Standing over six feet tall, built solid of sheer muscle mass, it’s hard to believe Travis Wiuff (pronounced “view”), 27, would be anything other than an ultimate fighter. It’s even harder to believe that unlike most athletes in this sport, he just happened upon it one afternoon while applying for a job as a bouncer in his hometown of Owatonna, Minnesota.
Up to this point, Wiuff’s only exposure to mixed martial arts was briefly seeing David “Tank” Abbott fight in September 1996 at Ultimate Fighting Championship 11. Little did he know this would become his own destiny.
“I didn’t think much of Kohler’s offer, but considered it over the next couple of days.” The idea of fighting wasn’t too far off course for Wiuff. “Up to this point, I was considering a career in pro wrestling,” he recalled. It was, after all, in his blood as Wiuff’s dad once wrestled pro under the name “Snake.”
Deciding to fight, he joined Kohler’s promotion in February 2002 and stepped in the ring against an old childhood scrapping-mate, Lenn Walker. Within 1:15 of the first round, Walker tapped to Wiuff’s striking.
“Up to this point in my life, I had never even thrown a real punch!” said ‘The Diesel,’ a nickname quickly dubbed to him by Kohler. Judging from looks alone, that seems unbelievable, but if you know the quiet, gentleman Wiuff is, it may not come as such a surprise.
Just 15 days later, entering Monte Cox’ Extreme Challenge 46, an eight-man heavyweight tournament, he was set up against Rage in the Cage veteran Keith Jardine. At just six seconds into the bout, Wiuff knocked Jardine out and advanced to the semifinals against Mike Radnov. Five minutes in Wiuff was cut, and the fight was called on a technical knockout. At the end of the night, Wiuff was awarded $500. “I was surprised!” he said. “I didn’t know there was any money in fighting!”
Kohler and Cox kept Wiuff very busy in the next few months. Fighting eight bouts in less than three months, it wasn’t until his appearance in SuperBrawl’s Return of the Heavyweights (April 2002) that he began to learn what fighting was truly about.
Immediately advancing to the second round of the tournament because his first opponent backed out, Wiuff entered the ring to face SuperBrawl veteran Wesley “Cabbage” Correira. At 1:40 in the third round, Wiuff submitted to strikes, an event the Diesel will never forget.
“I was gassed. It was absolutely the worst feeling in the world.” For possibly the first time, Wiuff realized how different MMA was to other sports. “In wrestling, it’s easy to stall, but in MMA you can’t. It was horrible, and I felt helpless. It was the worst I have ever felt in my career.”
At that moment, Wiuff vowed to never feel that way again. “Up to this point, I was a pure wrestler and very stubborn. I occasionally worked on my stand-up, but nothing serious. I didn’t even know what Muay Thai was.”
Wiuff officially came onto the MMA radar at UFC 40 when Cox, now his manager, approached him about fighting Vladimir Matyushenko. Barely nine months since he had first entered the fight scene, Wiuff remembers “thinking it wasn’t even a big deal [to be fighting in the UFC].” Looking back now, however, he sees it as the fight that put him on the map.
“It was a business experience; a man’s job. You’re not wrestling boys anymore, you’re fighting men,” he said. “Everyone knew I didn’t deserve to be there, but it was an opportunity of a lifetime. I couldn’t say no.”
In preparation for his UFC debut, he went south to train with the Miletich camp in Davenport, Iowa. Earnestly, Wiuff recalls being “shell-shocked.”
“Up to this point, my training had been primarily with Kohler, and it was more brawling than anything,” he said. Immediately, Pat Miletich went to work, changing his wrestling style. “Prior to this, I always wrestled as a southpaw. Pat taught me to lead with my left foot.” It’s a form that Wiuff follows to this day. At 4:10 in the first round, he tapped to Matyushenko’s strikes, and while the fight may not have ended victoriously, Wiuff was right … it definitely put him on the map.
Since his UFC debut, the Diesel’s road back to the Octagon has been a long time coming. With an “I’ll fight anyone,” attitude that even many name fighters lack, he has fought 23 bouts (winning 22 of them) over the past two and a half years in Cox’ Extreme Challenge, earned his way to the finals for the Euphoria heavyweight belt, and competed in Brazil. Now, finally, he finds himself once again back at the Super Bowl of MMA … the UFC.
In a sport where most professionals train daily with other fighters or teams, focusing on the many MMA dynamics, Wiuff trains alone. The difference? He is always, always prepared to fight — ready to answer the call. In March 2004, Wiuff was given two days notice to fight Roman Zentsov in Euphoria: Russia vs. USA. After a TKO in the second round, he flew home, the victor. Not even two months later, again on short notice and no contract signed, he was asked to replace Matyushenko in Jungle Fight 2 (May 2004). Without hesitation and without complaining, he boarded the plane and left for Manaus, Brazil. It was a chance many fighters would not have taken, but a chance that definitely paid off as Wiuff knocked out Leopoldo Montenegro in the first round — proof that unlike popular belief, he doesn’t just “lay and pray.”
“I know people think I’m only a wrestler, and no matter how hard I train, they will think that. Bottom line, I am in there to get the ‘W.’ It isn’t always going to be pretty.”