The hooded figure runs through the cold winter morning, the only sound his footfalls as he climbs a steep hill in Vestavia Hills, Ala. Dressed in a red sweatshirt, gray sweatpants and blue-and-green running shoes, the former Crimson Tide linebacker passes one mansion after the next in this well-manicured neighborhood, his breath shooting out in white puffs.



Everyone knows him here on South Cove Drive, and so even as the sun begins to rise into the blue Alabama sky, a few residents step onto their front porches to glimpse Eryk Anders, to see him train for his next MMA fight. An elderly woman in a robe and holding a coffee mug smiles at Anders as he trudges upward. A teenager flashes the thumbs up sign at the 6-foot-1, 185-pound fighter. And a middle-aged man dressed in a crimson-colored Alabama sweatshirt belts out a “Roll Tide” as Anders continues his ascent of this one-third of a mile stretch.



Finally reaching the summit, Anders jumps into the backseat of...