Chris Leben remembers how an infamous 'spritzing' led to the birth of 'Short Fuse'

The following is the third in a series of excerpts released exclusively to MMAjunkie from Chris Leben’s soon-to-be-released autobiography, “The Crippler: Cage Fighting and My Life on the Edge.” Penned by Leben and co-author Daniel J. Patinkin, the book chronicles the often rocky career of the legendary cast member of the original season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” who retired in 2013 after an 11-year professional career that included 22 UFC appearances.

Previous excerpts include Chapter 1, “Vs. Cote,” and Chapter 2, “AWOL.”

“The Crippler: Cage Fighting and My Life on the Edge” will be released on Jan. 5 and is currently available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and IndieBound.

Chapter 2, “First Fight”

As much as I love (Ed Herman), we have always shared a healthy competitive angst. Because we started training around the same time and went through a lot of the same motions in building our careers, we often compared ourselves to each other. Eddie had the first amateur fight, which pissed me off. But then I made it on to the first season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” which pissed him off! We’ve even had fans mistake us for one another on several occasions.

Eddie was notorious for his temper, and I was notorious for egging people on. Eddie was once banned from the gym for two weeks because he flipped out and smashed some lockers after I had repeatedly kicked his thigh too hard during a kickboxing session. On a different occasion, Eddie mocked me ruthlessly for tapping out too quickly when I was caught in a triangle choke. He laid into me so much I vowed never to submit again, no matter what kind of predicament I found myself in. And, you know what? I never did over the course of my 11-year professional career.

Ed Herman

Another time, early in our careers, the two of us went to our favorite club and got very drunk. For some reason or another, I started loudly accusing Eddie of being jealous of me and of wanting to sabotage my drive for success. This really pissed him off because, in his mind, he would always have my back through thick and thin. Of course, I didn’t shut up about it, and we decided to go out to the parking lot and settle it with our fists. But once we got out there, we realized how stupidly we were behaving. We started hugging and crying and telling each other we were best friends. It was the closest we ever got to coming to blows outside of the gym. Right there we agreed never to fight each other for less than $1 million a piece.

In the end, our friendly rivalry paid big dividends. After a million sparring rounds, a hundred “f-ck you’s”, 17 verbal explosions, and 10 crying fits, we can look back and know we pushed each other to the highest levels of success. We both had long careers in the UFC, and Eddie’s is still in progress.

I am also mostly responsible for Eddie’s famous nickname, “Short Fuse.” It must have been in about 2001 that Eddie decided to have a huge party at his house in southeast Portland. Friends from all over had converged on the place, including a guy we called Ry-Dog. Ry-Dog had some real gangster friends, who showed up when the party was in full swing. One of these gangsters was packing heat and decided it would be badass if he started firing his pistol into the sky in Eddie’s front yard. On seeing this, Eddie had a fit. I watched as the skin around his neck turned red, and the redness climbed up his neck and filled his face. He looked like a human firecracker that was about to explode! Eddie immediately threw down his beer can, stomped across the lawn, and knocked the gangster out with one punch while the thug was still squeezing the trigger. Everyone cheered, and we went back to drinking.

Ed Herman

Well, several hours later, one of those dudes made the ill-advised decision to pass out on Eddie’s couch. It was never a good idea to do that in my presence because I was an infamous “spritzer.” (Jason “Strange Brew” Thacker learned this the hard way on television during the first season of TUF.) I whipped my d-ck out and pissed on the dude’s cheek, my urine splattering on Eddie’s nice couch. Again, the human firecracker went on display. Eddie stormed over to me and started screaming, the crimson climbing his neck as if his head were a cherry bomb. The only way I was able to calm him down was to convince him that I hadn’t pissed on the guy, but instead had squirted a bottle of water.

Eddie had a fight a couple of weeks later. Unbeknownst to him, I conspired with the announcer to make his new nickname public. “Short Fuse” was born.