He Means Business
An accountant by day, Sean Wiggins practices ultimate fighting in his spare time
If the technique is perfect, the triangle chokehold can cause an ischemic noxious event within 10 seconds. The loss of consciousness is only temporary; however, the move reduces even the strongest of fighters to a crumpled heap on the floor.
Unlike an ordinary chokehold, which suffocates by closing the airway, the triangle eliminates the flow of blood to the brain by applying pressure to the veins on both sides of the neck.
“I used this move to win my first fight by making my opponent tap out at 47 seconds in the first round,” Sean Wiggins says as he spars with his training partner.
Sean demonstrates the move by locking his legs around his opponent’s neck and pulling one arm up through the chokehold. He clamps it together by locking his ankle in the back of his knee on the opposite leg. This creates a vise which Sean uses to crush the neck between his leg and the shoulder of his adversary. Match over.
Sean is 6 feet tall and weighs in at 170 lbs. His ruffled, dirty blonde hair frames a face more suited to a student government treasurer or a professional account executive rather than a lethal fighting machine. In fact, he holds both titles, but above all, he is an Ultimate Fighter.
Ultimate Fighting is a sport which incorporates a wide variety of different fighting styles into one ring, which is why it’s also known > as mixed martial arts combat. Opponents square off in a metal cage for three rounds of an intense battle in which virtually any type of blow is allowed. Elbows and knees to the head are brutal, yet legal techniques in mixed martial arts fights.
“It’s the ultimate form of competition,” Sean says. “There is no one you can rely on but yourself. It’s up to your will and determination to win the fight. I love the primal aspect.”
The typical images conjured by the public at the mention of “ultimate fighting” are of muscular, uneducated brutes with no talent other than an innate ability to inflict bodily harm. Sean faces those stereotypes every day of his life as he moves effortlessly between different roles.
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As an account executive at Premier Productions, a marketing company in Gainesville, Sean works on accounts worth thousands of dollars. He conducts daily meetings with clients at his office and in the field. Long-sleeve, button-down dress shirts in a variety of vibrant colors are his staple, but the almost-healed square-inch of yellowish bruise beneath his left eye is not.
“I don’t have cuts or bruises on my face too often, but it goes with the territory,” Sean says. “Sometimes I tell my clients I do ultimate fighting, but that’s usually followed by an awkward silence. So I usually just tell them I do martial arts training, which is pretty close to the truth.”
In fact, many ultimate fighters have a background in martial arts training. Sean trains in Brazilian jujitsu, specializing in grappling techniques and submission holds. He trains with the F2 Submission Fight Team, which has about 12-15 regular members.
To perfect his craft, Sean has been training daily at Gainesville’s Unified Training Center since he was 10 years old. His parents saved the establishment from bankruptcy more than five years ago, and ever since then, it has become a popular destination for various types of martial arts classes.
Sean competed in two professional fights thus far, attaining a record of two wins with zero losses. Sean landed the best punch of his life during his second fight.
“You know it the second you hit someone really good,” Sean says. “It’s like your fist and his face are like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that fit together perfectly. It was a perfect punch.”
Jason Dolder, an F2 instructor, knows a thing or two about “perfect punches.” He has been competing as an ultimate fighter for 10 years and speaks with the confidence of someone who can handle any situation.
“Every once in a while we get some really big guys coming in here who think they’re the shit,” Jason says. “I love it when they come in because I love kicking their asses. They usually don’t come back for a second time.”
Jason, like Sean, is a professional at a sales firm in Gainesville, although, he has a different method of explaining his “hobby.”
“I just lie,” Jason says. “Usually, I’ll just tell my clients I got hit with a golf ball or something. They wouldn’t understand.”
Jason, who is working toward his MBA, trains with the F2 fight team at the UTC with a number of University of Florida graduate students.
The UTC is an expansive space with hardwood floors and thin red pillars evenly spaced around the room to support the ceiling. One corner of the mirrored room has a white mat used to provide cushioning for the fight team during training.
“There’s no need to get hurt too bad when you’re practicing,” Sean says. “We save that for the fights.”
The class begins with 10 fighters paired off on the mat. They lock together in a slow-moving dance as they search for a weakness in their opponent. Sean and Jason are paired. They nonchalantly talk about a funny story involving a girl Jason was dating while they grapple for positions on the mat. Their muscles tense and their eyes focus, but their voices indicate nothing more than a casual conversation between two friends over a beer.
Their arms and legs are a twisted mass as they wiggle in and out of dangerous maneuvers. Suddenly, Jason finds a weakness in Sean’s technique and secures his head and right arm in a vicious hold from which Sean quickly taps out.
“We call it kinetic chess,” Sean says. “Most people don’t understand how much technique is involved in this type of fighting. It’s very cerebral.”
Sean doesn’t know where ultimate fighting will lead, but it is part of who he is deep down inside. It’s something that makes him different.
“It gives me such a supreme confidence in all other aspects of my life, and I’ll take it wherever it leads me,” he says.