Okami and the ‘Many Power of Wrestling’

The conductor of this madness is Team Quest boxing coach Clayton Hires. A compact 5-foot-8, Hires’ claim to fame is a unanimous decision nod over Floyd Mayweather Sr. in 1984. As the drill wears down the fighters, Hires shouts encouragement, specifically to Okami: “Do it for your country! USA! … Japan!”

“Yushin has the tendency to sort of sit down and stand flat-footed. Sometimes he looks a little bit like James Toney when he takes that stance,” Hires says afterward. “He can’t stand flat-footed like that, because Marquardt is a dragster. You know what I mean?”

When I mention Marquardt’s fight with Demian Maia at UFC 102, Hires’ eyes widen and he nods.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” he says. “If you wait on him, then he’s pickin’ strawberries. You’ve got to take the fight to him.”

Building a Kinship

A day later, the fighters trade in their gloves for rash guards. Three men rotate in while one guts it out for three consecutive rounds against fresh competition. Okami’s turn in the meat grinder kicks off against hulking 205-pound amateur Brandon Pitts; then he battles Lindland to a stalemate.

Okami’s third partner is Sonnen, the man who made him look amateurish when they fought 13 months ago. Sonnen’s appeal of his positive test for a banned substance following his August bout with Anderson Silva is pending, but he is in the gym, training ferociously.

Sonnen is like a sandstorm — blinding, suffocating, constantly on the attack. Okami’s base is stout. He uses Sonnen’s aggression against him, slipping out the back door and securing a gut wrench on the man who nearly dethroned Silva in August.

“Lift, Yushin!” Lindland screams from the other side of the room. “Lift!”

Okami hoists the world-ranked middleweight above his head, slamming him on his face. Few people do such things to Sonnen.

After practice, Okami and Lindland sit side-by-side. The Japanese fighter navigates through his limited English to invite the Olympic silver medalist to lunch the next day with him and his girlfriend as a show of gratitude for allowing him to again train at Team Quest.

Yushin’s lack of English is a source of great amusement for his new teammates. Sonnen jokingly plays Pictionary with him; others simply poke fun.

“He says ‘Yes’ more than anyone you’ll ever meet. You could tell that guy anything, and he’d say ‘Yes,’” says one fighter. “You could ask him to do a thousand pushups. You could ask him to jump off a building, and the guy would say ‘Yes.’”

Singular Focus

Back in the hotel room, Okami laughs heartily after I inform him of his team’s gag at his expense, vowing to one day return the favor in Japanese.

“He feels it’s like a family, because everybody is very kind to him,” says his girlfriend. “Training is different, because it’s so intense, but in his heart, they’re like a family.”

I ask him if he would ever fight Sonnen again, given the opportunity.

“It’s kind of complicated, because now Chael is his friend,” his girlfriend says. “If it were for the championship, then it would be a good fight, and it would be meaningful. If it’s not for the title, then it wouldn’t be worth it to fight Chael [again].”

The conversation loosens, so I decide to press.

“What would Yushin say to someone who calls him a boring fighter?” I ask.

They both laugh — Okami’s girlfriend as she listens to the question, Okami as he answers it. He is aware of such accusations and does not seem to care. His desire to show a more dynamic, complete attack seems to be more for his own pride than for entertainment value.

After about an hour, Okami rubs his eyes and readjusts his weight on the bed. The interview takes twice as long because of the translation process. I shift gears, probing his personal life, only to find that it barely exists outside the realm of MMA.

Okami’s leisure activities are frustratingly standard, and personality questions get me nowhere. His favorite movie is “Rocky,” and his choice of music is the “Rocky” soundtrack. Desperate, I go for broke, asking him to tell me the saddest, most heartbreaking event he has ever experienced in his life.

His pause monumental, he looks left, then right. He sighs, furrowing his brow. After 30 seconds of deafening silence, I can stand it no longer.

“I guess it wasn’t that sad, huh?” I quip.

Okami has suffered no major trauma in life. By his account, he had a content, happy childhood. He might simply be withholding information, as he withheld his strategy for the Marquardt fight, but I do not get that sense.

If something does stand out about Okami, it may be that he is the last man to hold a victory, albeit a controversial one, over Silva, the reigning middleweight king. In Rumble on the Rock’s 175-pound tournament in 2006, Silva was disqualified after landing an illegal upkick to Okami’s jaw. Silva has referred to the incident as a “cheap, cowardly way of winning.” Even so, a rematch with the Brazilian juggernaut does not appear to be on Okami’s mind. He tells me solemnly that he only ever considers his next fight.

I jokingly mention his response sounds like something Ryu from the “Street Fighter” video game series might say. It excites something within him, maybe the same part of him that found kinship with another Japanese headband-wearing fighter, a fighter named Shinya Hashimoto.