The plan was to head to Seattle, walk the docks and catch on with a crab-fishing vessel. Sometimes things don’t go according to plan.

By the time Brad Imes and his brother arrived in Seattle, it was the end of the crabbing season. There were no jobs to be found. So Imes left his name in case there were future opportunities and headed back to Sacramento to begin training for what he figured would be his next job: professional fighter.

“My buddy had fought in Japan, and I was taking to him about it, and he said I should get into fighting,” Imes told MMAjunkie. “I said, ‘That’s crazy,’ and he said, ‘No man, the Japanese love big white guys, so you’ll make a lot of money.’ He was 0-3, so he wasn’t a real accomplished fighter, but he had some good paydays over in Japan, so I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll give it a shot.’”

Imes, a former college football player at Mizzou, immediately took to MMA, training out of a high school gym with Sacramento BJJ. The 6-7, 265-pound Imes then found a home in the WEC, earning three wins in three fights.

‘TUF,’ then troubled times

After that third win, Scott Adams, one of the founders of the WEC, suggested Imes try out for the second season of “The Ultimate Fighter.” Imes was incredulous.

“I told him, ‘You have to be out of your mind. I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing,’” Imes said. “But he said, ‘It doesn’t matter. You’re a huge guy, you’re a great marketing tool, and they’re going to pick you. Just do it and as soon as you get on the show talk about how you don’t have any experience.’”

Despite his initial reluctance, Imes took Adams’ advice and auditioned for the reality show. Six weeks later he was offered a spot on “TUF 2.” He also got the call to work on one of those crabbing boats.

Imes, opting to take the fighting route, had great success on “TUF,” winning two fights. Those victories earned him a spot in the heavyweight-tournament final, where he lost to eventual UFC light heavyweight champion Rashad Evans.

Imes (13-7) fought a total of three times with the UFC, losing each of those bouts. He found success outside the UFC, going 8-0 on smaller cards between 2006 and 2007, which included back-to-back wins via rare gogoplata.

But things turned bad for Imes early in 2008, and the way he remembers it, they went bad in a hurry.

“It started in January 2008,” he said. “I lost to Anthony Ruiz in a fight that he didn’t do anything to me, but I was unmotivated to even be there. I just figured I could go out there and do what I do and just walk through him and be done.”

Even though he won his next fight, a decision over James Jack, Imes remained unmotivated. Worse than that, his once iron chin was failing, and as a result, he had to adjust his aggressive style when he faced Roy Nelson on an IFL card.

The change didn’t help the 31-year-old Imes. Nelson stopped him in the first round.

After that defeat, the first knockout loss of Imes’ career, he knew that his career was over, but like many fighters, he hung on for a few more paydays. Imes lost two of those fights by knockout – one in 28 seconds, the other in 36 seconds.

Retirement decision

The damage Imes took during his career, both in MMA and football, left him struggling with his memory. He had resorted to carrying lists with him so he could remember things he needed to do. It was at that point, his now his wife, Michele, urged him to see a doctor.

“They told me that I had to stop fighting, that if I continued it was going to kill me or that I was going to be a vegetable,” Imes said.

Those words didn’t come as much of a surprise. Imes knew the end was coming even before visiting the doctor, and looking toward the future, he had applied to be a firefighter. His first day on the Jefferson City, Mo., force was March 2, 2009. His last fight came on Sept. 12, 2009.

These days, Imes acknowledges that shortly after he left fighting, he was concerned about the possible longterm damage he may have suffered as a fighter. Over time, those concerns have lessened.

“I’ve done a lot of research and talked to doctors, and I’ve started taking natural supplements and things that reduce swelling on the brain and that improve concentration, and it really has made an enormous difference,” he said.

These days Imes works as a project manager, a job he knows he wouldn’t have been able to perform had he took the position immediately after leaving MMA.

“I have to concentrate on organization and keep track of different things on different jobs, and when I first got out of fighting, there was no way that I could have done this job,” Imes said. “It would have been like herding cats.”

It’s been more than six years since Imes left the fight game, but he still occasionally thinks about his career as a fighter, and when he does, it’s with the mindset of a highly competitive individual.

“All I remember are the losses, which is unfortunate,” he said. “I don’t really remember the fights I won; I only think about the fights I lost. That’s probably natural.”

When he thinks back on things other than the fights, his memories are brighter. That’s when he recalls the opportunities that fighting provided him, like appearing in the 2007 movie “Missionary Man” and traveling the world.

“It was a great time,” he said. “I had my highs and my lows, but I wouldn’t change it.”

Many athletes look back at their professional careers as the highest point of their lives and believe they are defined by that alone. That’s not a world Imes lives in.

“For all the fun and all the wild and crazy things that I did, being a husband and a father? Those are my real accomplishments,” he said.

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