‘The Monster’ applies lessons learned to second career
Kevin Randleman will be the first guy to tell you he was lunatic in his 20's and early 30's. He was a huge star in the UFC between 2000-2002 and then blew up in Japan with PRIDE. But with the fame and the money came a lot of destructive behavior. That included not taking care of his body which led to an awful staph infection that nearly killed him. He was in and out of the hospital for months with a collapsed lung and had muscle (lats and pec) cut from his body:
"I was a nut job when I first got over there and I did go off the deep end," Randleman told Cagewriter. He was part of the famed Hammerhouse group along with Phil Baroni and Mark Coleman. "I did go off the deep end. I was lucky enough to have enough good people in my corner who pulled me aside and said 'hey this is a business.' This isn't a luxury, it's a privilege."
While he was down for much of 2007 Randleman saw the explosion of MMA in the U.S. and decided it was time for one more focused effort. The 5-foot-10 1/2 light heavyweight is done with the big guys and now has his eyes set on winning a title with Strikeforce and maybe making it back to the UFC. Randleman has rebuilt his body and married recently. He's training at Xtreme Coutre and the Tapout Training Center in Las Vegas. Now all he needs to do is win fights to take advantage of all the new opportunities in MMA. Randleman faces Ultimate Fighter alum Mike Whitehead on June 6 at Strikeforce in St. Louis.
With PRIDE, Randleman fought guys like Shogun Rua, Fedor Emelianenko (awesome suplex at 0:58 mark), Cro Cop, Quinton Jackson. His UFC resume included fights against Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, Babalu, Bas Rutten and Maurice Smith.
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