Stories from the Road: Jeremy Horn

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NOSE OF THE TIGER

If you ever go back and watch a replay of Horn’s fight with Gilbert Yvel in Pride Fighting Championships on Jun 23, 2002, at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan, you will notice a cut across Horn’s nose before the fight even begins.

“I fought Gilbert in Japan, and I took a couple of buddies with me to corner me,” Horn said. “We decided to have some fun before the show. The airsoft guns had just come out but not in America yet. My buddies and I were roaming Tokyo and found a couple of these guns. We thought they were the coolest things ever. They looked pretty real, and like a BB gun, you could shoot your friends with it. My buddies and I bought a couple of these guns, and the night before my fight with Gilbert Yvel, we’re running around in downtown Tokyo having BB gun fights. We were running around stores, in the streets, shooting each other like a bunch of idiots.

“At one point, we were inside somewhere and I was hiding,” he added. “My buddy came around a corner, and right as I turn the corner to shoot him, he smacked me right in the face with a steel gun. It cut my upper lip and lower nose pretty bad. I went into the ring already beat up. I don’t think Gilbert even noticed it. I wound up winning. We had what was like a paintball game in the middle of Tokyo. We would have never gotten away with that in the United States, especially with the climate today -- a bunch of kooks shooting each other with BB guns. Three guys running around waving guns at each other, which would never happen today without someone thinking it was serious. It was a lot of fun back then.”

NO LOVE LOST

One of MMA’s great blood feuds involved Horn and Josh Burkman, but it did not originate between them. It started with Burkman and Justin Ellison, one of Horn’s friends. Burkman and Ellison were always talking smack to each other, but, according to Horn, Burkman would never actually fight Ellison.

Instead, he took a fight with Horn, who submitted Burkman with a guillotine choke at an X Fighting Championships event on April 29, 2005. It remains Burkman’s quickest defeat as a pro, as it took “Gumby” just 74 seconds to finish him.

“That didn’t make a lot of sense why he fought me,” Horn said. “I don’t care for him, and he doesn’t care too much for me, either. I choked him unconscious in a minute. Honestly, there was a lot going on between Burkman and I, and after the fight, I spit on him. It was very out of character for me, and it comes up from time to time. ‘Hey, I heard this story about Jeremy Horn actually spit on somebody.’ I don’t like Josh. He’s just a jerk. I get along with everybody, even the people I fight. It’s hard to explain.

“I can agree that it was definitely bad sportsmanship on my part,” he added. “It’s the only time in my entire career that I did something like that. That’s how angry I was, but it’s not me. Anyone who knows me knows that’s not in my character to do something like that, or even close to that. I can say, yes, it was bad sportsmanship. I shouldn’t have done that, but at the same time, Josh is a d---. I don’t want go so far as to say he deserved being spit on. I guess you can say I regret the act. I would never advocate doing something like that. I don’t regret who I did it to. Sometimes, bad people deserve bad things to happen to them, you know. S----- people deserve to be spit on. It’s not one of my prouder moments, though.”

The aftermath proved strange for Horn. He was not satisfied. “Gumby” had harbored bad intentions toward Burkman for some time. He wanted to inflict as much punishment on Burkman as he could, but in the opening seconds of the fight, “The People’s Warrior” shot and grabbed Horn immediately. He took down Horn, and after they scrambled to their feet, he took him down again. It was then that Burkman left his head in a perfect position to get choked.

“I’m a firm believer in karma, and I felt that if I ignored a submission for too long, in favor of being a hot shot and trying to beat somebody up, it might bite me in the ass eventually,” Horn said, “so I took the choke. Afterwards, I was pissed. I didn’t throw a single punch. That’s why I lost my temper and spit on him right there in the ring. I choked him. Burkman goes to sleep. The ref throws me off. I stood up and spit on him while he was unconscious. He still talks s--- about me and my girlfriend about that fight. He said I took the coward’s way out and choked him. Hey, I won. He’s constantly diving in and trying to take me down. I beat him, and he still wanted to take credit away from me. I bet you he still wants to fight me today.”

JOY OF VICTORY, AGONY OF DEFEAT

Horn’s “official” record is 91-22-5 over a memorable 19-year span, though he has engaged in hundreds of undocumented fights. He admits he does not like to categorize his victories or defeats. However, there is one galvanizing tournament that stands out in his mind, if forced to come up with an answer to the question about his greatest victory. It just so happens that his signature win was followed by what he deems his worst defeat.

Horn was one of eight fighters invited to compete at International Fighting Championship “Global Domination” on Sept. 6, 2003 at the Pepsi Center in Denver. After Horn breezed through his first-round fight against Mikhail Avetisyan, he knocked out Forrest Griffin with a head kick in the semifinals. Horn seemed destined to win the $50,000 prize money for being the tournament champion. On the other side of the bracket was Renato Sobral, who had to face Trevor Prangley and Mauricio Rua to get to the final.

“I just had a great fight against Griffin, which I would call my greatest victory, and everything seemed set up for me to win. Everything was falling in my favor,” Horn said. “There was a random draw, and ‘Babalu’ had to face Prangley, who’s a tough son-of-a-bitch, in the first round. He won by decision in a great brawl where they beat the hell out of each other. [In] my first-round [fight], I didn’t even take a single punch and arm-locked the guy in four minutes. I get out of my first round without a scratch, and ‘Babalu’ gets a decision against a killer. My second round, I fight Forrest, and it was a smart fight for me. I knocked him out in the second round.

“In ‘Babalu’s’ second round, he fights ‘Shogun,’” he added. “Again, it’s a war, where they beat the s--- out of each other. We get to the finals, and here I am, fighting 11 minutes without a scratch on me, and ‘Babalu’ looks like someone kicked his ass with a sledgehammer.”

Sobral had one eye swelled shut. He had fought for close to 30 minutes and appeared worn out.

“I’m thinking ‘Babalu’ is dead, that this thing is going to be a piece of cake, this guy can barely stand up,” Horn said. “I thought to myself, ‘Don’t do anything dumb. Go in, fight smart and stay somewhat conservative,’ because I never really fight conservative. All I had to do was walk into the ring and it was going to be over, because he was half-dead as it was. That’s how I fought. I kind of coasted, and what happened was ‘Babalu’ chipped away at me. I’m thinking, ‘Any minute now, any minute, ‘Babalu’ was going to fall over dead. He can’t keep this up. Any minute now, the tide is going to turn.’”

It never did. Sobral gutted it out and won a decision. The fight was tinged by controversy. In the second round, the timekeeper rang the bell 10 seconds before the round was actually over. At the time, Horn had Sobral in a triangle choke and appeared to be on the brink of finishing him.

“‘Babalu’ fought his ass off. He fought a good, hard fight, and through no fault of his with the bell, someone messed up,” Horn said. “We timed it in the production truck, and Monte lost his mind. Losing the fight was the worst part of it, but first place got $50,000 and second place got $12,000 -- all my fault. I should have gone in hard for the finish. I shouldn’t have assumed he was going to fall over. I should have pushed him harder than I did.

“I didn’t think about the money,” he added, “and I’ve had some time to reflect on that fight since then. What bothers me is that I didn’t push myself the way I always have.”

Horn claims he enjoys this second stage of his life. He takes fights on occasion, but gratification comes more vicariously through the young fighters he trains at his Elite Performance Gym in Salt Lake City. Horn grooms them like he was taught, steeped in old-school tradition -- and committed. The UFC’s Sean O’Connell works with Horn, as does “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 9 finalist DaMarques Johnson.

“I’ll still fight anywhere. I’m not anyone special,” Horn said. “I love teaching people MMA. I love training people and seeing that spark in somebody when they finally grasp a technique. I had a guy recently come up to me almost in tears, because he got on a scale and he lost 50 pounds from training with me. I still love fighting, but seeing how MMA has now touched others’ lives is awesome, too.”

Joseph Santoliquito is the president of the Boxing Writer's Association of America and a frequent contributor to Sherdog.com's mixed martial arts and boxing coverage. His archive can be found here.