A

t 11 o'clock on a Thursday night in August, the thermostat inside George Sullivan's apartment is cranked to 90 degrees.

This might as well be hell.

Over the next 20 hours, Sullivan, a professional mixed martial arts fighter from Brick, must lose 13 pounds. If he fails to shed the weight -- 7 percent of his 184 pounds -- he will jeopardize a full payday for his fight two nights later in Atlantic City.

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SPECIAL REPORT

SUNDAY, NOV. 10

• Behind the bravado of mixed martial arts: A brutal world with high risk of long-term injuries

• Photo gallery: Behind the scenes at an MMA fight in Atlantic City

MONDAY, NOV. 11

• The risky practice of making the weight cut

• MMA medical issues and precautions

• How the brain is injured in MMA fights and other contact sports

• UFC chief: Boxing is 'much more dangerous' than MMA fighting

• In his words: Medical expert warns of dangers of brain injuries

TUESDAY, NOV. 12

• Makeshift gym puts N.J. on MMA map

• MMA Timeline: How the sport evolved

• Survival is top rule at underground fight club in NYC

• What makes former UFC fighter Kurt Pellegrino tick



Sullivan steps into his small, white-tiled bathroom and slathers his muscular body with Albolene makeup remover. The cleanser opens pores and makes it easier for sweat to flow. Next, he puts on a rubber sauna suit to raise his body temperature and draws a hot bath he will fill with 8 pounds of Epsom salts and 10 pints of isopropyl rubbing alcohol to draw moisture from his body.

"This smells," Sullivan says. "It makes you light-headed. You're miserable. Plus, the alcohol is burning every cut."

Sullivan strips and eases into the scalding water.

"Ahh!" he howls. "It burns!"

The intensity of the alcohol takes over the room, making it difficult to breathe. But Sullivan soaks for 20 minutes before staggering out of the tub and climbing back into his sauna suit.

He lies on the floor for another 15 minutes and has a friend cover him with towels like a mummy to seal in heat. When he gets up and peels off the suit, sweat pours out like rainwater from an overturned bucket.

Sullivan then moves to the toilet, where he slumps forward, bare-chested. He uses a silver $25 Visa gift card to scrape sweat from his arms, legs, head and torso. This allows the water to leave his body more efficiently.

"It feels like the world's pushing in on me," he says. "I literally feel like I'm being squeezed."

A little after 6:30 the next morning, following a few hours of sleep, Sullivan ambles into Bally Total Fitness in Brick. He weighs 180 pounds, nine short of the goal.

The next five hours are a test of will and sanity.

Sullivan sits in the sauna for 20- to 30-minute intervals, chewing orange bubble gum and spitting into a paper cup to rid himself of more fluids. He's again slathering Albolene and scraping sweat. It has been more than 10 hours without food and he won't even sip water now.

The only thing Sullivan has put into his body since he woke up is a half-cup of hot tea with honey.

They are less than an hour removed from the weigh-in on the eve of their Aug. 17 fights for Cage Fury Fighting Championships, a regional promotion that provides opportunities for fighters to be noticed -- much like a Triple-A baseball team.

IV bags attached to hotel closet hangers are hooked to the curtains above their heads. A friend wraps a rubber band around Sullivan's right biceps. The fighter makes a fist over and over, but he is so dehydrated it takes more than 30 minutes to plug in the IV.

"I'm going to throw up," Sullivan says at one point. "My stomach hurts."

Sullivan's IV finally catches and starts to feed life back into his body. The transformation has begun, and soon he will have added all the weight -- and then some -- that he had nearly killed himself to lose.

By 9:15, a large group heads downstairs, where Sullivan eats his first significant meal in a week: chicken parmesan, mozzarella sticks, a quesadilla, milk, soda, tea and water. He goes to sleep shortly after and wakes at 3 a.m. to eat $160 worth of banana pancakes and bacon with friends and other fighters.

When he steps into the cage for his Saturday night fight, he will weigh about 195 pounds -- 25 more than the weigh-in. But the agony was a necessity, he says.

By bulking up after the weigh-in, he can fight closer to his natural, heavier weight and perhaps gain an advantage. And by getting down to the limit he avoids a penalty, a key to Sullivan, who closely monitors his money.

Weight cutting is part of MMA's culture and widely used by fighters leading up to bouts. There are no restrictions on how much weight a fighter can lose -- or put back on -- before a fight. But if a brawler fails to hit the target for the weight class, he could be fined, suspended or have his bout canceled.

For his previous fight in May, Sullivan says he earned $3,500 to fight and $3,500 for the win, $2,900 from his cut of the tickets he sold and $5,000 in sponsorship. He says he paid 10 percent to Pellegrino and $1,000 to his boxing coach, Mikey Skowronski. He says he also gives a little to his other coaches.

If he beats Martinez, Sullivan says, the bonus for winning will be $4,000.

"He's a price tag to me," Sullivan says. "I want that money."

The entire fight card before a crowd of roughly a thousand people takes an ominous tone early Saturday night. The second fight is stopped when an elbow strike opens a crater-sized gash on a fighter's eyebrow. Then, Kennington loses on a vicious first-round technical knockout -- dropped by a big left hook and pulverized with at least three more big punches as he's dazed on the canvas.

Sullivan fights last, and he builds toward the violence by pacing a converted conference room that serves as the evening's locker room.

"No pain!" he shouts. "No fear! Violence! I'm violent! I'm ready to embrace it!"

His five coaches stand nearby, adding fuel.

"Drag him to the depths!" one of them barks.

At 9:49 p.m., the door pops open and a state official tells Sullivan it's time. He strides out, hears the opening chords to his walk-in music -- Mobb Deep's "Survival of the Fittest" -- and sprints to the cage through smoke and fluorescent lights as fans scream.

"There's a war going on outside no man is safe from."

"You can run but you can't hide forever."

The fight, scheduled for five rounds, is savage from the opening bell.

The men push forward and unleash huge punches. A monster right hand by Martinez hits Sullivan square in the jaw and staggers him. A big left dazes him again. Sullivan's eyes open wide.

His coaches lean forward near the cage, fear pounding in their chests. They've never seen Sullivan hit so hard.

"Everything went out for a split-second," Sullivan says later. "It was like a white-and-blue flash. It was like a static shock to your head. You're pretty much lost for a split-second. Like, 'What the?' And then it's like, 'Oh, I'm fighting.' "

But Sullivan swings back. He connects with a big punch that opens a cut on Martinez's eyebrow and then another that spurts blood from his face. They exchange more blows. Jabs. Uppercuts. Knees. Kicks. The blows land with wicked thuds.

Sullivan's cheeks redden.

Blood drips from Martinez's face.

Their bodies are spotted with welts and lined with scratches.

The five-minute round ends, almost mercifully for both men. After a one-minute breather, the second round is more of the same, except the bigger Sullivan starts to wear down Martinez.

More than midway through the round, Sullivan drops Martinez with a knee to the stomach and swarms. The violence and desperation are too much for Martinez, who crouches and tries to cover up and avoid the elbows, knees and punches. The referee stops the fight at 3:12 of the second round. Sullivan wins by technical knockout and throws his arms in the air.

The crowd erupts.

THE PROJECT

M

atthew Stanmyre and Andrew Mills began reporting on mixed martial arts in April. For the next six months, they visited gyms across New Jersey, witnessing a variety of training methods and sparring sessions of varying intensity. They met and interviewed several dozen fighters and watched hundreds of rounds of sparring. Stanmyre also attended six live events, ranging from local amateur shows to UFC 159 at the Prudential Center in Newark. Time spent with fighters away from the gym — at their homes and places of work — also was an important part of the reporting.

In addition, Stanmyre interviewed several brain-trauma specialists who are recognized internationally as leading experts in their field. Other medical doctors, ringside physicians, brain-trauma litigators, a lawmaker, current and former fighters, coaches, promoters, trainers and journalists were included in the reporting.

Attempts were made to interview Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White, considered by many to be the face of the sport. Those attempts were unsuccessful. On Sept. 19, prior to UFC 165 in Toronto, White told reporters during his pre-fight media session, “You can pick up the phone and call (the) UFC PR team any day and there’s never a day that I won’t get on the phone with somebody from the media.” White’s comment was cited by The Star-Ledger in another interview request five days later. The request was never granted.

The UFC ultimately made available its chief operating officer, Lawrence Epstein, for a 40-minute interview the first week in October.

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ANDREW MILLS

is a lifelong New Jersey resident. He has been a staff photographer at The Star-Ledger for two decades. His assignments have taken him across the world, and he was part of The Star-Ledger team that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for breaking news coverage. He may be reached at (973) 392-7876 or

amills@starledger.com

.

MATTHEW STANMYRE

has been a staff writer at The Star-Ledger since 2009. His primary focus is long-form sports reporting, as well as feature and enterprise stories. He has won national writing awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors for project reporting, feature writing and breaking news coverage, as well as local prizes from the New Jersey Press Association and the Virginia Press Association. He may be reached at (973) 943-3739 or

mstanmyre@starledger.com

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"He's the first guy ever who rocked me," Sullivan tells the crowd during an interview in the cage, gasping into a microphone. "He hit me hard."

In minutes, Sullivan staggers out of the cage and collapses on the platform just above the floor.

Sherry Wulkan, who is widely considered one of the most respected MMA ringside doctors in the country, performs the mandatory post-fight exam. She immediately checks Sullivan's right hand, which is bothering him. It could be broken. Wulkan and Sullivan have trouble removing the glove and pre-wrap, which is stained with blood. Once his hand is free, Wulkan looks closely.

Sullivan is laboring, but Wulkan does not appear to closely check him for head trauma or administer a concussion test. Sullivan says later Wulkan only examined his hand during their roughly five minutes together.

Later, Wulkan says she cannot talk about specific fighters and cannot discuss her post-fight exam of Sullivan. Generally speaking, however, she says she examines fighters before bouts, which helps her determine their normal mannerisms and way of speaking after fights.

Plus, "we're not watching the fight the same way you are," Wulkan says. "We're looking to see what is repeatedly being hit or impacted and that's the area we're going to focus on more predominantly in the post-fight physical."

When Wulkan finishes examining Sullivan, he will be suspended indefinitely pending orthopedic clearance of his right hand. No official notes are made about any potential head injury, according to post-fight medical suspensions distributed by the state.

Sullivan walks gingerly back to the conference room to grab his stuff and meet with fans. He signs autographs, poses for pictures and hugs friends.

Afterward, he walks through the casino on the way to his room. Slot machines clang and clamor. A friend asks how he's doing.

"I feel a little dizzy," Sullivan says.

He reaches the elevator and stops.

"What's my room number?" he shouts, confused. "What's my room number? I can't see anything right now."

He slaps the "Up" button and waits, resting his head against the wall, eyes closed. Once upstairs, he strides into his room and strips. A dog tag around his neck snags his ear, but he doesn't seem to notice.

"My head's shot right now," he says. "I'm seeing double."

He takes a long pull from a bottle of Ciroc vodka and changes into a new blue plaid shirt. The celebration is waiting for him at the MIXX nightclub downstairs.

"I'm not quite with it right now," he tells his friends. "My head hurts."

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