Why submission ace Dustin Hazelett walked away from UFC: He was genuinely happy

Dustin Hazelett

The cheering crowds are gone. There are no more $60,000 bonus checks for a job well done. Ted Nugent’s “Stranglehold” no longer blares through a monstrous PA system on the walk to work. However, blood, excitement, danger, adrenaline and the unknown? Those things do remain in the post-fight life of Dustin Hazelett.

Hazelett’s professional MMA career lasted six years. He turned pro at 18 with King of the Cage and left when he was 24, following a 10-fight UFC run in which the youngster won widespread acclaim for his crafty grappling skills.

When he stepped away from the sport to become an emergency medical technician, his pro record was 12-7, including 5-5 in the UFC.

Today, the 29-year-old Hazelett is employed as a paramedic for Cabell County EMS in West Virginia. where he works 24-hour shifts on a rotating schedule. He’s been employed in emergency medical service since the spring of 2011. His last MMA fight took place in December 2010.

Hazelett’s journey from angry teenager to pro fighter to paramedic began when he was 14. Suffering from ADHD and OCD and admittedly being “a bit of a pr-ck,” Hazelett found himself an easy mark for bullies. The tipping point toward a career as a fighter may have been when he tried out for the football team and found his head shoved into a toilet – twice.

“I had a lot of hate in my heart for many years. I had a chip on my shoulder,” Hazelett told MMAjunkie. “I wanted to become the best fighter in the world to prove how strong I was, to prove how good I was and to prove that people were wrong about me.”

Hazelett got involved with Brazilian jiu-jitsu in high school and competed in his first amateur MMA fight the week after graduation. Later, he enrolled at Marshall University and fought as a part-time pro. While at Marshall, Hazelett studied criminal justice and business management before dropping out to pursue MMA full-time.

“I still don’t regret dropping out of college,” Hazelett said. “I think education is very important, but I think a lot of time college is a waste. I had no idea what I wanted to do for a living and was basically just there because I was told to be. I would spend time and money learning about a field just to realize I didn’t want to work in that field.”

Four years into his MMA career and a year and a half into his UFC run, Hazelett began to reevaluate his career choice.

While preparing to fight Josh Burkman at The Ultimate Fighter 7 Finale, Hazelett didn’t experience the adrenaline rush he was accustomed to before a fight. In one way that was good; it allowed him to have greater mental clarity. In another way, it was concerning because it meant that he felt each of Burkman’s 44 strikes.

“I felt the full pain of every strike he landed, and believe me he landed a lot,” Hazelett said. “At the end of the first round, I got stuck against the cage in bottom half guard and was having trouble escaping. During that time he was landing some significant elbows that hurt bad. I remember thinking. ‘Why did I think this is a good idea? Seriously what’s wrong with me?’ I was thinking that during the fight as I was getting elbowed.”

The Burkman fight ended at the 4:46 mark of Round 2 with Hazelett securing a jaw-dropping armbar submission. The victory earned him a $20,000 “Submission of the Night” bonus, and he and Burkman also took home $20,000 with “Fight of the Night” honors. The performance also earned him “Submission of the Year” accolades from a variety of media outlets:

However, the doubts that plagued him during that fight continued as he readied himself to face Tamdan McCrory at UFC 91, a fight that Hazelett won by armbar, earning another “Submission of the Night” bonus worth $60,000.

“I remember reading psychology books trying to ‘fix’ my mentality so that I could fight,” Hazelett said. “Then I realized that my mentality wasn’t broken. That’s why I couldn’t fix it.”

The rancor that Hazelett had carried as a younger man had dissipated. He discovered that he was genuinely happy. That realization, more than anything, allowed him to exit MMA.

“It felt like a huge weight had been lifted off me,” he said. “I was happy and felt free. That was the end of my career.”

Except it wasn’t.

“Having ‘UFC vet’ on your fighting resume is awesome, but having it on a job application in the regular world means little,” Hazelett said. “Tommy Hayden, who was also in the UFC at the time, was a waiter. They were hiring, so he got me an interview. I wasn’t thrilled about going from fighting around the world to waiting tables, but I was even less excited when I didn’t get the job. I laugh now looking back at it, but at the time, I had a daughter on the way, a mortgage to pay, and I couldn’t even get hired to wait tables. It was a bad time.”

It was back to the octagon for Hazelett, who needed a financial cushion as he prepared for EMT training. He finished his career with three consecutive losses in the UFC.

Hazelett’s daughter, Ava, is now 4, and though she never saw her father fight, he knows that he will see her train BJJ.

“She will learn some Brazilian jiu-jitsu whether she wants to or not,” Hazelett said. “It’s the best martial art for rape defense. Working in EMS I see the worst side of the world on a daily basis. It’s a dangerous world out there. She will learn to defend herself.”

And if Ava does follow her father’s footsteps and gets a black belt in BJJ and moves to a career in EMS, that knowledge will come in handy. More than once Hazelett has used BJJ to subdue an unruly patient – without injuring him.

These days, every time Hazelett gets a call as a paramedic, he is reminded of the years he spent in MMA. That may sound strange, but Hazelett said there are similarities between the two.

“I used to think there was no feeling like the rush of winning a fight, but the rush of saving a life is an amazing feeling,” Hazelett said. “The flip side is much like losing a fight; there are some very bad days in EMS. Some things once seen can’t be forgotten.”

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