighting Championship's MFC 16: Anger Management mixed martial arts card.
MMA fans may remember Pele's upset win in December 2006 over Antonio (Bigfoot) Silva, flooring the bruising Brazilian with a right to the jaw at a Bodog Fight card in Vancouver. Reality TV aficionados will recall him from the 2005-06 show "Inked," which focused on the Hart and Huntington Tattoo Company where he worked in Vegas. Pele, 38, has his own studio these days.
So how many tattoos does the much-inked Pele have?
"Everybody asks me that and I always say one. Just one continuous tattoo," Pele says with a laugh.
Pele's 6-2 canvas is a little smaller these days. Once as big as 450 pounds, Pele will enter the ring Friday at a sylph-like 265.
Pele blames his body blowing up on working at The Palms Casino Resort, where the H&H shop was located. As an employee, he had access to all of the hotel's restaurants.
"Man, the perks that came with that (job), it was just unbelievable," he said. "We knew the manager at the steakhouse, they had the Kobe steak from Japan, like $100 an ounce on the house and we would just eat frigging all of it."
"We had free passes to the buffet all day," he added.
Pele (11-4) had also backed away from fighting at the time, after opening his career with four fights in 2000 and two in 2001. He fought just once in each of 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005.
"We were fighting for pennies back then and when the kids start coming into the picture and your mortgage and my mom's health got worse. . . . Plus I was having issues with my health too, I was getting real heavy. And all those things kind of played into the part where I was losing touch with fighting. And I was more content that I did it. I was ready to move on."
He fought twice in 2006 and three times in 2007.
Pele grew up in the Bay Area and admits he was in a bad place, abusing alcohol and in a bad relationship, when he left there. Then, in 1992, his cousin invited him to Las Vegas.
"I said 'sure.' So I go out to Vegas and I end up cleaning up, getting clean and sober out here, when it's 24-hour drinking. It was funny. You go to Sin City, you don't think you're going to clean up but when I came out here. Vegas was really good to me."
He got a good job and started saving money. The next year he met his future wife.
Pele had dabbled in art, including graffiti, growing up and in 2000, five years after getting his first tattoo, he started to get seriously interested in ink. He had friends who were tattoo artists and started drawing their designs.
"I just kind of snowballed from there. I stuck with it because I was getting better and better. Then it came to the point where I was making a really good living off of it way before the (TV) show."
He cashed out his ironworker's pension, and set up shop. "The rest is history," he says happily.
Pele got into fighting in 1999-2000 when he got tired of lifting weights and was looking for another activity. He ran into one of former fighter John Lewis' students and went round to the gym. Jiu-jitsu and submission wrestling appealed to him and soon he was fighting as well as tattooing.
He does not trumpet the fact that he is a professional fighter. But his wrestler's ears sometimes give him away.
"Usually I just talk about tattoos because that's what they see on me anyways. And usually they'll catch a glimpse of my ears and we'll slowly talk about that (fighting)."
Today he focuses on fighting for a living mostly, although returns to tattooing once the bout has come and gone. His clients are understanding, he says, and he tries to repay their flexibility by being good to them on price. It makes for a busy schedule, especially since he looks after his elderly mother.
The big man is healthy and happy. His drinking is under control.
"I know the concept of social drinking. Back then I could never put something down but now I can totally have a few drinks and just walk away."
Pele isn't too sure what awaits him in Alberta. Gormley is his third opponent after Gary (Big Daddy) Goodridge and Wayne Cole both pulled out.
Gormley, 24, is a former NAIA all-American wrestler who is 5-0 in MMA.
The other co-main event features welterweights Ryan Ford of Edmonton and American C.J. Fernandes, who fights out of former UFC champion Matt Hughes' camp.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 08 October 2008 )
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