A Moment With ... Ivan Salaverry, Ultimate Fighter

The World Fighting Alliance opens today at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., and Seattle's Ivan Salaverry is a star attraction. Salaverry is a chiseled 6-footer, weighing 185 pounds and looking more like the Incredible Hulk than the numbers proclaim. He put together an 11-4-0 record on the Ultimate Fighting Championship circuit and joins other well-known fighters like Quinton Jackson and Machida Lyoto in the WFA.

Born in Toronto and raised in Chile and New York City before settling in Seattle as a teenager, Salaverry doesn't see mixed martial arts fighting as a brutal endeavor, but as an athletic one that he has turned into a lucrative career.

Salaverry isn't just turning over a new page in his fighting career. He is also a new father and a businessman; he will open a mixed martial arts gym in Seattle this summer.

Before heading to Los Angeles, where he will battle Art Snatore in the WFA's debut event, Salaverry talked to the P-I:

You're 35 years old and you're beginning a new venture with the WFA. Is this getting harder or easier as you go along?

"Really I'm 25. (laughs) I wish. It's getting harder, not because of the physical stuff so much, but the amount of technique the new guys are coming in with. The guys coming out are so knowledgeable and there is a lot of learning for this sport. With the physical demands, yes and no. I train really well. I've got a great crew and train well for these fights. But after you have been doing it, it affects you. The trauma to your body does accumulate. But I feel great and I am in great physical shape."

Most of us think this would be an insane profession. How do you approach this as a job?

"First of all, I consider it athleticism. I consider it a sport. With any sport comes hard training, an aspect of therapy, lots of technique that you learn and practice and try to perfect -- all kinds of variables that make you the best fighter you can be. There is also a lot of passion. I love this sport. It's so free. It has so much to offer."

Do you like the guys you fight, or do you have to have a little "hate" in you to fight them?

"Oh, no. I don't hate any of the fighters. We pretty much know each other. You get to know each other from boxing, wrestling, jujitsu, from all kinds of training. Some guys I'd met in Brazil or Japan. You really get to know each other. I don't have to hate somebody to fight them. I don't personalize any of it, no kind of hatred at all."

OK, but some of us just can't get that. You go beat the heck out of each other and there's no hatred or madness involved there? What do you release to be able to do that?

"I don't consider it madness. It's about applying your will as an athlete. It's technique. You've learned it throughout your life -- a lot of technique. It's like moving chess (pieces.) A lot of people think of it as brutality, but I don't. It can be brutal, but it's highly technical ... all types of techniques in grappling, in wrestling, in kick-boxing, in jujitsu, kick-boxing. You combine it together. Oh, and you do it in a cage. (laughs)"

Finish the sentences

The most pain I ever felt was when ... "I saw my wife in labor. That was tremendous. Oh my gosh. We just had (their first child) on the ninth (of July). Little Ivan."

The coolest thing I've ever done in the cage was ... "My cartwheel. After my wins, all my wins, I do a cartwheel -- my superb cartwheel, I might add."

I decided I wanted to be a professional fighter when ... "I had dreams about it. I had fighting dreams all the time and I thought, 'I've got to do this.' This was actually only about seven or eight years ago."

This year I am most looking forward to ... "Opening up my gym. My gym is going to be on Eighth and Thomas, the South Lake Union area. It's going to offer martial arts, kick-boxing and submission. It's the only mixed martial arts gym in the Seattle area."

I will fight until ... "My wife says so."