UFC's Chris Leben admits to getting drunk on fight week
Fans of MMA have witnessed a lot of nutty behavior from retired UFC middleweight star Chris Leben over the years, ranging from urinating on others' bed to excessive candy-eating post weighing in but we didn't know just how close to competition some of Leben's recklessness got until now. During a recent pod cast interview (below), Leben revealed that, just days before his 2011 TKO loss to Brian Stann, he got black-out drunk...and then arrested.
“Right before I fought Brian Stann I actually went out," Leben's sad tale began.
"My brother worked in Las Vegas in a place that sold those frozen drinks, you know? Anyways, I got blackout drunk the day before weigh ins. I went back into the Hard Rock and for some reason something upset me, so I was in the bathroom stall the back bathroom stall and I kicked my way all the way to the exit by kicking the stall walls down. They were like marble stall walls, so I just decided to kick all the stall walls down to the exit, and big surprise I got arrested.
"So the security guard for Hard Rock is handcuffing me and everything else and the guys I was with where like from Ireland, and apparently they thought I was Irish too because I was just mocking their accent, fucking with them, but I think they literally thought I was Irish, and so I ended up bribing my way out. So before his reinforcements came I gave him $500 bucks, he let me run up to my room. Ended up waking up.
"My phone's ringing off like crazy and wake up in a pile of puke and I’m late for my photo shoot for the UFC. It was a nightmare 'cause I thought I was only 8 in the morning, but somehow I set the alarm wrong on the wall, and that’s the time I wanted to wake up. I thought it was 8 in the morning, but it was actually noon. And that was maybe two, maybe three days before I had to step in and have a war with Brian Stann.”
Yikes. Well, Leben didn't always take care of himself as well as he should have, throughout his career, but no one can say he didn't throw down come fight night. Now, as a head MMA coach in San Diego, hopefully Leben has lightened up and is leading his students down a healthier path than he took.
He's got plenty of knowledge and experience to pass down. Check out the full interview with Leben below, where he talks about teaching others to learn from his mistakes, and how retirement is going.
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