Escovedo beats death, finds life in UFC

The Apaches believe everything in nature has a special power, that dancers can absorb sickness and blow it away, that every major event in a person's life should be marked by a ceremony or ritual with all tribal members present, that they are one with the mountains and trees and rocks and wind.

They are a people built on the concept of a Great Spirit, who was said to have been sent to teach the Apaches how to live a good life.

Cole Escovedo has such faith today.

He didn't always.

UFC 130 is Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden, and included on the undercard is a former World Extreme Cagefighting featherweight champion whose story is straight from the laptop of a Hollywood screenwriter.

It lacks nothing. Drama. Sadness. Joy. Adversity. Tragedy. Triumph. No emotion has been left unturned.

"You pick a side of the spectrum and I have lived on both ends," said Escovedo, 29. "I used to believe there was something -- I never called it God -- but now I am even more convinced there is a path for everyone. There are doors presented to you, opportunities. You just have to be wise enough to take advantage of them."

His latest chance comes in an Ultimate Fighting Championship debut against Renan Barao in the bantamweight division, and if you think the fact that his opponent has won 25 straight professional fights concerns Escovedo, you haven't been to hell and back. He has.

When the book is written and the made-for-TV movie cast, I am guessing we should expect something like this for a title: "When Pimples Turn Deadly."

He thought it might be such a blemish back in 2006, or a spider bite, or an ingrown hair. He never imagined a small sore on his left forearm could carry such weight so as to turn his life upside down and lead him to the doorstep of death.

That it would force him to use a walker at age 25, to develop a massive blockage on his spinal cord, to be at the mercy of catheters and large amounts of pain pills for months on end, to undergo surgery that could have left him paralyzed.

Yeah. It wasn't a pimple.

Escovedo had a staph infection that went misdiagnosed and mistreated time and again, one that was 24 hours from reaching his brain and killing him. He didn't fight for almost three years. Depression set in. He turned to drink.

He drank a lot. He became more depressed. The dark hole grew to depths he almost couldn't recover, this for a kid who had endured heart surgery at age 17.

They are sagas Escovedo has faced without his father, convicted when Cole was 12 of rape, kidnapping and other charges. Larry Escovedo, a full-blooded Apache, was sentenced to 68 years in a California prison. His son expects him to die there.

"It's just the reality of things," he said.

Cole's mother, Laura, is the one who saved him, who demanded he put down the bottle and ditch the walker, that he be healthy again and work again and fight again.

He is 6-2 since returning to mixed martial arts after the staph infection nightmare, but never has there been the kind of opportunity Saturday presents, the sort of door all fighters dream of opening.

Barao has fought all but three of 26 fights in his native Brazil and was supposed to encounter Demetrious Johnson on Saturday, but an injury elsewhere moved Johnson up the card and the guy whose story has run the garment of emotions stepped in.

"If my Mom hadn't made me pull my head out of my ass when she did, I wouldn't be here," Escovedo said. "I would have drunk myself into that hole and probably never come out. I did everything you can do wrong when it comes to being a professional athlete. I had no education to fall back on. I had no real life skills to fall back on.

"I mean, I'm good at punching people in the face. There's really only so many market skills where you can assess that and make money while not getting arrested.

"My life has been one screwed up cliche after the next. I actually expected the world to end Saturday because I had finally made the UFC and it would have made perfect sense (for it) to happen a week before the fight. If we wrote the book about my life, it would probably be called, 'One in a Million.'"

It's a better title than the pimple one.

It's a better story than most.

One of fighting and suffering and, mostly, faith.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 3 to 5 p.m. Monday and Thursday on "Monsters of the Midday," Fox Sports Radio 920 AM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.