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LITTLE EVIL: One Ultimate Fighter’s Rise to the Top
Jens Pulver with Erich Krauss
(ECW Press, 2003, 188 pgs., $14.95)

Jens Pulver’s book is a worthwhile autobiography, because not only does it brings you back to his roots in childhood (a lot of books do that), but it also demonstrates a real cause-and-effect as to how his life experiences helped to shape the very attitude that could drive an athlete to a championship, because there is no other acceptable alternative.

We know, that Pulver was: the first fighter to win a UFC title in the lightweight division, a coach on The Ultimate Fighter, a member of Miletich Fighting Systems, and a 5′7″ all-around dynamo who authored many superb efforts, including a memorable fight with B.J. Penn in which he defended his title for the second time. He is also known for having ditched his title and bolted the UFC due to contractual problems.

He has also authored a superb effort here.

Pulver, who grew up in Maple Valley, Washington, which sounds benign enough but indeed was not. Jens came from what could justifiably be referred to as a dysfunctional household. And he sets the tone for the book, as well as his subsequent career path, right from the first page. It is not presented as a revelation, or a turning point, but rather matter-of-factly, as if it were “all in a day’s horror.” His father, a jockey, was rampaging through the house, threatening to kill someone or everyone. As Pulver writes, it was almost a foregone conclusion that he was a goner - the big hint was that his father had stuck a loaded gun into his seven-year-old mouth.

Pulver was ultimately spared, and the father calmed, but he leaves a child sitting there who has long since rationalized that it was only a temporary respite until the next storm. And those storms came, in different forms, almost every day.

In one sense, children like this never totally grow up; they suffer from Adult Child Syndrome, forever struggling with approval. In this case Pulver was an ACoA - an adult child of alcoholics.

The seemingly perpetual insecurity that comes out of this kind of background manifests itself in an insistence on accomplishment and perfection, as a weapon against low self-esteem. And that’s only if it is positively channeled. Pulver was lucky to have gotten support from his mother and a father figure named Jack Vantress, who mentored him and encouraged him to pursue wrestling as a vehicle by which to achieve his objectives.

As we’ve seen, Pulver has accomplished many of those objectives, including his UFC title and a college degree (from Boise State University). But along the way, he is in a constant battle with himself, trying to overcome the kind of self-doubt that was embedded in him since childhood; something that has never left him and likely never will. Indeed, even as he was walking down the aisle for the biggest fight of his life, his father’s voice, filled with abuse of the psyche, rang in his subconscious.

Since the culture that creates demand for a book like this is a result of hero worship, there might be a tendency to drift toward restraint. But credit Pulver and co-author Erich Krauss for presenting the framework for this narrative, warts and all.

This is not a tale of UFC glory - it is the account of one individual who has been to hell and back in the process of battling his demons, and who is, so far, coming out on the winning side.

In a way, everything else becomes secondary in importance. The human triumph is of far greater significance than the professional triumphs. If that’s the lesson you take from it, you will have gotten the most out of this book.

Unlike most of the pablum we see in this genre, here is one athlete who REALLY has a story to tell.