By Cory Clark
Sun Staff Writer

JONESBORO — Jonesboro resident Mike Wessel is making quite a name for himself in the world of mixed martial arts.
Wessel is currently starring on the popular television show, “The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights.”
New episodes of the show air on Wednesday nights at 9 on Spike TV.
The show works like this: 16 fighters are split up into two teams who compete against each other in exhibition fights each week.
The last two fighters left at the end of the show face off in the finale for a lucrative UFC contract.
His road from small-college football star to one of the most popular television shows today was a winding one that took him from Ohio to California and North Dakota to Arkansas.
The 31-year-old, 250-pound Wessel was born and grew up in Salina, Ohio, and moved to town in February with his wife Kelly, who is originally from Jonesboro.
Most might be surprised that a man who fights for a living graduated with a double major in chemistry and special education from the University of Saint Francis in Fort Wayne, Ind.
Wessel starred in college on the football field and was an all-American nose tackle as well as a team captain.
After toiling in NFL camps for the San Diego Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs, Wessel played Arena football in Bismarck, N.D., as well as in San Diego.
“I just didn’t make it in the NFL. That’s how it goes,” Wessel said.
Following his time in Arena football, Wessel took a coaching job at a small junior college in North Dakota.
That is where he met Houston Nutt, who was coaching the Arkansas Razorbacks at the time.
“He came up there to look at one of our safeties and he ended up spending an hour with me and the linebackers I was coaching,” he said. “He told me if I ever needed a job or if something came open at Arkansas to give him a call.”
A few months later Wessel found out the strength and conditioning position was open at Arkansas, so he gave Nutt a call.
“I did not think he would remember me; I really didn’t,” he said. “He remembered everything about me, and that was very impressive.”
Wessel asked Nutt about the job.
“He told me to call him back in five minutes, so I did, and he said ‘Can you be here Tuesday?’” he said. “So I packed up and moved to Fayetteville.”
Wessel’s first season with the Hogs was 2005, the freshman year of Darren McFadden and Felix Jones.
Over the next 2 1⁄2 years he spent at Arkansas, Wessel had a front-row seat for all the controversy that eventually ended the Nutt era at the school.
“I got to see everything, all the controversy,” he said. “It was a good experience for me; I loved the kids I worked with.”
Although he enjoyed his time working at Arkansas, Wessel realized there was something missing in his life.
“I started thinking that I’m not doing anything with my life,” he said. “I was not an athlete anymore and I had no structure in my life, and I need structure in my life.”
Wessel began taking kickboxing with a martial arts instructor who worked with the Razorbacks.
“I did well and one day my instructor asked me if I had ever thought about MMA and if I wanted to fight,” he said.
Once he started fighting amateur fights, Wessel knew immediately he had found what he was looking for.
“I started winning,” he said. “My amateur fights were over in like a minute and I was just knocking people out.”
Eventually, Wessel knew he had to devote more time to becoming an MMA fighter if he wanted to be successful.
Even though he had a great job at Arkansas, he still yearned for more, and one day he finally told the coaching staff that he was quitting to focus on MMA.
“I remember the looks on their faces,” he said. “It was like I was saying I am giving up this good coaching job to become a pro wrestler.”
After posting a 6-0 amateur record, Wessel moved to Little Rock and turned professional in 2007.
“My first pro fight was a 3-fight tournament,” he said. “I made it all the way to the finals before I got knocked out because I did not listen to my coach.”
Despite the loss, Wessel said he came away from his first professional fighting experience with a ton of confidence.
“It was a good learning experience,” he said. “You can learn something from every loss.”
When Wessel got his rematch with the fighter he had lost to, things went very different.
“I beat him in a minute and 30 seconds,” he said. “I beat him bad.”
Most people will never know what it feels like to step into a cage to fight another human being.
“You have to know when you get into that cage you can die and you can get hurt really bad,” he said. “You just have to focus on what you know how to do and do it.”
Often, the winner of the fight gets paid double what the loser makes, so winning is very important.
“That is the pressure that no one ever sees when it comes to fighting,” he said. “I love this sport but I’m not going to put my body through this for free.”
In the weeks leading up to a fight, Wessel said there are many things that go through his mind.
“There is every emotion you can think of and I start worrying about that one day of practice I missed,” he said. “I don’t think of anything other than what I can lose if I don’t win.”
But once he steps into the cage for a fight, Wessel said everything gets very quiet.
“When you step into the cage, it all just disappears,” he said.
Wessel became involved with the largest MMA organization in the world, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, when a friend asked him to work his corner in the finale of the Ultimate Fighter 8 in Las Vegas.
At the weigh-in for the fight, Wessel met Dana White, the president of the UFC.
“He told me that he had been following me and I told them if they ever needed anyone to give me a call,” he said.
Wessel had not been training; he had been enjoying the success of his friend and was not even sure when he was going to get another fight because not too many fighters were eager to step into the cage with him.
That’s when he got the call that changed his life.
“The fight took place on a weekend and as I was on the plane heading home. I got a call telling me to get my medical check-up because there was a spot that had come open on an upcoming pay per view on Dec. 21, 2008, at UFC 92.”
The only problem was that Wessel was not in fighting shape.
“I was not in shape, my cardio was horrible and I really had not been training,” he said. “But I had to take my shot.”
To make things even more difficult, Wessel found out he would be fighting a top-20 ranked heavyweight and one of the most highly respected fighters in the world, Antoni Hardonk.
To the surprise of everyone, Wessel went toe-to-toe with Hardonk and ended the first 5-minute round on top of Hardonk in a commanding position.
Unfortunately with his lack of training, Wessel tired out in the second round after an impressive showing and the referee stopped the fight when Wessel simply could not lift his arms anymore to defend himself.
“I just wore out,” he said. “I fought so hard that my arms could not move anymore. He did not hurt me; I just gassed.”
Wessel’s performance earned the respect of the other fighters in the locker room after the fight. Even his opponent came into the locker room and told him how impressed he was.
“They all thought I was the lamb going in to be slaughtered,” he said. “But they saw I had heart and they were all impressed.”
Shortly after UFC 92, Wessel moved to Jonesboro and was waiting for another opportunity to fight.
That’s when he got the call about “The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights.”
For seven weeks, the show was taped as Wessel lived with 15 other fighters in a house full of cameras.
There were no phones, no newspapers, no magazines, no talking to family and no television.
“Nothing can prepare you for it until you’re there,” he said. “At one time, everyone lost it a little and I did some things that I’m not proud of but it was just the atmosphere I was in.”
Although the show features some heated moments between some of the fighters, Wessel said outside of the atmosphere and pressure of the show they are all friends.
“I’m good friends with everyone in that house,” he said.
Wessel said he is enjoying the notoriety he has received from being on the show.
“I get to live a special life. I’ve worked my tail off to get here but I want people to partake in it with me,” he said. “I will talk to anyone who comes up to me and I think it’s great that people have been so supportive of me.”
With the show running until the finale on Dec. 5, Wessel, who has an 8-2 professional record, is in waiting mode until the show ends.
“I really can’t say much about the future until the show is over,” he said.
While his schedule keeps him on the road most of the time, Wessel can be seen from time to time around town and he has no plans of leaving anytime soon.
“Jonesboro is my home now,” he said. “I don’t want to move away. I have not been this comfortable anywhere else since I left my hometown.”

sports@jonesborosun.com