Case in point, UFC lightweight Frank Camacho. Now I have interviewed “Frank the Crank” several times since his Octagon debut in 2017, and we’ve covered a wide array of topics. But it wasn’t until researching him for our chat last week that I came across a YouTube interview he did with Las Vegas’ The Schmo before his 2019 win over Nick Hein.

In it, they discussed a tidbit I had glossed over in the past, but that I had to address in full in our conversation.

Hey, Frank, is it true that you fought your uncle?

Camacho laughs, more than willing to tell the story of his second pro fight on February 11, 2006 in the Trench Warz (Yes, with a Z, not an S) promotion in his hometown of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands.

“If you look at my record, my second fight I beat a guy named Mike Camacho,” he said. “That’s my uncle.”

And though Uncle Mike wasn’t a first uncle, this wasn’t just some friend of the family who got the uncle title put on him.

“The Camacho family is huge in the islands, but he’s a relative,” laughed the UFC up and comer, who was only 17 years old when the first bell rang at the Trench Tech Gym.

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“It was still very fresh,” said Camacho of a fighting career that began nearly three months earlier with a 59-second win over Bernie Neth. “They were called NHB fights at the time and it was still like the early UFC days type of training on the islands back then. It was my style versus your style. But we were so lucky that we had a Shooto guy training us, Tetsuji Kato, so we were well-rounded.”

Kato was legit and still an active fighter whose resume read like a Who’s Who of top-level fighters, with the names Hayato Sakurai, Jutaro Nakao, Vitor Ribeiro and Gilbert Melendez standing out. Oh yeah, and he went the distance with some guy named Anderson Silva in 2001. Yeah, that Anderson Silva.

Camacho trained with Uncle Mike, who Frank describes as, “an old school martial artist, he did Taekwondo and Aikido and all of that.”

Both were scheduled to fight on the Trench Warz 2 card, but each of their opponents pulled out. That left the duo without a dance partner. But the 38-year-old Uncle Mike had a solution.

“Hey, Frankie Boy, our opponents pulled out and we’ve been training, so are you down to fight on fight night?”

“Yeah, sure, Uncle Mike. That would be awesome.”

“Just make sure you don’t hold back because I’m not gonna hold back.”

“Uh okay.”

Then came fight night. And then it got ugly. But not before a show of respect from nephew to uncle.

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In Chamorro culture, we do something called a Mannginge, where you hold the hand and then you touch them on your nose out of respect. When they rang the bell, I did that to him just to show respect.”

That was the last note of kindness for the next 76 seconds. Camacho remembers his game plan, one centered on the style of a guy called “The Axe Murderer.” 

“Prior to the fight, I only had dial-up and I would leave my computer on for like two days downloading highlight reels (Laughs) and, at the time, Wanderlei (Silva) was killing everyone. So I downloaded the Wanderlei Silva highlight reel and he kneed Rampage (Jackson) through the ropes and he was in the clinch with the knees and I was like, ‘Man, I’m gonna try this out.’”

He did. It worked. Perfectly.

“I was kneeing him in the clinch and I ended up dropping him and then I started stomping on him and I was like, ‘Oh man, I think that was a little too much.’”

Camacho laughs, almost nervously, and what makes this such a crazy story is that he is one of the nicest, if not the nicest, folks in mixed martial arts. So just the visual of him kneeing then stomping his uncle in a prizefight is bizarre.

“I’ve been like this forever,” said the married father of two boys. “I never got into any street fights, I never got in trouble in school. I played the ukulele for the church choir growing up.”

But he did knock out his uncle. 

“The rules were pretty open,” he admits. “It’s pretty wild thinking about it now, but then, it was just a fight, island-style. We needed to find something to do on Saipan. It’s a super small island, so it was like, ‘Shoo, I’ll fight my uncle.’ What a time, man.”

In true island fashion, there were no hard feelings or bad blood between the two after the fight. Camacho says Uncle Mike never missed any of his local fights, and when “Frank the Crank” went international, he was always watching. That doesn’t mean other family members don’t give him a hard time at parties.

“They tell me they say, ‘Hey, Mike, you better slow down before I call Frankie Boy over here.” That was the joke the whole time.”

Now with some down time at home in Guam due to COVID-19 pandemic that forced the postponement of his April 25 bout against Alan Patrick, Camacho may just revisit that bout on his highlight reel as he brushes up on the mental side of the game until his name gets called again.

“I feel like I’m back where I was two years into training,” he said. “Obviously, we’re stuck at home, so I’ve been doing a lot of stuff that I had been doing when I first started MMA – watching fights, breaking down fights; I have my notepad when I’m watching fights and I’m communicating with coach (Colin Oyama). I’m bothering him and don’t care what the time difference is when I text him (Laughs), and it’s kind of cool because I’m catching myself working on more of the internal and less of the external. Because the past five, six years of camps, it’s very physical – drilling, banging – and I kind of lost what I’m doing now. So it’s a blessing in disguise for me as a martial artist to work on this. A lot of things that I missed or have never really seen, I’m searching for, which is cool.”

I mention the first fight between Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo as a must watch, and Camacho hadn’t seen the boxing classic until later that day. I told him if there was any fight that was in his wheelhouse, it was that one. 

“Oyama’s gonna kill you for showing me this,” he laughed.

Well, I’ll take that heat, knowing that I gave Camacho the gift of one of the best fights ever while he gave me the gift of one of the best stories ever. That’s as fair a trade as any.

Matt Hughes and Frank Trigg had plenty of bad blood before both their bouts, but before the second one at UFC 52 on April 16, 2005, they had a little help from UFC television director Anthony Giordano.

“Anthony Giordano would do the interviews back then, and he was very good,” Hughes recalls with a laugh. “He would go to my opponent and talk to them first and would always come back to me and say Frank said this or Joe said that, and he would get some heat out of me. If he interviewed me first, he just didn’t have anything to go off of, so he was smart. And I remember Giordano saying, ‘Hey, he (Trigg) said the first fight was a fluke and he’s training harder this time, and he’s got a better wrestling pedigree.’ He was bringing stuff out of the blue and I would get heated. I knew when Anthony showed up, I would say, ‘Keep your cool, keep your cool,’ (Laughs) but he was good. He got under my skin and he got the sound bites he needed.”

So by the time the two welterweights met up at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas for their rematch, things were a bit heated, and that was actually a good thing for Hughes, because after submitting Trigg via rear naked choke in their first bout at UFC 45 in November of 2003, he didn’t even see the need for a return match.

“To me, rematches only benefit the loser of the first fight,” he said. “I had nothing to win. And (UFC President) Dana (White) called me with it and I said, ‘Dana, I don’t want that fight.’ He goes, ‘I understand, but that’s all we’ve got right now.’ Okay.”

Hughes, in his second reign as champion, always stepped up when asked, and if it was Trigg that the UFC wanted, that’s what they would get. As for the Rochester, New York native, his sole purpose for being in the Octagon was to get that belt, and after losing to Hughes the first time, the intensity of his desire to get payback grew hotter.

“We were hoping (for a rematch) and I was talking my way into it at the same time,” Trigg said. “Beating (Dennis) Hallman a second time helped a little bit because he already beat Matt twice. Beating (Renato) Verissimo helped because that was a controversial win for Matt. It went to a decision and people really thought that Verissimo had won. And I beat him decisively. So I thought now maybe I’ll get a shot back again. It really was a thing of me kind of talking my way into it and not giving them any other option.”

The fans wanted it too, if only because Trigg had a way of pushing Hughes’ buttons. No one poked at the Hillsboro, Illinois native like “Twinkle Toes,” and even as they received Mario Yamasaki’s pre-fight instructions on fight night, Trigg got close enough to Hughes to prompt the champion to shove him right before the opening bell.

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And the crowd went wild. But it wouldn’t be the last time.

After the two battled it out on even terms for a spell to open the bout, Trigg landed with a low knee while locked up with Hughes. Hughes looked for Yamasaki to give a warning, but he only shouted from a distance to watch the knees. Trigg pounced on his stunned foe, sending him to the deck with punches. Hughes was in deep trouble, so deep that Trigg could almost picture the belt going around his waist.

“I thought the belt was mine when I knocked him out, when I smashed him and put him down,” Trigg said. “The fight’s over, it’s relatively easy at this point. He’s down, he’s dropped, the fight’s gotta be over and Mario just didn’t stop it.”

Trigg kept the heat on, eventually taking Hughes’ back. There, he sunk in a rear naked choke, and it was almost going to be a repeat of their first bout, only this time with Trigg the victor.

“So we continue to fight and the choke was in place as an afterthought,” he said. “The choke was never in. My elbow was in the wrong position, and even though I had it locked up, it really wasn’t in. At that point I’m still in disbelief that the fight’s not already over. I should be celebrating at this point, and now I’m still in a fight.”

Seconds later, Hughes broke free, and as the crowd erupted, one of the great sequences in MMA history took place, as Hughes picked Trigg up and marched him across the Octagon before slamming him. If the crowd was loud before, now they produced a deafening roar.

“There’s only one clip that I enjoy watching,” Hughes said. “When I pick Frank up and run him across the Octagon. Before that moment, my corner would have thought that I was out, that they were going to come into the Octagon and I wasn’t going to get my hand raised. I’ve been that cornerman, so I knew exactly what was going through their mind. And I’m a Christian, so I don’t like to use a lot of terms, but I like to use the word resurrection because I was out, done, and should have been the loser that night. But I picked him up and ran across the ring, and I love watching my four cornermen jump out of their seat. If I was the cornerman, I would have been so excited that one of my brothers is back in the game. That’s the only clip I care to watch of all my fights and I don’t even watch me. I watch my four cornermen. That gets me excited.”

Once Hughes got Trigg on the mat, it was game over, as he worked some ground strikes, opened a cut and then sunk in a rear naked choke that produced a tap at the 4:05 mark of the first round. To this day, you can get chills watching the fight, even though you know the ending, so it was no surprise when it was the first bout put into the Fight wing of the UFC Hall of Fame. Well, maybe it was a surprise to Trigg.

“I wasn’t expecting it,” Trigg said. “It was really out of the blue. So when I got the call, I actually had to ask them to repeat themselves a couple different times. I wasn’t analyzing what they were actually saying.”

What they were saying was that Trigg and Hughes had produced a moment in time that deserves to be commemorated with a spot in the Hall of Fame. And though Trigg was on the losing end of the fight, just having his place with the greats of the UFC is enough to soothe that defeat.

“It is a weird thing,” he said. “When I fought in Shooto, my first loss ever in MMA was to Hayato Sakurai, and for Shooto it was voted the best fight of the year. In junior college I was undefeated going all the way into the national tournament finals and I lose in the finals 4-2 and I get Sportsmanship of the Year, which is like the best number two guy in the country. And this is my third time getting an accolade for losing something. And I always dreamed of being in the UFC Hall of Fame and I never thought it would ever happen, so I kind of let it go. And yes, it’s a fight that I lost, but it’s the UFC Hall of Fame. Every time they announce me as a referee, they have to say UFC Hall of Famer Frank Trigg. It’s on my stunt resume, my acting resume, it’s almost like being knighted in the MMA community.”

As for Hughes, already inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2010, it’s something to remind him of a special time in the history of the sport.

“You look back on it and you’re just glad you’re a part of that time period,” he said.

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“I’m pretty sure I’ll be fighting BJ Penn in two years,” Worthy told his older brother while the two watched some MMA. 

The response came fast.

“You’re an idiot. You have no idea what you’re getting into.” 

Worthy was undeterred, even though this was the 2009 BJ Penn who was ruling the 155-pound division of the UFC with an iron fist.

“I’m gonna go down to my gym, beat the guy up who’s in charge there and they’re gonna end up getting me a fight with BJ Penn in a year or two,” said Worthy, who then went down to the Pittsburgh Fight Club to show what he had. He told the man who would become his first coach, Eric Hibler, that he wanted to be a professional fighter. Hibler said fine, then put Worthy in with one of the regulars in the gym.

“I got my butt kicked,” laughs Worthy. “He kicked me in my leg and I never felt pain like that before. You think you know pain until somebody kicks you in your sciatic nerve and your body starts thinking, ‘What are you doing there?’”

It was the tough love he needed. Some folks leave the gym right then and there, never to return. Worthy returned day after day, determined to become a pro fighter. He never got to BJ Penn, but he is in the UFC, where he made quite the impression in his short notice debut last summer, as he knocked out highly touted prospect Devonte Smith in the first round.

The win and the Performance of the Night bonus were nice, but it wasn’t all joy for the nicest guy in MMA dubbed “The Death Star.”

“I don’t ever want to fight a friend again,” said Worthy, who counts Smith as a buddy. “It’s not a good feeling and I just don’t like it. You’re setting him back. I want my friends to be successful and I’m not just setting them back; I’m taking their dreams away, and that’s a f**ked up feeling to do to someone. It was a rough thing I didn’t really enjoy doing at all. And it sucked because it’s my first UFC fight and I couldn’t really enjoy the fight because I really felt bad for my man.”

It’s understandable, but there is a silver lining in getting a fight with Smith over with.

“Right now, I ain’t got no other friends in the UFC,” laughs Worthy, who was scheduled to face Michael Johnson on the postponed UFC 249 card. Now he waits for a phone call to return to action, but as the owner of his own gym, The Academy of Martial Arts and Fitness, he can train whenever he wants, and when he’s not staying ready, he can reflect on a wild ride that took him through the ups, downs and sideways of the fight game in between his desire to fight “The Prodigy” and his knockout of Smith.

“I’ve been putting in work for over ten years and sacrificing and dedicating my life to this sport and missing things,” he said. “It’s fighting first and everything else has always been second. Now I’m reaping the rewards of that.”

They’re rewards he didn’t know if he would ever see, at least not at the UFC level. 

A pro since 2012, Worthy was 1-2 after his first three bouts, the second loss coming at the hands of lightweight contender Paul Felder. He soon got on track, winning his next six fights, but a 2-4 stretch would follow, leaving him with a 9-6 record and not a lot of positive options careerwise.

“I was trying to understand how I approach the fights,” said Worthy, who hadn’t yet figured out the balance between taking every fight offered and taking the right fights. “When I fought Billy Q (Quarantillo), I was a on a six-fight winning streak and I was with this manager and all he was talking about was UFC, UFC, UFC. So that’s all my brain thought about. Then I fought Billy Q and I lost and I wanted to bounce back really fast, so I took the fight with Matt Bessette on short notice and I lost that one. Then I questioned things a little bit, but my teammates told me I probably shouldn’t have taken that fight. It was too close behind the last one, and you need to take the right fights.”

Cutting to 145 pounds was becoming an issue, too, prompting him to make the permanent move back to lightweight. Yet despite a five-fight winning streak that brought his record to 14-6 last summer, he was being realistic with himself that the odds of a 33-year-old with that slate being brought to the UFC as a prospect in one of the sport’s toughest divisions weren’t great.

But when Smith lost John Makdessi and Clay Collard as opponents in rapid-fire fashion for his UFC 241 bout in Anaheim, Worthy got a phone call. He answered, and he said yes. Sometimes that’s all it takes to change someone’s life. 

It changed Worthy’s. Now he’s in the big show, his name is recognized by fans who didn’t know him a year ago, and he’s eager to put his experience to the test against all comers at 155 pounds. And as wide-eyed as he was back when he started to get his feet wet in the sport, today, he’s a veteran who takes an old school approach to his craft these days. It’s an attitude he probably wouldn’t have had if he got into the UFC in two years as he expected.

“You have no idea how to come back, you don’t know how to scrape yourself off the floor when you’ve been hit by a Mack truck,” said Worthy of the valuable lessons he learned on the regional circuit. “You need to train. These people are building their brand and all this other s**t and then they go out into a fight and they’re gonna get their face scraped off the floor by some guy who doesn’t know how to do anything but kill them.”

Worthy laughs, recalling that when he started training, there wasn’t YouTube available to scout opponents, no Twitter battles, and no sponsors for amateur fighters. Oddly enough, maybe it all played out the way it was supposed to.

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