Fight Path: Tim Gorman's start in bar challenge fight set him on path to upcoming title bout

Tim Gorman wanted to wait until his friends left, just in case things didn't go well.

He then was a 19-year-old attending a regular fight night at a popular bar in Des Moines, Iowa. That night, the competition's lightweight champion was looking for an opponent. Gorman hadn't planned on participating that night, but he got one of the challenges, and it sounded interesting.

Sure, he had always been one of the smaller guys among his peers growing up. He also didn't really know anything about fighting, except what he remembered from his extended youth and high school wrestling career.

So on the chance that he didn't perform well because of his lack of experience, one of the reasons he hadn't already volunteered for the bar fight nights in previous weeks, he tried to wait until his friends left to fight.

"But then I went in there, and I beat him pretty bad," Gorman told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). "I started training after that, and it took off."

Now 8-2 as a professional, the 29-year-old Gorman will make his first Midwest Cage Championship appearance since 2006 when he challenges Tom Ahrens for the featherweight title on Nov. 21 in Des Moines. A pro since 2005, Gorman has collected two straight wins in World War Fighting Championship shows.

On the same card as a lightweight championship fight between Johnny Case and challenger Chris Mickle, Gorman will fight in his hometown, the city that started his path toward an MMA career about a decade ago.

With family support that allows him to focus plenty of time on fighting, Gorman is hoping a win can propel him to a bigger opportunity and a chance to continue climbing in the sport.

"I've always been determined and ready to take these new challenges," he said. "This is a big one for me."

Long-time wrestler

Gorman grew up for much of his life in West Des Moines, living with his mother after his parents divorced. His father remained a very significant part of his life, even helping his son get started in what would grow to be a passion.

When Gorman was about 5, his father started him in wrestling. It was a sport Gorman's father did himself, becoming a state tournament-level wrestler in high school.

Aside from wrestling, Gorman can name a long list of sports he or his friends tried, whether organized or not: skateboarding, roller blading, tennis, basketball, badminton, golf. He was looking to try anything he could.

He enjoyed wrestling as much as any other sport, and his commitment increased in the eighth grade. That year, he broke a wrist and knocked out several teeth during a roller blading spill. Not wanting to leave wrestling, he attended every practice, even though he couldn't participate.

"It just gave me that much more fire for it," Gorman said. "Just having to sit and watch the whole year, it made me appreciate what I was missing. If I hadn't been hurt, I might not have wrestled (in high school)."

Wrestling appealed to Gorman because he was consistently one of the smaller kids in his school and in his class. By the time he was a senior, Gorman was a 112-pounder who finished third in the state and lost the semifinal match to the eventual state champion just 2-1.

He received interest from colleges, but he wasn't really interested in that at the time.

"At the time, I was stupid, and I thought life was about going out and enjoying yourself," he said. "I didn't really know what I wanted to do."

Until he was challenged at a bar fight night.

Coming out of the crowd

After Gorman won his challenge match at the fight night, he was approached by a few people about joining their gyms to train. He was interested in pursuing the sport, certainly, but he had another incentive to train.

"I was small, so I kind of did it for self-defense, too," he said. "I wanted to learn how to fight. Sometimes my friends and I would go to places, and we would never start anything, but sometimes things happened. I think sometimes I got kind of picked on because I was smaller."

For a while, Gorman wasn't too serious about his training. He was helping with the family business, operating two small newspapers in the area, the Winterset Madisonian and the Winterset Shopper. He worked with his father in several different capacities.

Once he started competing more in training, he gained more confidence. He was facing better fighters, and he was handling himself well. He boosted his commitment.

At one point, he took a trip to Thailand for some kickboxing and to see how training was handled there. Between that schooling and his increasing training, Gorman was ready to make fighting a bigger part of his life.

He turned professional in 2005, winning his first two fights in the first round. His MCC debut, in May 2006, ended with a knockout victory in 19 seconds.

A defining fight came in January 2009, when he took on J.T. Wells at MTXAFN 2 in Las Vegas.

"They set me up to lose and I was supposed to be this underdog, but I won," he said of the unanimous decision victory against Wells. "That was just more confidence, taking things another step."

His next step comes on Nov. 21 with his MCC title fight. Gorman hopes a good performance will help push him to a much higher level.

This time, his friends can watch.

"He's a champion, so that could look good for me if I keep winning," he said. "It's an important fight for me, and I'm excited about it."

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