For McCall, fighting is a family affair. | Photo: Jeff Sherwood
Growing up, McCall actually had a friend named Montague, and he was installed as his foil. Thus, he was Capulet. He tells me he does not particularly like theatre or Shakespeare. His love for the work, its characters and its lessons is informed more by his relationship with Shay.
I inquire about his friend, Montague, and whether or not he will attend McCall’s fight the next day.
“Oh, my friend that has Montague across his chest ... his girlfriend won’t let him be friends with me anymore,” he says, his mouth a twisted frown. “She is this super-fake Christian girl. She has to have total control over him. She means well, but she doesn’t know she’s doing it all wrong. Just because I used to have a drug problem doesn’t mean I’m the Antichrist, you know?”
Act VIII: Better Half
As McCall sits across from me, his phone rings in his lap, breaking through a moment of silence. It is just before midnight.
“It’s her,” McCall says with a grin before taking the call from his hopeful future wife.
“Hey, I’ll be down soon,” he tells her, trying to soothe her through the receiver.
“You have a fight tomorrow!” I can hear Shay tell him through the phone.
“Yup, I know. I’ll be down in a sec,” he reassures her.
Once again, I hear her implore the father of her unborn child to return to their hotel room and sleep before his title clash with Montague. He assuages her concerns and hangs up.
“See? She’s the best,” he tells me. “She wakes up, I’m not there and she immediately is concerned about me and my fight. She’s so good about it. She just gets it, you know? She really is like the female version of me.”
Shay Duguay, four years McCall’s junior, does share more in common with him than most people could. A model and a make-up artist sought after by major magazines, Duguay is the daughter of former NHL journeyman-stroke-hockey heartthrob Ron Duguay and the stepdaughter of former supermodel Kim Alexis. She also comes from a wealthier family, like McCall, whose father owned a car dealership.
Like McCall, she shares an interest in the more macabre parts of life. He beams with joy when he tells me that she hung a picture of Charles Manson being arrested in their home. Even though he pines for the kind of pure love posited by Romeo and Juliet, he clearly enjoys a bit of the Sid and Nancy dynamic, as well.
Act IX: Following in Icy Footsteps
When I broach the idea of marketability with McCall, he has clearly given a lot of thought to how he fits into the great chain of being in MMA and how to up his celebrity status without the UFC limelight. His inspiration comes primarily from another mustachioed fighter.
“I have to look at the world as my oyster; this is what I want to do. I want to be a 125-pound Chuck Liddell,” he says eagerly. “I want people drawn to me. People love that man, and for obvious reasons. Everyone loves that man. I love that man.”
It is true. People are still magnetized to an aged Liddell in a major, major way. We hit on the ideas of humans having natural charisma -- the “it” factor that is present when you see a person and instinctively intuited know he or she is somebody of magnitude.
“I think that a lot of fighters have lost that thing. A lot of champions in MMA just aren’t that interesting,” McCall says. “Look at Manny Pacquiao. He is so interesting that people will watch him sing even though he’s a boxer. He’s this small guy, and everyone is drawn to him.”
We end up talking about UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva and his recent deals with Nike and his favorite soccer team, Sport Club Corinthians Paulista. McCall shocks me with his knowledge of the Sao Paulo-based club, largely influenced by Santana and Nascimento, both ardent members of the Corinthians faithful.
“Mustaches and Brazilian football talk, too? Quite a conversationalist, Ian,” I chide.
“I get bits and pieces,” he says with a smile. Corners of knowledge like this make McCall accessible and fun to be around. His days as a partying firebrand, if nothing else, have left him with a conversational command that allows him to take over the room.
“I’ve always had that magnetism. I would like to -- this sounds bad -- but I’d like to exploit it more. This is a business, and I’ve only got so much time,” he says.
“Do you feel like you’re on borrowed time, like you really need to get all the juice out of this fruit you can?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says resolutely. McCall’s answer is so firm, it effectively ends that conversation.
Act X: The Birth of ‘Uncle Creepy’
In conversation, McCall always tracks back to his family. That part of his life has been tumultuous, but, at least on the surface, it seems like it has hardly impacted his love for them.
“Our family had so many f------ problems. The divorce took like 10 years,” McCall says, eyes rolling and head shaking. “I hated my parents for years.”
McCall looks down at the floor, as if he is trying to remember a previous life.
“It was all a train wreck -- everything, the family, my life. It was honestly terrible, dude,” he continues. “Then one day, I just matured and said, ‘This is f----- up. I can’t keep going like this. I love these people.’”
McCall has two elder brothers, Brad and Tom. The oldest, 42-year-old Tom, is married with four children. McCall shakes his head and laughs when talking about him, calling him “a real man, a total dad.”
It was Tom’s kids who helped crystallize McCall’s public persona, nicknaming him “Uncle Creepy.”
“I still remember it. As soon as the room heard them saying ‘Uncle Creepy! Uncle Creepy!' the entire room turned to me, like, ‘Well, that’s your new nickname,’” he remembers with an obvious fondness.
When McCall overdosed and found himself in intensive care, his brothers were first to his bedside to chew him out and implore him to get his life on track.
“It’s so great for me, because they’re my family, and they love me no matter how bad I’ve f----- up, but they also understand my career. They’re my biggest fans, too,” he beams.
It is on display at the event. His mother, Denise, is front and center at the weigh-ins, vibrant in a bright yellow shirt, imploring her son to buddy up to his opponent for pictures. She seems almost like a mom watching her son graduate.
Come fight night, McCall has a cheering section of at least two or three dozen people. Fake mustaches abound. His cheering section even tops that of former Bellator Fighting Championships featherweight titleholder Joe Soto, which featured a family member who jumped a barricade and nearly scaled the fence into the cage.
When McCall sinks his arm under Montague’s chin and seals his victory, his cousin stands up, bellowing “The House of Capulet!” McCall does not hear him, however. He is on his back on the cage floor, kicking his legs and laughing like his mother’s child.
Act XI: Quick Pitch
We are a stone’s throw from where we stood three months ago, when McCall decided he would forego any chance at “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 14 in favor of trying to become the top flyweight in the world. We are 15 minutes removed from his taking a third-round submission over Montague in a fantastic bout. When we enter the trailer to get post-fight interview with McCall, there is an air of smug satisfaction from the fighter and his team. Perhaps it is even justified.
J. Sherwood
McCall is ready to try for a UFC belt.
Perhaps McCall’s personality is rubbing off on me. I decide to call his bluff, and I hand him my cell phone, with a blank text message open to Shelby.
“Here’s your chance,” I say.
McCall is undaunted. As soon as his hands are free of tape and gauze, he types away.
“Hey, pal, it’s Ian McCall ... give me my weight class.”
“Hey, Jordan,” a voice says behind me. I turn around, and there stands McCall’s father. I am completely confused as to how he knows my name.
“Oh, my dad is the coolest,” he says, boasting. “He’s been reading Sherdog for 10 years.”
Ian McCall’s family members are not just Ian McCall fans; they are MMA fans.
We rap informally off camera about what is next for him. We talk about the dynamics of a five-round rematch with da Silva, and the Brazilian’s impressive win earlier that evening over Mamoru Yamaguchi. McCall also expresses his desire to tangle with Shooto world champion Yasuhiro Urushitani. He even pronounces Urushitani’s name properly.
It is a little different than three months ago, listening to the hopes and dreams of a man seemingly pathological about his desire not just to feel like he is the best flyweight in the world but to leave no doubt in the minds of even the most fickle fans.
Act XII: Impromptu Wedding
On Saturday, McCall tweeted: “So I decided to randomly get married on the way home from Fresno ... Put wedding chapel in my navigation and now I have a wife.”
I call him from my hotel room in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon. I cannot pass up uncovering the details of this story, especially knowing it might be fodder for the one before you now.
“We’ve really wanted to just get it over with,” says McCall, his sense of relief palpable, even on the phone.
“For our personal life, for taxes, we thought it’d be better to get it out of the way. We were going to do it last week, actually,” he continues. “We were driving home from Fresno. We got some breakfast. Then we got in the car, and Shay said, ‘Let’s get married somewhere.’ So, I put ‘wedding chapel’ in the GPS on my iPhone, and we went.”
They ended up in San Fernando. McCall confesses that he actually missed the chapel by a mile on his first pass. It seems like another normal detail in a McCall anecdote.
“We just walked in; it was like a shady doctor’s office. We just filled out some paperwork, paid a couple hundred bucks and now we’re married,” he says.
McCall explains how they waited their turn in what he describes as “the s----- chapel,” alongside their two Chihuahuas, Shay’s brother and one of her best friends. They said their vows before a pastor, McCall holding Sadie and Shay holding Tony.
The soon-to-be “Daddy Creepy” anticipates they will have a full wedding before some 500 guests at a Catholic basilica in eight to 10 months. Thailand leads the list of potential honeymoon spots.
“I’m so happy. It makes me smile. I can actually call her my wife,” McCall says.
Act XII 1/2: Epilogue
The next chapter in McCall’s life is not finished.
Now married and a father-to-be, he is growing into the role of provider. He has evolved past loving MMA purely for its own sake. Though he undeniably still loves to fight, he now understands that it is inextricably linked to the future of his family.
“This is how I provide for my wife, my family,” he says to me on the Thursday evening, emphasizing the word “family.” “I can’t go back, and I can’t f--- up anymore. This is it for me.”
It is Sunday. McCall is a day and a half removed from his title win and a day removed from getting married. When he immerses himself in this line of conversation, McCall shows glimpses of intensity that appear nowhere else in his personality, except the cage. He is a rash and impulsive human being, but he seems passionately adamant in his resolve.
“I tell myself that I’d be alright without Shay. I tell myself, ‘You could get through this like you got through everything else,’ but something in the back of my head says, ‘Dude, you’d be f-----. You’d go back to sleeping around with everyone. You’d go back to doing drugs. You’d f--- up your career and end up dead.”
He is fully immersed. It seems like he is talking for his own benefit now, not because someone is recording his voice.
“Do you get scared you’ll f--- up?” I ask.
“Nope, I’ve got a job to do. Will I be a saint forever? Probably not, but I’ll never, ever do anything that makes her say, ‘F--- it, I’m done.’ I’ll never do anything to hurt my career. She’s the thing that keeps me grounded. We used to be gasoline and a match, but she got over the partying and everything, and, now, she’s helped me get over it, too. We’re two different people now,” McCall says.
“You seem so resolute,” I respond. “Is that in some way because a UFC deal could be so close?”
“It’s, like, ‘When is it gonna happen?’ I’m waiting and waiting. I’d like to rush. I’d like it to happen tomorrow,” he says, talking rapidly, excitedly.
“What makes you so sure? Things around you for your whole life have been fractured. Divorces and family feuds and friends dying, drug addiction,” I ask him. I feel as though I cannot leave his optimism unchecked.
“We aren’t talking about one thing. We’re not just talking about a wife or a child or whatever. It’s a life. That’s what I want, and I’m going to get it,” he says. “It’s not just for me; it’s [for] those people in my life, my family and friends, who didn’t just say, ‘Ian’s gone. Let him die.’”
“Do you regret your past?” I ask.
“I’d like to get back the last five years of my life. If I was training consistently the whole time, I would be a black belt in jiu-jitsu and smoking everyone,” he continues. “If I had an extra 10,000 hours invested, it’d be great, but I’m on borrowed time. I’ve got to make this all right, and the best way for me to do that is to just keep fighting and to raise my family.”
In MMA, time is the ultimate force that reveals truth. Eventually, fighters step into the cage, and we find out who is the best, one way or the other. Outside the cage, fighters make decisions that will lead them to prosper or peril. Imminently, McCall will be confronted with those decisions. The new House of Capulet will rest upon them.