Write stuff: Author wins amateur fight

Some mixed martial artists step into the ring hoping to gain the fortune and fame that come with reaching stardom in the sport.

Others see it as a way to stoke the competitive fire that still burns inside, or simply to prove something to themselves.

Matthew Polly did it just for the story.

The best-selling author of the 2007 book "American Shaolin" earned a victory in an amateur fight on the Tuff-N-Uff card at the Orleans on Saturday night when his opponent could not continue after the second round.

The bout was the culmination of six months of training, mostly at Xtreme Couture gym in Las Vegas. Polly plans to pen his second book, tentatively titled "Full Contact Writer," about the experience.

After his first book, which documented the two years he spent studying kung fu and Chinese culture at the Shaolin Temple in China, Polly was looking for a new challenge for his sophomore effort.

"I was talking to my editor about various projects. I was thinking of something easier, like I could go investigate gardening or something, and he was like 'No, no.' I said, 'How about monasteries,' and he said 'No,' " Polly recounted. "I said, 'Well, this UFC thing seems huge with young guys and frat boys who don't know anything about martial arts,' and he's like, 'That's it.' I was like, 'Do I have to get in the ring?' "

Polly knew the answer that was coming.

He did some training in New York, where he lives, but it wasn't enough.

"(I thought) if I want to fight, I really need to change my entire life. I need to go to one gym, somewhere else, and only live there and only do this," he said. "I had just gotten married, and I told my wife a month (later) that I needed to go to Las Vegas and train at Xtreme Couture."

He planned on training there for eight weeks, but one of his trainers told him he still wasn't ready. So he extended his stay and spent three hours per day training and the rest of his time watching "bad TV" and sleeping "a lot" in preparation for the fight.

"They basically took me from a kind of pudgy, 38-year-old man, middle of the hill, to kind of beat me into enough shape to win one here," Polly said.

To be fair, his opponent had no experience either. David Cexton is a 24-year old based at Nellis Air Force Base and has no established camp behind him.

Still, one of Polly's trainers said the author stuck to the script.

"He did a good job. He went out and followed the game plan," said Shawn Tompkins, a trainer at Xtreme Couture. "He was consistent in the stuff he learned. At this level, it's just about getting in there and manning up."

That doesn't mean Polly, a Princeton alum and Rhodes scholar who has also worked for several magazines and Web sites, will be taking any more fights.

"This is as far as I'm going," he said. "The fighting life's a tough life. I don't know how these guys do it. And I thought journalism was hard."

• WEC CARD POSTPONED--World Extreme Cagefighting announced Monday the postponement of its scheduled Sept. 2 card in Youngstown, Ohio.

Ben Henderson, slated to fight Donald Cerrone for the interim lightweight title in the main event, suffered an injury in training and will be unable to compete. The event will be rescheduled for Oct. 10, possibly in a different location.

Contact reporter Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5509.