Strikeforce’s Tim Kennedy Fights For More Than Just His Record

Tim Kennedy: Hungry Like the Wolf

Some people think that there’s danger in the octagon—cuts that ooze blood, torn ligaments or blows that can render a man unconscious. But after talking to rising middleweight contender Tim Kennedy (11-2), set to face Trevor Prangley at Strikeforce LA on June 16 (televised on Showtime), one realizes that whatever Kennedy experienced in Afghanistan and Iraq as a special forces Green Beret dwarfs any trauma sustained in the cage.

Back in 1994, just one year removed from the debut of the UFC’s first show, Kennedy began his formal MMA training with John Hackleman’s famed gym, The Pit. He describes the time spent training there as both ‘rough’ and ‘awesome,’ perhaps indicative of both the intensity and enjoyment he gets from the sport.

“We were doing sprints up the dunes in Pismo Beach at Arroyo Grande to going to John Hackleman’s house where the cage is—the Pit—to do some hard sparring, then going to SLO kickboxing to do our wrestling, Chuck Liddell is—and was—amazing. There’s a ton of guys there, Glover Teixeira, Scott Lighty, who are super-good, too.”

The next logical step were ‘amateur’ bouts, some fought in California under Pancrase rules (open palm); others fought at an Indian casino in Temecula with bare-knuckles, elbows and knees on the ground; and bare-knuckle fights south of the border in Mexico. The rules were never the same, but Kennedy kept improving until his amateur record stood at 30-1. He turned professional in 2001, and has wins over Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller and Nick ‘The Goat’ Thompson.

After earning a BA in Criminal Justice in 2002, Kennedy pursued grad school for psychology but chose to enlist in the US Army in 2004. With the constant danger to the US of terrorist attacks, Kennedy knows without a shadow of a doubt that American forces stationed abroad are helping to keep the country safe.

“Having been to Afghanistan and Iraq, and every country around those, seeing firsthand the good that we do there and the bad people we stop that are there actually gives me a lot of confidence that we’re doing the right thing.”

There’s a high degree of difficulty due to the fact that this is an unconventional war. Defeating sovereign nations in Germany and Japan gave a conclusive ending to World War II for the Allied powers—but how is the situation different?

“I think you’re fighting an idea and not any organized group. That idea is a very dangerous, evil one—fanatic jihadists—and until you enlighten the people over who we are and what we stand for, I think we’re just going to keep fighting.”

While stationed at a Forward Operating Base (FOB) in an undisclosed country in, Kennedy penned a three-part series ‘Letters from a Foreign Land’ for FiveOuncesofPain. Detailing his attempts at exterminating local pests and improvised plyometric routines, the Special Forces sniper revealed new details about the conditions he experienced while at war.

“An FOB is very close to enemy lines. And when you’re there—it’s crazy. You’re fighting all the time—every time you leave the base, you’re in a gunfight. Every time you get in the truck to go on a mission, just leaving, you’re going to get attacked. Coming back—you’re going to have to fight your way back to the base. It’s a pretty treacherous place to be stationed.”

Describing Advanced Operating Bases (AOB) as larger facilities with more support, Kennedy says that time spent here with the comfort of regular meals makes for contrasting situations.

“It’s also relative to when you’re at an FOB, you’re in gunfights, it’s really intense, you don’t have any food, you’re using transmissions to workout, you’re doing box jumps on these so you can get a leg workout—and then you go to an AOB and the pace is a lot more normal.”

Warfare can maul body parts and take lives—but there are additional psychological hazards in the form of post-traumatic stress that can remain with a soldier long after he or she leaves the battlefield.

“People that are more susceptible to it are guys who aren’t in combat units or specialized units, and don’t have coping mechanisms that are already in place to deal with those kinds of stresses. When you get to elite Special Forces units, the guys I was around were pretty emotionally solid guys that could deal with stuff like that and help buddies. The real glue that holds everyone together is to your left and to your right.”

Whether due to luck or skill, Kennedy has managed to avoid any serious problems, but going from combat to civilian life can shadow his mind at times:

“I’ve never had real bad serious post-traumatic stress. There have been times when I’ve come back, and it’s taken a little time to adjust—you know, you’re at Best Buy and something sets you off like a smell, or a vehicle that sounds a certain way or people that listen to certain music or the way a group of people are dressed—you’re like ‘What is going on here?’ and then you say, ‘Wait a sec—I am in North Carolina and these guys are not going to blow me up.’ So sometimes it takes a bit of time to adjust when you’re cutting lettuce in the kitchen and two weeks ago you were sitting on the side of the helicopter with the SR-25 in your lap, taking shots at guys shooting RPG’s at you, sometimes it just takes a little time for the mind to adjust. After a little bit, the dreams go away, you start sleeping again and everything is normal.”

Now a full-time fighter, the possible departure of Strikeforce’s middleweight champion Jake Shields means that should Kennedy beat Prangley, there’s a new opening at the top for him to apply for.

“The 185 weight class with Strikeforce is pretty stacked. I can’t say that if I win this fight, I’m the #1 contender. I think if I win this fight, then I’m in a pretty good position to fight for the contendership.”

There are a number of possibilities ahead for Kennedy, who seems to have done and experienced enough for several lifetimes over. He still needs to press forward—there’s another adventure ahead for him to enjoy on June 16, in the cage.