UFC's Ultimate Warriors (eBook)

David 'Tank' Abbott There are some fighters whom people just love to hate. Tank Abbott is one of them. Imagine every stereotype about the drunken bar brawler, a grizzly bear of a man who puts up with nothing from anyone but dishes out as much as he can. Imagine him as a charismatic, bad man, the very definition of an MMA trash-talker, so cocky about his own bar-brawling abilities that MMA fans just want to see the bad man get a taste of his own bad medicine. Other MMA fans just want to see him dish out that medicine, and live vicariously through their drunken hero. 'There's no gray or white. It's black or white. You either hate me or you like me,' said Abbott in an interview with Boxing Insider. 'There's no in-between. That's because I'm honest and that's who I am. I'll tell you the way it is-or the way I think it is. If you don't like it, what are you going to do? If you don't like me, guess what? I probably don't even know who you are.' David Abbott was born on April 26, 1965, in California. He was nicknamed after Tank Murdoch, a character in the Clint Eastwood film Every Which Way but Loose, in which Clint plays an underground, professional bare-knuckle fighter, and Murdoch is a legendary bare-knuckle fighter mentioned throughout the film. In sharp contrast to what many people believe about Tank, despite the fact that his image projects the idea of this barbarian ogre, Abbott is actually a very intelligent man with a degree in history from the University of California Long Beach. A very intelligent man who just happens to love booze and brawling. But, again to the surprise of many, Abbott isn't just a brawler. He started to compete in amateur wrestling when he was nine years old, and continued to wrestle all the way to the collegiate level. That said, Tank's fighting technique in MMA is better described as that of a backstreet brawler than that of an accomplished amateur wrestler. Abbott has also dabbled in amateur boxing. 'I trained in a Mexican boxing gym for over twelve years,' says Tank in a WrestleZone Radio interview. 'In fact, I still go down there. All the trainers down there show you how to sit down on your punches and throw some heavy punches because, well, Mexican guys aren't exactly big guys, so they really have to get their body into their punches. There's not too many Mexican heavyweights out there, but they're the ones who pretty much showed me how to throw my punches.' Although the degree to which Tank's street fighting could be a myth perpetuated by Tank himself is up to the discerning fan, the truth is that when Tank first heard of the UFC, he was sitting in a jail cell serving a seven-month sentence. UFC, with its early 'no rules' marketing, supposedly banned in most every state, sounded like a perfect match for Tank. At the time, UFC seemed as much out of the Eastwood movie Every Which Way but Loose as Tank was. Through a friend of his, Dave Thomas, Abbott was able to contact Art Davie, one of the founders of UFC and a company bigwig at the time. Davie liked what Thomas had to say about Tank Abbott and his colorful persona and demeanor, and Tank was invited to attend UFC 5 in Charlotte, North Carolina, on April 7, 1995. Staying true to character, Abbott got so drunk on vodka while attending UFC 5 that he lost his ticket for the event and had to be seated elsewhere at the arena. At the time, the prevailing belief within SEC was that, due to the political pressure UFC was under for being a 'dangerous' event, someone like Tank Abbott might not be the best addition to the promotion's competitive roster.