Foxcatcher Page 23

Hal Miles drove from Petersburg, Virginia, to be with me. We went into a room away from the crowd. We kneeled, and Hal prayed for Dave and me. Years later, Hal honored me by allowing me to baptize him into the LDS Church. He is still one of my best friends.

  For ninety minutes, wrestlers, friends, and family members shared their memories of Dave.

  Roger Reina, the wrestling coach at Penn, called Dave “a hero of the people.” Roger described how Dave had admirably managed to be both tough and sensitive, both childish and wise.

  Larry Sciacchetano, the president of USA Wrestling, called Dave “the Muhammad Ali, the Magic Johnson, the Michael Jordan of our sport.”

  Larry pointed out that most people were lucky to have one or two true best friends, but Dave had ten thousand. “He made everyone feel important,” Larry said. “When you were with him, he was genuinely interested in you, in what you were doing in your life, and how he could help.”

  Valentin also spoke. “My best friend is gone forever,” he said. He called training with Dave the best six years of his life.

  Tears were visible on Valentin’s face as he left the stage and walked into the stands to take a seat. Alexander and Danielle noticed how upset Valentin was, followed him into the seats, and hugged him. Those kids—I can’t imagine what they were going through. Alexander was nine, Danielle six. Dave was so proud of them. They demonstrated at that service how they had learned the importance of caring for others from their dad.

  I cried the entire service. Some of the speakers laughed as they told stories about Dave. I couldn’t laugh. Once when I was sobbing, Alexander and Danielle came over to console me. It should have been the other way around. I should have been consoling them, but that memorial service was so, so hard.

  When my dad spoke, he referred to Dave as “Jesus in a woolen cap” and “the Michelangelo of wrestling.” It had been two weeks since we lost Dave, and Dad told the audience he still could not comprehend what had happened. “Such sweetness so swiftly taken from our lives,” he lamented.

  Dad played the piano and sang a song called “The Boy by the Sea.” He had written the song about Dave playing at Half Moon Bay near San Francisco as a young kid.

  Dad also told a story that jarred me.

  When we were living in Oregon, when I was in the fifth or sixth grade, I asked Dave what his earliest memory was.

  “Tell me yours first,” he said.

  “Rolling down the stairs at Grandma’s,” I told him. “What’s yours?”

  “Actually, I have a memory from before I was born,” he said.

  Incredulous at such a notion, I interrupted in a disrespectful tone.

  “Oh, really?”

  Dave never brought up the memory around me again. Not until the memorial service did I hear the story.

  Dad recalled when Dave was four and the two of them were walking in the woods, holding hands. Dave asked if Dad wanted to hear “a really big secret.”

  “Sure,” Dad told him. “What is it?”

  “You won’t laugh at me, will you?” Dave asked.

  “No, I won’t laugh,” Dad assured him.

  “Before I was born,” Dave began, “I was standing in the clouds and surrounded by twelve men. The oldest one looked down on earth and said, ‘You’re going down there to be tested.’”

  Story complete, Dave walked away.

  Dad stood there stunned for a few seconds, and then started running to catch up with Dave.

  “Did you pass the test?” Dad asked.

  “Oh, yeah, I’m going to pass the test,” Dave told him. “But I’m not going to be here very long.”

  Dave then left Dad to go off and play.

  When it was my turn to speak, I could not prevent my voice from cracking. I don’t remember ever crying in public before then. But there I stood, with television cameras focused on me, bawling.

  I told the audience that I considered Dave my best friend, my teacher, and my coach, and how he was the most honest person I had ever known. I shared how strong he had become by diligently working to compensate for the weaknesses he dealt with as a child. He was wise beyond his years, I said, and tougher than anyone I had ever met.

  I asked that everyone please pray for our family “until this murder trial is over and justice in this life will be served.”

  When I changed clothes after the service, I threw my shirt and jeans in the trash.

  —

  Less than four months after the conclusion of the O. J. Simpson murder trial, nine charges were filed against du Pont, including first- and third-degree murder.

  Simpson might have been the highest-profile murder defendant the US court systems had seen, but John was the richest. Two things became apparent right away: Du Pont might have no defense other than insanity, and no expense would be spared in defending against the charges.

  The process would become frustratingly slow as his team of lawyers—dubbed “Dream Team East” by the media, after Simpson’s dream team of lawyers—used stall tactics to drag out the process and, presumably, buy time before having to declare whether an insanity defense would be employed.

  At du Pont’s preliminary hearing two weeks after the murder, one of his attorneys said John did not understand his legal rights as explained by the judge.

  The defense team had du Pont undergo neurological tests, hoping to find a physical cause for du Pont’s peculiar behavior. The tests were made public, the results were not. It was easy to draw a conclusion as to what the tests revealed. Or didn’t reveal.

  During courtroom proceedings, du Pont sat emotionless, often with a blank stare. He continued to tell his lawyers he did not understand the charges or the procedures laid out by the judge.

  I knew how to stall on the mat. However, my stalling was nothing compared to the defense team’s tactics in the courtroom. But they didn’t get penalized as I had been. Twice du Pont’s lawyers went to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, appealing the judge’s denial of their request to have du Pont leave prison for a psychiatric exam in a doctor’s office.

  They also tried to have overturned the judge’s refusal to allow du Pont to go back to the farm to look for materials that could be used in his defense. The judge rightly ruled that du Pont, with his resources, was a flight risk. The defense did, however, manage to have John’s arraignment postponed while the two sides wrangled over whether he was competent to stand trial.

  I was no legal expert, but even I knew du Pont’s lawyers were trying to avoid or delay prosecution and build support for an insanity plea. But still, it was annoying to recognize that John’s wealth was gaining him every advantage possible in his defense. To keep up, the district attorney’s office had to hire two people to deal with the media and handle all of the defense’s appeals.

  The district attorney’s office also determined it would not seek the death penalty, citing the belief that a better chance for conviction would come if the death penalty was not placed on the table. I was fine with that decision. I just wanted du Pont to spend the rest of his life in prison.

  I didn’t want him in a state hospital, though, because that would have been easy time compared to prison. John had lived a life of luxury and it had not been enough for him. He had wanted more. I wanted the rest of his life to be as uncomfortable as possible. Yet, his being in prison with all of his possessions taken from him could not come remotely close to what he taken away from our family.

  —

  You never get over losing a brother. For me, Dave’s dying was like cutting loose the anchor on a boat and setting the boat adrift on the sea to float aimlessly. Dave had always been my anchor.

  Because we had bounced back and forth between our parents growing up, Dave had been the one constant in my life. He had always been there to advise me, to help me stop worrying about things. We were like a two-man sect; he was my leader, and I was his follower.

>   When John killed Dave, he took my brother and my happiness from me.

  For eight years, the ending to my wrestling career had nagged me. In Wayne Baughman’s book, Wrestling On and Off the Mat, he discussed the importance of going out a winner. More than anything, I had wanted to win the ’88 Olympics and walk away a champion. But du Pont ruined that possibility for me. Every day since moving away from Foxcatcher, I had thought about my dream, about du Pont, and about what he had done to me.

  Now, every day, I added to those thoughts what he had done to my brother.

  One day, I received a call from my jujitsu coach, Pedro Sauer. He was training “Dangerous” Dave Beneteau to fight in the upcoming UFC IX: Motor City Madness, Ultimate Fighting Championship’s pay-per-view event of mixed martial arts bouts. Beneteau had been the heavyweight runner-up at the Canadian wrestling team’s Olympic trials, and Pedro wanted me to work out with him.

  Mixed martial arts—a combination of wrestling, submission holds, and kickboxing—was introduced to the United States in 1993, when UFC was created. MMA became extremely popular in a short period of time. Wrestlers performed well in MMA, because the conditioning and takedowns of wrestling proved to be advantageous in the sport. If you look at any fight, with only rare exceptions, the fighters wind up on the ground. Fighters who were not good at grappling were at a disadvantage. It was easy for a wrestler to transition to MMA. You can’t teach a kickboxer how to wrestle, but you can teach a wrestler how to kickbox.

  Beneteau came to Provo, and we trained together for a few weeks. During one session, I took Beneteau down and he landed wrong on his right hand, breaking it. I took Dave to a doctor, who gave him two options: undergo surgery to have a plate screwed into the bones so he could compete, or have a cast put on his hand that would take him out of action until after UFC IX.

  At age thirty-five, I had been training full-contact with my heavyweight at BYU, Mike Bolster. Although I did not believe that Dave would opt to miss his bout, I told him that if he did have to default because of injury, I would take his place.

  Dave, as I expected, chose surgery and went on to Detroit as scheduled for his bout with Gary “Big Daddy” Goodridge. The day before UFC IX, I flew to Detroit to be with Beneteau in his corner.

  The standard UFC news conference was the night before the bouts, with all the fighters, promoters, referees, doctors, and trainers there. After answering the media’s questions, Beneteau asked a doctor to look at his broken hand, and the doctor told him he couldn’t fight. I sought out the promoter and asked if I could fight in Dave’s place. He liked the idea, and we started talking money.

  I was offered $25,000. I asked for double that. The promoter countered with $25,000 if I lost and $50,000 if I won. I told him I would decide the next morning.

  I had trouble sleeping that night. At six-foot-three and 245 pounds, Big Daddy had five inches and forty pounds on me. He had finished as runner-up at UFC VIII: David vs. Goliath, when the format consisted of a tournament bracket. He had victories in the quarterfinals by knockout and in the semifinals by technical knockout.

  The call from the promoters asking for my answer came at 6:30 A.M. From not sleeping well, I felt like crap. I said I needed more time. I fell asleep, only to be awakened by another call from the promoters. I gave the same answer and went back to sleep. They called back again. No decision yet. At ten thirty that morning, they called and said they needed my answer right away or they would sign someone else.

  I called Pedro and asked him to go down to the hotel lobby with me. The promoters were waiting for me, with a contract sitting on the desk in front of them. I asked for one more minute, walked over to a corner, knelt, and asked God to tell me what I should do.

  I stayed in that position for probably three minutes until I was overcome with the undeniable feeling that if Dave were alive, he would tell me I had to fight. I stood and turned from the corner. Pedro and a group of people were looking at me.

  “I’ll do it,” I announced.

  That was eight hours before the fight, and the only clothes I had brought with me were a suit and tie and a pair of shorts for working out.

  I took the required AIDS test and then bought a mouth guard. Beneteau gave me his protective cup to wear. One of Pedro’s students loaned me his wrestling shoes—good thing our feet were the same size—and I wore the shorts I had been given at the LA Olympics.

  The list of rules for UFC fights was short. Fights were bare knuckles and inside an octagon-shaped cage, with no biting, no eye gouging, and no punching with closed fists. If a fighter opted to wear shoes over going barefoot, he was prohibited from kicking. Everything else was legal. You could head-butt, fishhook your opponent’s mouth (insert your fingers or hands into the sides of his mouth and pull hard in opposite directions), attack the groin, pull ears, choke, dislocate or break joints, break bones, scratch, twist or snap the neck, and whatever else you could imagine. Bouts lasted twelve minutes, with a three-minute overtime period if needed.

  Politicians led by Senator John McCain had targeted ultimate fighting for regulation, or perhaps even banning, because of its violence. To avert a possible cancellation of the event, UFC announced during the day that closed-fist strikes would be banned that night. Pedro told me the news and I was like, “All right! Goodridge can’t strike me with his fists!”

  The referee, “Big” John McCarthy, came into my dressing room about thirty minutes before the fight to inform me of the new ban on closed-fist punches. He asked me to show him a closed fist. I made one. Then he asked me to show him an open fist. I opened my hand as I would to deliver a karate chop.

  “No, an open fist is like this,” Big John corrected me, making a fist and pulling his thumb away from the fist. If either of us violated the ban, he warned, we would be fined fifty dollars per offense and the fine would be collected, well, whenever. In other words, we could punch all we wanted.

  Goodridge was one hell of a striker, but he wasn’t a wrestler, and I knew I would be able to take him down. I didn’t think he would be able to get on top of me, from where he could punch and elbow me, and even when he did manage to get on top, I believed my wrestling skills would prevent him from being in that position for long.

  When the match started, we both came out cautious. I made the first move, taking him down about thirty seconds in by running him into the cage with a double leg takedown. Goodridge was wearing a gi, the loose-fitting suit associated with martial arts like karate and judo. Grabbing his gi made it easier to pull his legs out from under him as soon as he had stopped against the cage. It was the easiest takedown ever for me, and that’s why MMA fighters stopped wearing gis.

  Goodridge wrapped his arm around my head and grabbed his own gi. He held my head so tightly that I wondered if I would pass out. I responded by pointing my chin into his ribs so that the tighter he squeezed me, the deeper my chin would sink into his ribs.

  I started feeling a little light-headed. With not much time to get out of his hold before passing out, I made him break his grip by reaching up with my left hand and pinching his trachea by jamming my thumb into his throat. I could have hurt him badly, maybe even killed him, if I had used all my strength and broken his trachea. After Goodridge let go of me, I hit him in the head a few times.

  Ultimate fighting refs could stop a fight if there was a lack of action and restart the bout with both fighters on their feet. After I had been released and we settled into holding on to each other for a bit, Big John stepped in and had us stand.

  I took Gary down again and pounded him with my fists some more, opening a cut beside his right eye. The ref stopped us to check Goodridge’s cut and restarted us from our feet. Once again, I took Goodridge down and got the mount position on him and hit him in the face several times, targeting the cut beside his eye.

  I was in the mount position with about ten seconds to go in the fight and looked into Gary’s eyes. I think we both
knew it was over. I could have elbowed him a few more times or gone for an armlock, but I knew he had kids.

  Is it really necessary? I asked myself.

  Regulation time ran out.

  I don’t know if the doctor stopped the fight because of Goodridge’s cut or if Gary stopped the bout himself, but he didn’t come out for overtime.

  I was glad the fight was over. I had been training, but not for competition, and my conditioning was not very good.

  That night was a spiritual moment for me. There was a reason Dave Beneteau had suffered his injury. There was a reason I had gone to Detroit. There was a reason the doctor had told Beneteau he couldn’t fight.

  I didn’t fight again after that night. My back herniated soon after the match. Within a week I couldn’t walk and had to be hospitalized. My athletic career was over at that point, and I retired from UFC with a 1-0 record.

  That one win erased eight years of pain and prevented who knows how many more years of hurting. I had felt like a loser ever since the ’88 Olympics, but that changed that night in Detroit. I went out a winner. It felt as though I was telling John du Pont in capital letters that he had lost his battle to make me miserable like him. I had won, and he was still a loser.

  In some respects, I became a winner again the instant I stepped into the octagon. I proved that I could get into that cage and fight with, basically, no rules. I fought against a tough man who was bigger than I was—significantly—and a highly respected fighter.

  I had spent my entire life trying to become the ultimate martial artist. I had thought all those years that wrestling was the ultimate martial art. Then jujitsu opened my eyes and showed me that I had been confining myself within the rules of the NCAA and FILA. Their rules had forced me to focus on conditioning and learning how to stay on top of opponents. Jujitsu had taught me a new array of techniques. And then in MMA, where the rules had been removed, I was free to show who I had become.

  It had been eight years since Seoul, but I believed I had received a stamp of endorsement from the most brutal combat sport that existed: I could make people submit to me.