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http://www.wec.tv/index.cfm?fa=news.detail&gid=35934
‘Cheesesteak’ Morrison Ready for
Ex-Champ Brown
Dec-28-2009
By Frank Curreri
The five-hour train ride from Richmond to Philadelphia seems
perfectly suited to soul-searching. It affords a man time to
evaluate his present circumstances, time to ponder his future,
time to reflect on his past. And so it was for Anthony Morrison
on Christmas Eve morning as he headed home, staring out a window
as the racing, snow-packed landscape produced a hypnotizing
blur.
A year and a half earlier, the 25-year-old had fled a ghetto in
North Philadelphia, leaving behind a wife and small child. He
had few possessions to his name, but, in his mind, everything to
lose if he remained on those mean streets.
“Honestly, I would probably be dead right now, man. I swear to
it,” the pro fighter said in earnest. “The stuff I was doing …
Seven of my friends were doing it, too, and four of ‘em are
dead. I could easily have been one of them because I was with
those guys every day.”
Morrison escaped bullets, but not bad news. A few months after
relocating to Richmond to train alongside Amir Sodallah at Team
Combat, the phone calls steadily started streaming in:
Maurice got locked up.
Ronelle got shot.
The hardest-hitting message was delivered last month, when
Morrison received word that a cousin had been shot and killed
back in Philly. Another phone call, days later, deepened the
blow.
“My aunt had a massive heart attack from the stress of her son
being killed,” he said. “It was a double whammy.”
Morrison
was scheduled to fight in Atlantic City on Nov. 20, the same day
his cousin’s funeral would be held in Philadelphia. Morrison,
who relies on fighting for 100 percent of his income, did not
back out of the fight against an unbeaten Kurt Pellegrino
protégé named Jeff Lentz. On the eve of the bout, the morning of
the weigh-in, Morrison took a train from Atlantic City to
Philadelphia and attended a court hearing regarding custody of
his daughter. After that, he hopped another train back to
Atlantic City and made weight. The next morning he hopped
another train back to Philly and attended his cousin’s funeral.
Then he hopped a train back to Atlantic City and switched his
mind to fight mode.
“I could easily have been like, ‘Death in the family, I don’t
think I can fight.’ But the bout was close and I didn’t want to
disappoint anybody. Plus, I don’t think my aunt would have
wanted that. So I went out there and I fought.”
Fans who watched Morrison fight that night at the Tropicana
Resort and Casino had no sense of his predicament. All they knew
was that this sculpted fighter from Philly had just trounced
this unbeaten prospect from Jersey. Morrison showed his mental
toughness that night, and then again two weeks later when he
steamrolled former UFC fighter Alvin Robinson in 69 seconds
flat. Compiling a 15-6 record against high quality competition
has earned Morrison a cage clash with Mike Thomas Brown on Jan.
10 in Sacramento.
Before the bout had been made, Morrison kept posting the words
“I’m hungry” on his Facebook home page. He views his WEC debut
as an act of divine intervention, thinking to himself, “Ok, God
heard that you were hungry …let’s see how hungry you are.”
“Mike Brown is the ruler that I have to measure myself against,”
he continued. “This is a big test for me. He’s the No.2 fighter
in the world and I feel like he had an off night against Jose
Aldo.”
Nicknamed “Cheesesteak” for his Philly pedigree, Morrison does
not expect Brown to take him lightly, especially since the
former featherweight champ is coming off a loss. Morrison has
been submitted by two of Brown’s teammates at American Top Team
– Fabio Mello and Micah Miller – but his explosive style and
nine TKO wins indicate he is a dangerous matchup for anyone.
Even Brown, whose greatest physical attribute is his exceptional
power. Nobody in the WEC featherweight division has been able to
match Brown’s brute force. Morrison, who has a knack for
slamming opponents and throwing them around himself, has never
been bullied inside of the cage. Something will have to give.
“I don’t have a crystal ball,” Morrison said. “We’ll find out
when we fight. But all the pressure is on him and the fight is
in Sacramento, where they don’t like him because he beat the
hometown boy twice. But pressure is on me two because I want
this more than anything.”
A voracious reader and self-professed “geek” at heart, Morrison
turned pro in June 2006 and credits Ken Shamrock’s nickname,
“The World’s Most Dangerous Man” for helping him discover MMA.
Morrison had been an avid pro wrestling fan and saw Shamrock
moonlighting in the spectacle.
“Why do they call him ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Man’?”
Morrison wondered, prompting him to research the moniker online.
The inquisition opened his eyes to a sport that was gaining
mainstream acceptance, but still wasn’t a hit in his inner city
neighborhood. A little smack talk with a buddy prompted Morrison
to step into the cage.
“I was playing a UFC game over a friend’s house and he was like,
‘Man you can’t do that! Them white boys will tear you up!’ I
wound up doing a fight, and then another fight, and then another
fight …”
Morrison has no regrets about leaving home, though it means he
must live apart from the most important people in his life – his
daughter, his wife, and his mother. The former high school
wrestler got to visit those loved ones during his Christmas Eve
return, but was right back on the five-hour train to Richmond
two days later. Maybe one day he can return to “the hood”, as he
calls it, and open an MMA gym there. But not now. He believes he
had to move from the City of Brotherly Love to pursue his dream
and put food on his family’s table.
“It was either go outside, stand on the corner and sell drugs,
get robbed or get shot or get locked up, or leave and do
something constructive,” Morrison said. “I chose to do something
constructive. I’m not trying to be a statistic. I’m trying to do
something better for my family. Thank God the sacrifices have
paid off.”
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