Separately, independently, like two ink-spotted ships in the night, journal art editor Adrian Gomez and I interviewed the documentary filmmaker Landon Dyksterhouse about his new film “Warrior Spirit”.
The film will be presented online on Friday by the Albuquerque Film & Music Experience.
Gomez’s story appeared in the Journal on Wednesday.
Here is mine.
Dyksterhouse, a former Albuquerque resident, set out to record MMA fighter Nicco Montaño’s remarkable journey from a Navajo reservation in northeast Arizona to become the first ever UFC flyweight (125 pound) champion.
In Dyksterhouse’s own words, the project took a tough left turn – “It was crazy, man” – as he and his crew filmed Montaño’s agonizing attempt to earn £ 125 for their first planned title defense in September 2018.
Her hospitalization as a result of that weight loss failure, her loss of the title as a further consequence, and her treatment by the UFC in general became an issue that Dyksterhouse could not and could not ignore in the making of Warrior Spirit.
My question to him, however, was: How could he sew the different threads together – Montaño’s Indian roots, her journey from underdog to champion, the bigger problems of dangerous weight loss, and how the UFC dealt not only with Montaño but also with fighters? in general?
His way to Dyksterhouse was clear.
“How is it all related? It connects in a big way, ”he said.
It is no stranger to be treated like a second-class citizen as an Indian, he said, Montaño will be treated that way again.
In 2017, Montaño, a stranger with a 3-2 professional record, was selected as one of 16 women to compete in The Ultimate Fighter 26 of the UFC. Of the 16 who trained at FIT-NHB in Albuquerque, she entered the competition in 14th place.
Someone at the UFC, President Dana White or someone else, had the idea of making the TUF winner the first ever UFC women’s flyweight champion.
Within 37 days, Montaño defeated Lauren Murphy, Montana De La Rosa, Barb Honchak and Roxanne Modaferri to win the competition and claim the title. She hit Modaferri while struggling with a broken sesame bone in her left foot.
The UFC was keen to level with the new champion the UFC paid for Valentina Shevchenko, a longtime bantamweight contender who unanimously defeated Albuquerque’s Holly Holm in 2016.
The UFC felt they had waited long enough and planned Montaño-Shevchenko for September 8, 2018 in Dallas. Montaño feared she would not be ready and instead asked for a fight in October. No, said the UFC, you will fight in September. The result? That terrible weight loss, an ambulance ride to a Dallas hospital and the removal of her title.
Dyksterhouse doesn’t believe the UFC ever really considered Montaño to be a legitimate champion, despite winning the belt through a process that the UFC stages themselves developed and approved. Shevchenko was rather considered the champion on hold.
Montaño, he said, “has been an outsider all her life. If you can imagine the psyche of a kid coming off the reservation, walking in as an underdog and winning this show, that’s a big deal.
“I think (her subsequent treatment) indicates what I was talking about, that she is being treated unfairly and exploited, and some real red flags.”
The problem of weight loss is of course bigger than with Montaño, even bigger than with the UFC. The weight gradients in MMA – 10 pounds from straw weight to lightweight, 15 pounds from lightweight to middleweight, then 20 pounds from middleweight to light heavyweight – practically guarantees that there will be problems.
To be at their best, a fighter would much rather be a large flyweight than a small bantamweight and so on. Therefore, extreme dehydration, nutritional deficiencies, going to the sauna, rubber suits, etc. lead to weighing.
“It’s literally a ticking time bomb,” said Dyksterhouse. “It’s a very archaic process.”
Make no mistake; Dyksterhouse is a mad MMA fan. His previous work, “The Proving Grounds,” focused on Albuquerque’s Jackson-Wink MMA and traced the origins of MMA here on its way to the city’s status as a hotbed of sport.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “We (he and his production team) are still fans of the UFC and all of these fighters. But we saw them fight, didn’t we? That is the goal. By making it safer and putting in more regulations and sanctions related to weight loss and the like, the product will be better. “
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