The Time Is Now

On Christmas Day, Andrei Arlovski didn’t open presents.

Instead, Freddie Roach opened the doors of his Wild Card boxing gym to the fighter and his trainers for two scheduled training sessions.

Roach, one of a handful of coaches that has prepped the Belarusian over the last six weeks for his heavyweight tilt against Fedor Emelianenko at Affliction “Day of Reckoning” this Saturday at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., undoubtedly had somewhere else to be. They all had somewhere better to be, of course, on Christmas Day. Still, Arlovski’s trainers all answered the call.

It goes without saying between them that this is the most important fight of Andrei Arlovski’s career. Not only is the No. 1 world-ranked Emelianenko virtually undefeated –- barring a 17-second stoppage eight years ago that revolved around an elbow, blood, and a squeamish referee –- but promotional rivalries have kept many of Arlovski’s contemporaries from ever facing the revered Russian. Champion Randy Couture resigned from the UFC in 2007 in his quest to face the holy grail of heavyweights, only to be ushered back under the black cloud of a lawsuit in 2008.

Arlovski has sacrificed much to get here. Rounding the final base of his UFC contract in 2007, the fighter and his representatives could not reach a new deal with the mega promotion. Sitting out eleven months between bouts, “The Pit Bull” was then doled out the final fight on his contract at the very last moment possible. Arlovski grinded out a second-round stoppage against wrestler Jake O’Brien, then took the biggest risk of his young career. He left the UFC.

Of all the fighters that have ventured outside the safety of the Octagon’s pearly gates in the last year, Arlovski has made the biggest mark. He lit up former IFL standout Ben Rothwell at Affliction’s first “Banned” event last July with a movie-reel montage of hooks, uppercuts, and flying knees. Another stroke of luck came in October, when CBS requested the dynamic striker for its third televised event. Though not as spectacular a display, Arlovski iced rotund IFL heavyweight champion Roy Nelson halfway into the second round.

Leaving the stability and exposure offered by the UFC has been a calculated risk, but one that’s paid off. Arlovski will face Emelianenko in his prime, with both fighters ranked among the top five in the world.

While most heavyweight bouts have little, if any, bearing on the division, the Emelianenko-Arlovski fight oozes relevance. Seven months removed from the top promotion where Arlovski won and lost its coveted title, the 29-year-old fighter can breathe a sigh of reassurance in his decision to go.

Yet if it were just one man who had taken the journey, Arlovski is certain he wouldn’t have made it. It takes a village to raise a fighter.

That’s why no member of Team Pitbull belly-ached when it was decided the returning fighter would move his camp back to Los Angeles when they couldn’t chance him falling prey to a particularly harsh Midwest winter. Arlovski and his four-man coaching staff packed their belongings; kissed their wives, children, and their day jobs good bye; and settled into the cramped, decrepit quarters of the fittingly named Vagabond Motel, directly next to Roach’s gym. There was not a hint of misgiving that their efforts would be wasted.

“It never crossed our mind that Andrei is not capable of beating Fedor,” Arlovski’s longtime manager Leo Khorlinsky said in the third episode of “Arlovski 360,” a seven-part series the fighter’s reps commissioned to publicize the bout. “What crossed our mind is that we need to put a game plan together and Andrei needs to know what he needs to do in terms of the preparation to be successful in the fight.”

That preparation has included a sober analysis of Arlovski’s strengths and weaknesses in relation to Emelianenko’s skill set.

Dino Costeas, Arlovski’s jiu-jitsu instructor and a Rickson Gracie black belt, has had the task of reminding the striker that an accomplished sambo stylist is still lurking inside him.

“I think that the love for boxing is so evident in Andrei, so what do you do? I’d be lying if I told you it didn’t bug me when he comes out here and trains two weeks at a time with Freddie and I don’t get to see him. I want to pull my hair out,” said Costeas. “But I’m out here [now] and we’re always working on his ground game and transitions. His ground game is actually fine. Can it be improved? Sure, we can all be improved. I constantly remind him of that world champion in the UFC that took [Tim] Sylvia’s leg home with him.”

Sean Bormet and John Kading, both NCAA Div. I coaches, have traded off wrestling duties.

“Andrei’s a smart enough guy to know who and when he can give a little more ground to,” said Bormet, “but there is no relaxation at any point in this fight with Fedor. There is no hesitation when you do get that takedown and you do get on top. You immediately take a strong position. We’ve been doing rounds and rounds and rounds of it so he hits the ground and immediately gets a strong position.”

But the area of Arlovski’s game most fans are pinning their hopes on is the Belarusian’s crisp standup. Though he’s never been knocked out, Emelianenko has at least stumbled under the weight of a heavy glove.

Mike Garcia, the team’s head boxing coach out of Chicago, has been entrusted with collecting all the threads of Arlovski’s tutelage and tying it up into a nice, neat bow.

“Before I come up with a game plan, I have to talk to Dino, John, and Sean,” said Garcia. “I have to make sure I’m not making Andrei susceptible to getting taken down or put in a bad position. This isn’t just a boxing match.”

The training is paramount, but Khorlinsky, Costeas, Bormet, Kading, Garcia, and Roach have also filled a void in the 29-year-old fighter’s life. After the fight, Arlovski will call his mother in Minsk, as he’s done for all his 20 fights, to tell her how her son fared. She does not attend his fights, while Arlovski does not speak about his father.