“Man, you can put me in there with Anderson Silva and I’ll fight it out with him. Just make sure I get paid. I’ll fight any guy out there, if you want me to fight someone without a name, I’ll do that or if you want me to fight the best pound for pound fighter there is, I’ll do that too.”
Jaime Jara doesn’t mince words about his career in mixed martial arts. There was no long tale about how he demands respect or how he is trying to achieve a long evolved goal – he just loves to fight.
Jara has been in the fight game for eight years. For a sport barely out of its infancy, eight years is an eternity. Jara recalls when he first started fighting, “Things are a lot different now. When I first got into this, we would fight 2 or 3 times a night. You had to be a tough dude to make it then. The sport is a lot different now. The rules have changed a lot since I started. The fighters are different, the required training is different. You have to want this bad to make it now.”
“If I had the choice to do it all over again, I would be right here fighting just the same. It might be different opponents and the details may be different, but I would still be fighting. I love mixed martial arts. All I want to do every day is train and fight. I’ll take any fight if it pays well enough, I want a nice house and to not have to worry about anything but training and fighting. Things were rough in the beginning. If I had a chance to start over, I would have taken up training Jiu-Jitsu a lot earlier and not just trained in a garage with my friends. Just screwing around with your friends and calling it training is a long ways from being coached. Especially with Jiu-Jitsu. In the beginning, I just said “Fuck this Jiu-Jitsu shit, I’m going to beat this guy’s face in”. As we all know, that strategy doesn’t hold up so well now. Coaches in the beginning would have helped, but even still, I have learned so much. I’m on the right track. If you get your ass beat a few times, you pick up the lesson quickly.”
Jara is rough around the edges and certainly looks the part for a cage fighter. He doesn’t care about censoring his thoughts or words and why would he? Jara has a workman attitude that he carries well. Despite the tough exterior, he has a humble air about him and a lot of pragmatic wisdom. He sincerely didn’t seem to be interested in the antics of other fighters. Every fighter I interview seems to carry the same sentiment about mixed martial arts – it’s personal. The outside influences of what other fighters are up to and who is getting paid what and for what reason aren’t an issue. All this does not seem to factor into Jara’s motivation for stepping through the cage to fight it out.
“Why would I give a shit about what Kimbo or Lesnar are doing? Those guys had a shortcut to success, a shortcut that was never presented to me. I can’t blame them for that. Those guys need to take care of themselves and get paid. If I was given the same shortcut, I would have taken it. I’ve just had some bad timing in my career. It really gives me hope, to see these guys getting paid like this, because it means the sport is growing and that my chance will have to come around. I couldn’t fight with PRIDE or DREAM due to having existing contracts or due to PRIDE falling apart before I could get my existing fights out of the way to do it. As long as I keep winning though, people will have to take notice, you can’t ignore success.”
The UFC would be the first to argue that it’s nearly impossible to be successful in MMA without being contracted to them. However, lots of fighters are proving that to not be the case. Affliction, PRIDE and EliteXC have paved the way for failure in MMA as an organization, but other rising orgs like Strikeforce and HDNet are displaying a new kind of fortitude that will give the UFC long term troubles. Jara is one of many fighters who agrees with this sentiment.
“The UFC doesn’t matter. I’m not going to lie and say that I wouldn’t take a fight with them if the money is right, but you don’t need to have the UFC to make it in this sport. When I was contracted to EliteXC, they were right there with the UFC at the time. Obviously they didn’t make it, but they also aren’t the only promotion out there. There are tons of possibilities. Shit, I’m not looking to fight anyone, but I’ll fight anyone. There’s no one I’m singling out, I just want to pay my bills and keep doing what I’m doing.”
Jara is 40 years old. It’s arguable that when fighters reach that age that you might not have what it takes to stay relevant in the sport. Fighters like Couture and Coleman are proving this to not be a rule and that all bets are off if you have the intestinal fortitude and strength of body to hack it. Jara is no exception, “I’ve been fighting since I was 32 and I feel like I’m in my prime right now. The sport is a lot less dangerous now than when I was fighting in the underground too. I don’t have to fight 2 fights in a night and then finish out the tournament by facing Rashad Evans. One fight a night isn’t so bad.”
Jara is currently on the shelf until December due to a bicep tendon being cut. “This already happened to my other arm, it sucks. I hyper extended my arm in training. They have to drill a hole in the bone and reattach the tendon through it. It’s not fun. I’m already in there training though, I don’t give a damn, I just don’t use that arm while I do it.” Jara may look like UFC 1’s Art Jimmerson while he trains for now, but his attitude and desire ensures that we will see him again shortly. Jara says, “I want to be in there fighting by December or January. I don’t want to wait longer than that. This injury really screwed me up because I was going to be fighting Niko Vitale for the SHINE belt, but now I have to wait out this injury before I can do anything.”
I’m excited for Jara’s return. I can’t help but root for the guys who haven’t had the easiest road through this sport. There is so much more value in fighters who have fought through a hard career. Fan appreciation is rarely behind fighters who have had silver spoons in their mouths from the start. Jara is proving that having a long row to hoe in this sport is a sure ticket for respect and toughness. When you have to make things happen for yourself, the hunger and tenacity is going to be burning bright while other fighters might give it up when times get tough. Jara might not be the youngest fighter on the street but betting against him would rarely be a wise move.
“I wouldn’t be able to do this without my sponsors, my BJJ coach and my manager. Cassio Werneck and Mike Rumsey have all my thanks for what they do for me. Look me up in December. You’ll see me fighting.”
You can find Jaime Jara on Twitter through the screen name @ELCUCUI
Special thanks to Mark Matthews (@MMAInked) for his help in the creation of this article.
MMATH 