A Means to an End

At 40 years of age and 50 fights into his career as a professional mixed martial arts, Tim Means can sense time’s walls closing in on him. Even so, he plans to go out swinging whenever he decides to call it a day.

“The Dirty Bird” will strap on the gloves under the Ultimate Fighting Championship yet again—his 28 appearances inside the Octagon place him in the Top 20 on the all-time list—when he does battle with Uros Medic in a UFC on ESPN 55 lightweight attraction this Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Despite the considerable tread on his tires, Means still sounds like a man willing to go through all the hassles associated with his chosen vocation.

“There’s always something hurting or aching,” he said during pre-fight media day. “It’s just the name of the game. Training camps suck. That whole cutting weight s--- is getting ridiculous. I know my time’s coming, [but] it’s not today or Saturday. Passed all the medical stuff. Got my training camp in. I’m here to pick a fight and get violent. If we’re following the whole science process, I hit puberty late, so hell, I’m 33. Here we go.”

A former two-division King of the Cage champion who has endured his share of adversity since he debuted as a 20-year-old on March 13, 2004, Means has lost no love for the sport. He continues to find the purity of hand-to-hand combat appealing.

“It has to be, right?” Means said. “You see your opponent walking around at times, and you’ve got to have some kind of craziness to get punched in the face. There’s nothing better than getting to beat up a co-worker and then go on about your day. I think the world’s gotten two pussified. You can’t say some things: ‘Oh my gosh, let’s don’t hurt each other’s feelings.’ At the end of the day, we’re going to shake each other’s hands, get in the cage and beat the s--- out of each other.”

As he traverses the twilight of his career, Means has started to put a safety net in place. “I’ve had to set plans up, for sure,” he said. “There’s definitely got to be a plan. I don’t want it to end and be like, ‘Oh my God. It’s over. I’m sorry. Whatever.’” Part of those plans involve his ongoing commitment as a wrestling coach for Moriarty High School, which sits just outside of Albuquerque in his native New Mexico.

“We got a lot of tough kids over there,” Means said. “We come from a poor community that doesn’t have a lot of cash, but we’ve got some mean ass kids that want to show up. Wrestling practices suck. Nobody wants to do that s---, but you want to get out there and get your hand raised. Once you get that first win, you fall in love with it. Like I tell the kids, you’ve got to love the grind. If you’re not in love with the grind, you’re not going to like life, in general, so just get after it.

“It’s the thing I enjoy the most,” he added. “For the most part, kids are onboard, kids work hard. I’ve got a group of great kids. I see them struggle. They go to school all damn day, then have to come into another two-hour wrestling practice five days a week, plus wrestling on Saturdays. Life isn’t easy. You have to accept it. You have to understand the grind is part of the process.”

Before he moves on to the next phase in life, Means must map out what remains of his MMA journey. The latest stop sees him paired with Medic, a Kings MMA rep and Dana White’s Contender Series graduate who has delivered all nine of his victories by knockout, technical knockout or submission. However, the 32-year-old Serbian finds himself on the rebound after he submitted to a neck crank from Myktybek Orolbai in the second round of their UFC Fight Night 232 pairing in November.

“I think he’s a dangerous guy,” Means said. “He’s going to meet me in the middle, and we’re going to figure it out. He’s left-handed. He’s very, very aggressive, and I don’t think either one of us like to back up, and that makes [for] a very, very fun fight. We went through a lot of opponents to get tied down to him. A couple guys were pulled off and put on other cards. I got ready for whoever they were going to put in there. I’ve had my ass whooped and I’ve handed out some whoopins, so let’s just go out there and have fun.”

Means, who closed the book on a three-fight losing streak with a Sept. 23 stoppage of Andre Fialho, never imagined he would get this far when he set out on his adventure into the unknown two decades ago.

“My first fight was [for] like $50,” he said. “My parents were pissed I dropped out of school to be a pro fighter. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but it panned out and here we are. I just made a decision and went with it, and they were not happy about it at all. I was a young dumb redneck kid driving an El Camino.”