The Dave Menne Chronicles (Part Two)
Dave Menne has the distinction of being the inaugural UFC middleweight champion. A pugilist with over 60 mixed-martial-arts fights over the course of his vaunted fight career. Menne’s activity in the sport dates back to before it was even called MMA. Where many utilized the NHB (No Holds Barred) moniker. Dave Menne made his pro-MMA debut in April 1997 and would go on to fight several times in a two day period. His competitive career ended in March 2012 after having encompassed three different decades. In this part of a brand new chronicles series, Menne talks about fighting five times in two days and how his wrestling base prepared him for this.
Dave Menne
The HooknShoot lightweight tournament victory and the hectic schedule of a wrestler
“Obviously it’s different than nowadays. Obviously there’s not a lot of money to travel across the country to take four fights in one night. Actually, I fought a no holds barred fight the next day at one of the local dojos. So in two days, I fought five times. You know, I’m coming from a wrestling background. A wrestling background where you had, how many matches in a day. So you’re not getting punched or kicked but it’s something I was somewhat used to because of the background I was coming from. Not necessarily, possibly ideal but we didn’t have the idea of what was ideal at the time. We were just doing what we did.”
“Back in my high school wrestling days, the tournaments up here. My senior year, our team tournament and our individual tournaments ran at the same time. So, I had five matches to the state finals and had four to five more matches with all the teams to the state finals. So you’re having over two to three days, over 10 matches. By the end of it, I walked outside. It was still kind of a cold wind and the wind hit my face. I was like ‘ow’. So much of my skin had been worn out in my face at that point. It’s just not what a lot of other sports are used to, I guess.”
