While UFC featherweight Eddie Yagin (16-5-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) recently cashed a "Fight of the Night" bonus check for $65,000, the 33-year-old Hawaiian has seen his share of hard times.
Shot in the hip at age 17, incarcerated at age 19 and growing up idolizing Tony Montana, Yagin had plenty of reasons to be down on himself. But none was more painful than what he experienced before he was even old enough to drive.
"When I was 15, I had a son, and he passed away from SIDS," Yagin told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). "I was so young in my life, and I had nobody there except for me and my girlfriend."
Today, Yagin sports a tattoo on his back bearing the initials of his departed child, Tristen Cortez. It's not something he often discusses, but it's a memory never far from his mind. At the time, it seemed like the end of his world and just one more example of why things were never going to go Yagin's way. With no one around to help steer him in the right direction, Yagin was clearly on the fast track to rock bottom.
"I was born in Hawaii, and when I was young, my parents moved out to Oxnard, Calif.," Yagin said. "From there, they moved us to Washington for a couple of years and then back to Hawaii when I was in seventh grade. When we moved back to Hawaii, my accent wasn't intact, so I spoke a lot different than the usual Hawaiians. I got hated on big-time.
"Every single day in high school, I got in a fight. I was just the type of kid that if anybody talked [expletive] to me, I didn't back down at all. So I got into a lot of scraps."
Yagin's affinity for violence and detest for authority continued to develop as he grew. The pain of his loss always close to the heart, Yagin began to fall into a criminal pattern, selling narcotics and eventually finding himself locked away in a Hawaiian jail.
It was there Yagin finally began to see the light.
"It was my dream to be like Tony Montana and live and die like him," Yagin said. "When I got locked up, it made me realize a lot of things. In the middle of my time, I was in the hole, and at one point they locked us down and raided our cells and took everything from us. They left us with only one book, and that was the Bible. So I started reading the Bible. That was the most I ever read in my life.
"When I started reading the Bible, I started getting into it to the point where I started understanding it and learning the message, and I even started doing little sermons in the hole."
Just 19 years old and locked away, Yagin began to see the mistakes he had made. He began to consider a different path for himself when an impromptu holiday prayer session ultimately changed his life forever.
"I remember on Fourth of July that year, you could hear outside the walls, and there were little kids playing," Yagin said. "It was real faint, but you could hear it because it was so quiet in there. You could hear kids playing with fireworks and cheering and stuff like that. Then you heard all these guys sniffling, holding back tears.
"They let us out for our one hour of recreation that we got each day, and I went up to the guards and asked, 'Is it OK if I get all these guys to hold hands and pray individually?' They looked at me, and they looked at each other, and they started cracking up. They were laughing at me so hard, and I was like, 'OK.' I wanted to prove them wrong. I wanted to prove that just because these guys are criminals doesn't mean they don't have hearts. They're all human."
And so Yagin went about the improbable goal of arranging a prison-yard prayer circle. His results were astounding.
"I got every single one of those guys – murderers, rapists, thieves, whatever they were – to hold hands and pray individually," Yagin recalled. "There was more than 50 guys out there. Some of these guys were three times the size of me. They had teardrops tattooed on their eyes and tattoos all over their face and neck. They were just crazy-looking guys, and they were praying individually, praying for their moms and their family."
Yagin had been in his share of scraps, but inspired by his Bible readings, he determined he should utilize his gifts for fighting as a blessing rather than to find trouble.
"I thought about it and said, 'Why am I fighting and getting in trouble for it? Maybe I can fight and get paid for it. God gave me some type of gift because there's no way any other guy would have done what I did to these guys.'" Yagin remembered. "That's when I starting applying myself. When I was locked up, I was actually about 205 pounds. When I got out, I was 155 pounds.
"I was like, 'I'm going to fight and save my money and buy a house and live the American dream.' When I got out, I didn't touch any kind of drug. I didn't even say a cuss word. I got into the Bible, and I joined a gym. I told myself I wanted to fight, and I wanted to see how well I would do. I had to see what God gave me. If he gave me a gift, then I knew I could go far. I wanted to see how well I would do."
Yagin turned pro shortly after his release from jail, and he opened his career at 8-0. He then struggled through a four-fight winless stretch as he tried to balance a career as a carpenter with the rigors of training. However, he was completely unfulfilled and returned to fighting full-time, eventually earning his way to the UFC. After a false start against Junior Assuncao in September 2011, Yagin earned an April win over longtime veteran Mark Hominick and secured the hefty bonus check during a bloody, back-and-forth affair.
With that first octagon win under his belt, Yagin now has championship visions in his head. And while his faith remains strong, "The Filipino Phenom" believes he's now fighting for all the right reasons.
"When you're doing it on the streets and you're breaking the law – even if you're defending someone or something or yourself and even though it could be the right thing to do – it's not the same as when you're a professional and you're doing it for a living and it's your livelihood," Yagin said. "You train, and you fight another professional, and you're putting on a show for other people that enjoy watching it. There's nothing wrong with that. You're just showing people what you're talents are. That's the way I look at it."
Yagin believes his dark days are now a thing of the past, and at 8-2 in his past 10 appearances, he feels primed for a breakout win against Dennis Siver at December's UFC on FOX 5 event. Now blessed with three healthy children and living in training in Southern California, Yagin knows what it means to be down, but he also knows what it takes to get back up.
"Tristen was my inspiration growing up," Yagin said. "He passed away, and it was one of the reasons I had a hard childhood. But I finally realized that if you feel like you don't have anything, and you feel like you're in the gutter, it doesn't mean that life is over. It just means that you have a lot more to fight for."
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Guy just got mad respect from me. My son passed away 3 years ago so I know what he has gone through. WAR Yagin!
Yoshihiro Akiyama Gilbert Aldana José Aldo John Alessio Houston Alexander
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