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Former Footballer Tackles Ultimate Dream By Loretta Hunt
"I was close," Eilers answers when pressed to expound on just how close he came to football's elite circle just two years ago. "I was on teams' draft boards. I had an agent. Everything was set." Not all was "set" though. A nagging shoulder injury convinced the then 24 year old to undergo corrective surgery, and with two months spent healing on the sidelines, Eilers missed the "combines," the NFL's designated drafting camps, for that year. With a year to kill till the next selection, Eilers hunted down Jens Pulver's email address in an old tattered notebook and shot his friend a salutation. The two had fought together on some amateur cards in Idaho before Eilers left for junior college and Pulver relocated to California for a brief stint with Bob Shamrock's short-lived fighting team. Now, some four years later, neither realized that they were only a couple of hours away from each other. Armed with two bags of clothes, Eilers made the trip to Davenport, Iowa on Pulver's invitation, shacking up with the lightweight dynamo that had already risen to UFC championship status, only to later fall upon his departure from the promotion. Stepping into the world-renowned Miletich Martial Arts gym, the focused heavyweight prospect knew he'd come to the right place. "The first day I worked out, I sparred with Tim [Sylvia]. The next day, I'm grappling with Jeremy Horn and I'm going wow, this is crazy, because I'd watched all these guys fight on TV." What impressed Eilers most of all, though, was the Miletich work ethic, the fighter says was only matched by his experiences as a college ball player. Staying on with this seemingly bottomless well of talent, Eilers rolled up his sleeves and dug in for a year of training mainly to stay in shape, planning to return to the 50 yard line in time for the next drafting cycle. It's a running joke with his Team Extreme manager Monte Cox how Eilers was handed an "easy first fight" in his pro debut against perennial UFC veteran Dan Severn. "I don't know what they expected," Eilers comments of the match-up. "if they thought I was going to go out there and get my butt kicked. I knew Jens knew I could fight, and even though Jens thought I would beat him, everybody else was a bit skeptical." Eilers didn't win his bout with Severn, but managed to take the grizzled yet highly-experienced wrestler to a decision. "I'm looking at it going, alright, this is one of the best guys out there and I almost beat him." Eilers' year of MMA "repose" had expired at that moment as well, and the 25 year old was faced with a life altering choice-- return to the field with a chance of securing a $309,000 starting salary or stay with a struggling sport plagued with no guaranteeable pay scale. Ironically, Eilers figured he had more of a chance of succeeding in the latter. "Football was just so political," he says of his assessment. "It is an ass kissing game, and it's about who you know." And even though the middle linebacker was at one point ranked the second leading tackler in his division, Eilers knows it was his aggression with teammates between plays that frequently put him in hot water with his head coach. On a team ripe with All-American egos, Eilers often found himself skirmishing to keep his respect intact. "I was just a guy that wasn't going to take that from any of them," Eilers conveys, knowing that his stance might hold him back when word of mouth hit the scouts' ears. As a fighter, Eilers hasn't had to struggle for respect. "All I have to do is train hard and win. I don't have to worry about anything. I just think it's a better fit for me." And the admiration of his peers is what he's earned in less than two years. Building from his loss to Severn, Eilers has amassed an 8-2-1 pro record, only succumbing to Hawaiian banger Wesley "Cabbage" Correira at their controversial Superbrawl 30 showdown last year. "I didn't lose that [fight]," Eilers adamantly contends. "It was just a bunch of crap ‘cause it was in Hawaii. One of the judges gave all three rounds to Cabbage and that's ridiculous if you watch the tape." Taking on Cabbage directly following his standup shutdown of Renzo Gracie black belt Sean Alvarez at UFC 42, Eilers remembers "everybody" telling him he couldn't strike with the iron-chinned brawler, but stand and trade punches he did. UFC president Dana White was there and suggested an eventual rematch between the two in his promotion. Yet with teammate Tim Slyvia the heavyweight champion at the time, Eilers would have to wait it out a bit longer. Patience has been a learned process in the last year, but a lesson that has richly rewarded his fight game. Poised and confident, no opponents have been able to ruffle Eilers' feathers the way his former football teammates did. "You can't lose your head when you fight," he says. "I understand you get hit and sometimes you get mad, but you start to get wild and stuff and then you waste energy or you get caught. You've gotta stay calm and relaxed." It's a far cry from the fighter who professed in the past to "going out and trying to kill guys in 30 seconds." "It's controlled," Eilers says of his companion explosiveness. "There's certain times in the fight that you have to explode and you have to go 110% and just let it go. I pick my times to explode." Will discipline and patience, tempered with just the right amount of risk taking, be enough to take on heavy hitting opponent Mike Kyle? Eilers thinks so. "He's gonna be tough, just because he's big and strong and he's willing to get in there and throw. But, I question his conditioning. I don't think he'll be in as good of shape as I'll be in." You could say that Eilers knows what he's talking about. He grew up with Kyle back in Idaho, going on camping, fishing and hunting trips together, and even playing alongside him in junior college football. "We've been pretty good friends all our life," Eilers shares. "We talked a while back and said well, it's unfortunate we gotta do it, but that's just the way it is. I'll see you in a couple of months." "Here we go," Eilers excitedly comments of the opportunity he's worked two years towards. Here we go. |
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