There is a natural energy about Anthony Birchak that flows perpetually.
The up-and-coming UFC bantamweight's high-beam smile is tough to miss and takes on a bonus-round form when he's talking about his suit game or what he does for a living inside the cage. The Arizona native is a husband, father and fighter all in one turn as competition and combat sports have become a way of life around the Birchak house. His wife Mercedes is also a fighter and jiu-jitsu practitioner who not only keeps him in line but also is the fashion guru behind the sharp cuts he's been known to wear.
In a sport where it's common for a fighter to take credit for all things in his orbit, Birchak has been married long enough to know there are other, more primal rules at work, as the marital sphere always trumps whatever it is faced with. He still gets his jabs in, though, and the smile he flashes immediately after the joke comes out of his mouth serves as a white flag for the moment. Movement is key in all things and not just when the cage door closes it seems.
Sitting in the backdrop of the MGM Grand as the clinking sounds and spattering lights catch his eye from time to time, it's clear that Birchak is a happy individual. Aside from a healthy and vibrant family, he also has a career he loves, and coming off his first UFC win back in June, things appear to be shaping up for him on the biggest stage of MMA.
That's a nice change of pace for the 29-year-old bantamweight because the majority of his first year under the promotional banner was a series of setbacks and misfortunes—some of absurd proportions.
Granted, having an opponent fall out 24 hours before a fight is an uncommon occurrence, but it's not a freakish act of nature. Yet when the promotion pulls that opponent to jump into a title fight and the other fighter is cast as the odd man out and what was supposed to be a promotional debut turns to wreckage in a storm of chaos and weight-cutting mishaps, maintaining positivity can be a difficult thing to manage. And Birchak's cheery disposition certainly struggled in that moment.
"Every fighter wants to get that call from the UFC, but the days of the celebrated signing and full training camp leading up to your long-awaited UFC debut are over," Birchak told Bleacher Report. "I was still fighting with MFC about my contract when I got the call, and by the time Sean Shelby and the UFC worked it all out, I had about 15 days to prepare for Joe Soto. Nevertheless I worked hard with the time I had to prepare and came to UFC 177 looking to make a statement.
"I show up and find out Renan Barao got sick coming out of the sauna or hot tub and was taken to the hospital. The UFC ended up taking Joe Soto out of our fight and up to face T.J. Dillashaw for the bantamweight title. That left me without a fight. They tried to salvage it and get Scott Jorgensen to jump in, but that didn't happen, and I was bumped off the card entirely. There was so much turmoil on that card, and being excited to finally compete in the UFC only to have it taken away 24 hours out from my debut crushed me."
While Birchak's iron-clad smile took some damage that night in Sacramento, California, things would slide even further south when he returned to Tucson, Arizona, to find his home had been ransacked and robbed.
The intruders had cleaned out every room of the house taking valuable and sentimental items alike. The situation and what happened, or didn't happen, at UFC 177 left Birchak in a place where he was standing in his daughter's room numb from the shock that comes in the reality of such a moment, wondering where it had all gone so far off course.
"I was still spinning from what went down at UFC 177, and to make matters worse, once Mercedes and I got home we found out our house was robbed. We were hauling our luggage up the walkway and I see this little piece of metal on the ground. I pick it up and realize it's my deadbolt from my door that had been kicked off the hinges," he said.
"My house had been completely cleaned out. They took my daughters' Barbie dolls and everything electronic in the place. They even went as far as to take Top Ramen out of the pantry and stole the four beers I had in the refrigerator. Saying that was insult to injury would be an understatement. Having my fight taken away then having my family's home violated put me in the lowest place I'd been in a very long time."
As Birchak and his wife went about reporting the crime and trying to assess the damage the situation had caused, he continued to look for a silver lining hidden somewhere in the mayhem. He'd always been a scrappy guy with the ability to bounce back in quick fashion, but every new discovery of something else taken served as another hit absorbed. When he lay down to go to bed that night, he measured the distance traveled from the place he imagined he'd be and the reality he came home to, and how things had twisted and turned to reach such a point left him baffled.
Just about to close his eyes and fearing the uncertainty of not knowing how to regain his positive outlook, Birchak reached to click on his bedside fan, and that's when some much-needed levity finally found its way into the situation at hand.
"I knew I had to pull the bootstraps up, but I wasn't quite sure how to do that," Birchak recalled. "But that night when I was going to bed I went to turn on the little fan I have next to my bed and it was gone. They stole my damn fan. They stole this little dumb fan I had for when I sleep, and at that point it became a joke to me. I mean how diabolical has the world become? To take a man's fan in Arizona is just some next-level depravity. I just laughed at that point. Taking the fan was the equivalent of breaking in and taking all the left shoes in the house.
"That was also the moment I realized everything they took from me was material. It had a price tag. The things that were invaluable to me were either with me in Sacramento or safe in the care of relatives. Everything else I was able to laugh off at the end of the day, and I got back into the gym and ready to get back at it."
Although Birchak dove back into his training and quest to improve as a mixed martial artist, there were still emotional repairs that needed to be done following the break-in. An extended period of time stretched out where he needed to take extra care and caution to make his young children feel safe in their home once again, and his frustration from having to ease their little minds was funneled into physical output inside the gym.
Those elements only served to push him further out of balance, and a first-round submission loss against Ian Entwistle in his official Octagon debut at UFC on Fox 13 amplified things considerably. With Birchak being born and raised in Arizona, competing in front of a lively Phoenix crowd for the UFC was the stuff of dreams, but everything leading up to that fight and the effects on his mind and performance were just too much to overcome.
It was in the aftermath of that loss when he knew things had to turn around in a big way, and he had the biggest gut-check moment of his career.
He was forced to come to grips with the fact things beyond his control were going to happen and there was nothing he could do about them. That said, the elements and effort that go into his career could be directly controlled, and Birchak vowed to never allow outside forces to impact his livelihood again.
As things would shake out, the UFC rebooked the fight with Soto, and at Fight Night 68 on June 6, Birchak was finally allowed to step in for what he saw as a fresh start to his UFC run. In his mind this was the way things were supposed to start, and he was determined to make the impression he initially set about making.
"I've gone back and examined that fight from a few angles," Birchak said. "I looked at it from the perspective of being an early pro and trying to make a name, to one who had already sort of established himself outside of the UFC to finally having to re-establish myself for an entirely new fanbase. Had I beat Joe Soto back in the days when I was first getting started, it would have been the greatest thing I ever accomplished. Outside of winning a title in a different organization, this is the biggest feather in my cap because Joe is a former Bellator and Tachi Palace champion. He's been around forever and has faced the who's who in the lighter weight classes.
"He's never been an easy fight for anyone, but what I did to him made it look easy. That's not a knock or disrespect to Joe, but that performance shows where I'm at physically and mentally. I'm the most balanced I've ever been because I have my family who loves me. I have my friends and teammates who support me. The belief I have in myself is more than it's ever been, and I know I can stand inside that Octagon and go toe-to-toe with any bantamweight in the world."
While Birchak's next opponent and scheduled date has yet to be booked, the momentum he's built from knocking out Soto has him eager to keep his assault on the bantamweight ranks rolling. With just a few fights into his time on the UFC's 135-pound roster, his next dance partner would typically come from a similar tier in his weight class, but the current state of the bantamweight division is disheveled, to say the least.
A collection of top-ranked fighters and potential title contenders are all in the midst of lengthy stints on the sidelines, and this has left avenues to the top of the ladder accessible for hungry competitors determined to make moves upward. Birchak is certainly one of those fighters, and he's looking to capitalize on the circumstances at hand.
If one of the division's best is his next assignment, so be it. He simply wants to get back into the cage and throw down.
"I absolutely believe the bantamweight division is wide open right now and see myself ascending the ranks to get to the top," Birchak said. "I can sit here and I say I want to fight T.J. Dillashaw until I'm blue in the face, but when I look into the mirror as a man and ask myself if I truly deserve that fight right now, the answer is no. I haven't earned that fight yet, but there is no doubt in my mind that I will get there. I'm a competitor, and I'm going to push myself to go further each and every time out there. My will to win is one of my strongest attributes. I don't care if we are fighting, playing checkers or in a footrace. I'm going after that win with everything I have to give."
Even though landing his next fight is the most pressing variable currently on his mind, Birchak also has another cause he's been leading the charge on as of late.
The UFC's new drug-testing policy in conjunction with the USADA has promised to clean up the performance-enhancing drugs problem that has been plaguing the sport in recent years. And while Birchak is all for and supports harsher penalties and stricter testing of himself and fellow athletes, one huge point of contention he's taken with the new policy is the ban on intravenous methods of rehydrating post-weight cut.
He's certainly not alone in his stance, as reigning featherweight king and pound-for-pound great Jose Aldo also has bristled against the removal of the IV method, but the issue hits extremely close to home for Birchak in the wake of the tragedy his family suffered just a short time ago.
The scrappy bantamweight believes injury and death like the one his brother suffered can be avoided with proper care and the right approach, and he's afraid the new ban on IV rehydration will lead to something horrible happening on the premier stage in mixed martial arts.
"I want to clear the air on this IV ban business a bit because I took a lot of heat for the comments I made about it," Birchak exclaimed. "People were calling me a cheater and saying that's why I'm so passionately against the ban and what I said about using multiple bags. I've never cheated in my life, and I'll be a diehard clean athlete until my time in this sport is over. The reason I'm so passionate about this issue is because two years ago my training partner, my brother Fred Lux, got knocked out in a fight due to improper rehydration. The guy who gave him the IV bag didn't do it right, and the needle puffed up his arm, and he didn't get to take the full IV.
"Fight night came, and he looked good and took the first round. In the second round he took a punch I think he probably walks through nine out of 10 times, but that punch knocked him out and he was unconscious for five minutes. When they took him to the hospital, they found blood on the brain and cranial hemorrhaging, but he recovered. A year went by, and he started showing signs of a little different mentality and a different way of thinking. One year to the date of when he suffered that knockout, he took his own life. Afterward we looked into it and found out a pretty shocking statistic that a very high rate of suicides have suffered traumatic brain injuries within one calendar year.
"The thought of fighters not rehydrating properly and taking severe damage to the brain is terrifying," he added. "Boxing has suffered deaths, and there have been a few in MMA, but we've been extremely fortunate to not have to see that happen live in the UFC. I think this IV ban is a very ominous thing that is coming, and I hate to put such negative energy out there, but I really don't want to see any of my fellow fighters severely injured or possibly die because they didn't have enough cushioning on their brains."
And while Birchak has strong criticisms to offer in regard to the change in policy, he also has a solution that he believes would be a simple yet effective way to cover all parties' needs and concerns.
"If you are going to take us in the back and give us a motivational fighter meeting and give us a banana, a protein bar, yogurt and some coconut water, why not have stations and have us all get properly rehydrated under USADA supervision?" he questioned. "Everyone is right there for the blood tests to be taken, so you do that then start the rehydrating process. The UFC and USADA can test to make sure no one is cheating, and the fighters can safely rehydrate to ensure they will be at their best on fight night."
Duane Finley is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. All quotes are obtained firsthand unless noted otherwise.
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