The Last Punch: How Concussions Forced Kiwi UFC Pioneer James Te Huna From The Octagon

THE PUNCH that ended James Te Huna's mixed martial arts career was not a powerful one, nor was it delivered by an exceptional opponent.

It came from Steven Bossé, a former semi-pro ice hockey enforcer from Canada with only one UFC bout to his name, in Brisbane on March 20.

Te Huna hadn't been in the Octagon for nearly two years. The 34-year-old Kiwi had been struggled with injuries and pre-fight anxiety for much of that time, but the hunger was back when the bell rang to open their middleweight scrap.

Despite his lengthy absence, Te Huna hoped the Bossé fight would be the first of three back in the UFC in 2016.

In 52 seconds, Te Huna was on the canvas, out cold, after the Canadian connected with a strong but manageable left hook above his right eye.

As is the norm for knocked out fighters, the Kiwi was examined at the hospital post-fight. He was in for a massive scare.

"I got hit by something that shouldn't have really put anyone away," Te Huna tells VICE Sports.

"I got taken to hospital for all the check-ups and scans, and they discovered I had a bleed on the brain. They discovered I had a whole bunch of lesions on the brain."

Te Huna then booked into see a neurologist, who looked over all of his brain scans since he had joined the UFC. The majority of these came days before each of his fights, as mandated by the organization.

"He went over it then, and said to me 'alright, this is your brain a few years ago. There's a couple of lesions there," Te Huna says.

"They look like a grazed knee or something. He said 'now there's more dark spots – more lesions all over the brain.'

"He said there's no test that can determine if they can be harmful or not – only you can tell me that."

In two months of reflection, Te Huna would. Concussions, and a fear of their future cost, had forced his retirement from the UFC.

UFC middleweight Steven Bossé knocking out James Te Huna in Brisbane in March.

TE HUNA is in a small café in Taupo, New Zealand when VICE Sports caught up with him. It is a place about as far removed from the bright lights, hype and raw physicality of the UFC as you can get.

Te Huna still looks every inch the fighter he always was in the Octagon. He has a massive physical presence; long, muscular limbs, a hulking upper body and an undeniable fighter's jaw.

Other than thinking that he was a bloody big bugger, you can't imagine the provincial Kiwis around him would realize that this was a serious Kiwi MMA trailblazer.

Te Huna was the first New Zealander to fight in the UFC, making his debut against Igor Pokrajac in Sydney in February 2010. Cult hero heavyweight Mark Hunt wouldn't get into the Octagon for another whole year.

The Darfield-born, Huntly-raised former bricklayer went on to record a 5-5 UFC career, which included a fight against top ranked light heavyweight title contender Glover Teixeira in Las Vegas in May 2013.

Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson—Te Huna's childhood hero—watched that fight from the front row.

The ex-light heavyweight is in his home country from his Sydney base for a three-week tour of Kiwi MMA gyms. Along with two days bricklaying each week, Te Huna is now coaching MMA, and wants to teach aspiring athletes in any sport about the right mental approaches you need to succeed.

A fighter who has openly admitted to struggling with pre-fight fear, Te Huna is the perfect person to talk about combating it.

"For me it was like riding a bull," he says. "If you knew how to control it, you could be on the ride of your life.

"If you didn't know how to ride the bull, it's going to buck you off. You're going to land on your face. You'll stand back up, and he'll knock you back over."

With the right people around them and conscious ability to embrace pressure, an athlete can fight, and conquer, anxiety.

They can not avoid the physical toll that comes with the pursuit of their craft.

During his six-year UFC career, Te Huna notched up 15 surgeries for injuries ranging from a dislocated shoulder to repeated broken bones in his feet and hands.

But as Te Huna—who has lived in Australia since the early 2000s—suffered chronic nausea, headaches and memory loss as following his fight against Bossé, he knew that going under the knife wasn't going to fix him this time.

"I'd never had anything like that before," Te Huna, who lost the last four fights of his career, says. "Usually it's over in a few days at the most - this one lasted a month. I was repeating myself, every hour.

"Tama [his brother] stayed with me the week after the fight because he was worried. Mum and Dad stayed with me the next week. I always thought 'concussion, brush it off, recover.' After a few days, or a few weeks, I'll be right.

"But then learning about how lesions can affect you, and affect your life down the track. The damage can occur in ten or twenty years time."

"The doctor told me you've got to think about your next steps, otherwise it's going to be dangerous for you. I was like 'yep. I have to stop now."

TE HUNA isn't the only one to be recently forced from the UFC with concussion issues. American lightweight fighter Jamie Varner retired last December with complaints almost identical to the Kiwi's.

Varner estimates he has suffered around thirty concussions during his life, and was warned about his condition by a doctor before his last fight, against Drew Dober in Phoenix, on December 13.

"I felt like I was in a perpetual state of just constant migraines," the 30-year-old told The MMA Hour after he retired last year.

"I knew it was from sparring, but I thought I was okay. I thought it was normal and that's what we have to do as fighters, part of the cross that we bear is having headaches and being beat up, because we're fighters."

Te Huna suffered two in-fight concussions during his career, and around twenty during sparring. He believes he suffered more during his early days, but didn't recognise the signs back then.

"There's been a few times, over the last few years, when I've been sparring, and then I'll walk off going 'how long have I been here for?,' Te Huna says.

"I'll ask someone 'did I get dropped or something?' 'Nah, nah [they'd say] – you kept going. You buckled a little bit, but you brushed it off. So, yea, that's one of them."

James Te Huna preparing for his light heavyweight fight against Glover Teixeira in 2013.

While all fight contracts include a clause that sees fighters accept they could sustain brain injury in the Octagon, the UFC does have well-publicized protocol around concussions.

Any fighters who suffers a concussion must serve an automatic three-month stand-down period that includes a ban on contact training in the gym. Fighters are only allowed back in the Octagon once cleared by a doctor.

Despite this, a 2014 study by the University of Toronto study said that MMA fighters are more at risk of brain injury than boxers.

The study looked at more than 800 UFC fights between 2006 and 2012, and concluded that around 32 per cent of fights involved some form of concussion-like injury.

While the UFC called the study "flawed", chief executive Lorenzo Fertitta told the Washington Post last year that "we're not running away from [the problem]."

Te Huna disagrees: "as long as they can cover their ass, I don't think they really care."

He thinks there should be pre-fight cognitive testing in the UFC, like there is in the NRL.

The NRL works with trauma experts who regularly visit Australian rugby league clubs to ensure formerly concussed players are okay to return to footy. The UFC, he says, should follow the NRL model.

"That test needs to be put in place," he says. "There should be a better duty of care for the athletes."

Te Huna has noticed that general duty of care slipping since he joined the UFC - which was recently sold to WWE-IMG for US$4 billion - and is not envious of new fighters joining the organization.

When he made his debut in 2010, athletes would be invited to Las Vegas for yearly camps on paying taxes and drugs in the sport. These have since stopped.

There's less money for fighters, too. Last year, more details about the UFC's controversial six-year US$70 exclusive outfitting deal with Reebok were revealed that fighters, especially the newest ones, were poorly renumerated.

Previously, fighters were able to sell advertising on their trunks or training equipment, but now they only received post-fight payments based on their experience level for exclusively using Reebok gear. For his last fight, Te Huna received just US$5000 as part of that deal.

UFC fighter agent Mike Roberts told Deadspin last year that around "85 to 90 per cent" of his fighters are losing money.

"It's hard for the next generation coming through," Te Huna says.

"Everyone's aware of this now; what has been happening with Reebok and what Mark [Hunt] has been through, fighting against the dopers.

"Is it going to catch up with the sport? Is it going to make it less attractive than before?"

REGARDLESS OF the direction the UFC is going in, and how his career has unfolded, Te Huna has no regrets from a life spent in the Octagon.

Te Huna was shy and afraid of confrontation when he was a kid in Huntly. He dreamed of being Iron Mike Tyson, and following in his footsteps.

"It was powerful, more powerful than anything else, and it came from watching Mike Tyson," he says.

"Walking out in front of thousands of people at the MGM Grand with thousands and thousands watching on TV.

"My vision was to be able to walk in his shoes. That was his biggest fear as well though. Confrontation and being in a fight.

"I took all those steps, and, ended up, all those years later, fighting at the MGM Grand and looking through the cage fence—and there was Mike Tyson watching me fight.

"I had turned a fear into a power of mine. It's been a massive achievement."