Photo/Lucas NoonanIn a year where many 20-somethings are caught in a listless hunt for employment, John Cholish has managed to attract and sustain two lucrative, high-energy careers.
The 28-year-old former Cornell University wrestler lives in Manhattan where he spends his daylight hours making markets around energy commodities and his evenings training as a mixed-martial artist, though the former pays much more than the latter.
Jobs in the financial sector have recently fallen under populist scrutiny, but some, like Cholish's function as an essential part of a healthy economy. As a market maker Cholish gets buyers in touch with sellers, and because he works with larger companies, he can profit handsomely from even slim margins. By knowing the habits of sellers and buyers, he carves out a living by profiting from the margin.
Finance and fighting couldn't be much more disparate functions, but Cholish ties them together by scheduling his time efficiently and working with a team of intellectuals to find and exploit weaknesses in the game plan of his opponents.
Cholish's workday begins before 7 a.m. with a reverse commute from his apartment in Manhattan to his office in Stamford, CT. A full day of selling energy commodities and by 4 p.m., he's hopping back in his car to pick up a training session back at Renzo Gracie's in the Manhattan. What's unique about Cholish is that unlike most men punching a clock to pay for their fighting habit, he says he doesn't daydream of the Octagon while at work -- he actually loves his job.
"I don't have time to think about fighting when I'm at the office," says Cholish, who enters the Octagon for the first time this Saturday at UFC 140 in Toronto against fellow newcomer Mitch Clarke, an undefeated Canadian. "It's a full day of work and that's the way I like it. The guys at the office depend on me to do a job. But when I leave the office, I'm just as committed to getting better in the cage and becoming the best fighter in the world."
Cholish's time management skills are thanks in part to the time he spent as college wrestler in Ithaca, N.Y., where practice schedules and the rigors of an Ivy League curriculum competed for his attention.
"The mentality that Coach [Rob] Koll instilled was that you needed to get your work done outside of practice, because practice was scheduled around class. Outside of class and practice you need to find time to study and get extra work in with the coaches."
Doing his homework and finding the time to wrestle weren't options for Cholish during his four years as a Big Red wrestler -- they were self-imposed mandates that ensured he could make the starting lineup and help them team achieve their end-of-the-year goals. By end of Cholish's senior season the hard work had paid off for him and the team, Cholish earned second-team All-Ivy and the Big Red finished fourth in the NCAA tournament.
The same time-management skills that became essential for success in college has helped Cholish become a 7-1 UFC fighter. With only a few hours a day to train three days a week, Cholish only gets fifty percent of the workload most of his competitors enjoy.
John Cholish (Photo/Lucas Noonan)Instrumental in orchestrating Cholish's cage success, particularly his ground techniques and training regiment, has been John Danaher, the quixotic Brazilian Jui-Jitsu black belt who teaches alongside Renzo Gracie at Gracie's NYC studio. The two met when Cholish first went to Renzo's Academy in 2007. Cholish was interested in continuing his grappling career, maybe hitting the mats to stay in shape between the partying and the long work hours; what developed was a close relationship with one of the sport's emergent minds.
"I loved [John's] approach to jui-jitsu," says Cholish who after their first meeting in 2007 immediately started prepping for his first fight (he lost). "He's an absolute student, working on one move for a long time and learning from beginners. He's got the type of approach that I had in wrestling. He wants to think about it like a chess match. He wants to get better by working smarter than everyone else."
Despite his jaw-line, Cholish is considered a lithe stock of college wrestler. Many of the most dominant wrestlers, especially those who have transitioned into MMA, have utilized their physical presence and strength to secure wins on the mat and inside the cage (Brock Lesnar, Cain Velasquez, Matt Hughes, Chad Mendes). Cholish wasn't engineered for a slugfest, so meeting Danaher was perfect because he found in a coach the only style that would have made him successful -- the one that actively sought a margin to exploit. For Cholish, the gray matter began to matter.
At the center of Cholish's strategy is a hybrid of collegiate wrestling and jiu-jitsu, which by its nature gives smaller men the tools to combat larger and more brutal opponents. Cholish has expanded his grappling base into a well-rounded MMA game with the help of Danaher and training partner, UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre and Erik Owings, another of Renzo's black belts. Together the group is exploring the webbing that binds the mixed disciplines of MMA.
Danaher can direct Cholish to capitalize on his opponents' weaknesses by working together to study the transitional moments of a fight, where opponents tend to see scoring as secondary to scrambling. Cholish exploits those margins, with little risk to his overall position. It's a method that's worked well in his last seven fights, all decisive victories.
"It's kind of the thing Danaher looks at from an educational outlook -- the student's perspective," says Cholish. "He's always focusing on how to evolve sport for the overall benefit of the sport. Everything we work on is looking at MMA as its own sport as opposed to a conglomerate of skills."
Cholish won his last fight by submission, a guillotine against veteran fighter Jameel Massouh, but it was his previous fight (a debut performance on Strikeforce's Hendo vs. Fedor) that garnered him the attention of fight fans, a complete domination of Marc Stevens that ended with a knee bar -- a submission most fighters wouldn't attempt because of the perceived positional risk.
"Danaher has us drilling one move over and over, and the knee bar was there so I went for it and I wasn't concerned about losing my dominant position, because we understood how he'd probably react, and that I'd find the submission," says Cholish.
"I don't want to get into it too much, because I think we are in the cutting edge with our techniques and approach to training, stuff that gives us an edge, but Danaher understands the fight game better than most an these transitional areas, whether it's striking out of a clinch or controlling an opponent on the mat are things that will continue to make his fighters successful."
Maybe there can never be another GSP, but Cholish has trained enough with St. Pierre and Firas Zahabi to understand that mimicking the champ's smooth movements and slick transitions, or capturing the darting quickness of his jabs, could further his fight career and be the margin he's looking for at UFC 140.
"Clinch to strikes, proactively and reactively enter into his striking game. I think George is at the forefront of the sport and I want to learn from the best," says Cholish.
According to his former coaches, Cholish doesn't just have the acumen for conceptualizing MMA in a newer way, he also posses the intangibles that allow him the energy to top off a ten-hour workday with punches to the face.
"Cholish hates to lose," said Steve Garland, head wrestling coach at the University of Virginia and Cholish's former assistance coach at Cornell. "It's a dumb cliché that every kid says because they hear it on television or whatever, but not with Cholish. Doesn't matter if he's fighting dudes or baking brownies, the guy wants to win."
Cholish's desire to win has wedded well with the patience needed to understand the expanding technical game within MMA. Though he will likely never be a full-time fighter (the money that he makes from his day job is too lucrative) Cholish says he enjoys fighting and wants to create a legacy, even if it's just a legacy born from a hobby.
"I want to be the best, but I have to get there with a little less time on my schedule. But believe me, no matter the time commitment, I'm willing to put in the work."
"I love my job and I love fighting."
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