BLOOD & GUTS : SIMI KICK BOXER TO PROVE METTLE IN CAGED FIGHTING MATCH.

Byline: Christopher Noxon Daily News Staff Writer

Jim Mullen was a 24-year-old bar bouncer when he saw his first ultimate fighting match.

Broadcast on pay-per-view cable, it was the meanest, toughest, bloodiest sport Mullen had ever seen. Elbows connected with eye sockets. Blood cascaded from nostrils.

It looked, he said, a lot like real life.

``It was just like a bar fight,'' he said. ``I got real excited.''

Three years later, Mullen is preparing to enter the chain-link ring himself. A 210-pound, 27-year-old kick boxer from Simi Valley with five championship belts, Mullen is one of six competitors who will appear Feb. 7 in what ultimate fighting promoters hope will be a turning point for the 3-year-old sport.

Banned in two states and shunned by athletic officials in California, ultimate fighting got a major boost in October, when the New York state Legislature voted to treat it under the same regulatory structure as professional boxing and wrestling.

The event in Niagara Falls will be the first officially sanctioned match for a game that so far has occupied a place in the sports world somewhere between monster truck racing and cockfighting.

``People don't know what to make of it,'' said David Isaacs, chief operating officer for SEG Sports Corp., producer of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. ``But the reality is, it's a game that allows all fighting styles to participate on an equal basis. It's a legitimate sport, and the state of New York has recognized that.''

But Mullen is first to admit that ultimate fighting is worlds away from traditional sports - and that's the attraction. With fighters squaring off in bare-knuckle brawls that often leave the floor slippery with sweat and blood, ultimate fighting is to boxing what a downpour is to a drizzle.

Some political leaders and athletic authorities say the game crosses the line between spectator sport and violent spectacle. Fearing serious injuries in the ring, the California State Athletic Commission has twice rejected requests to host events here.

``The bottom line is these things are dangerous and the risk of injury to participants is too high,'' said Richard DeCuir, executive officer of the commission. ``The injuries we've seen from ultimate fighting are severe.''

To a fighter like Mullen, however, such talk sounds more like political posturing than concern for combatants. Mullen will face a seasoned pit fighter who outweighs him by more than 100 pounds in his first match, but he insists he isn't worried.

``I'm ready mentally and spiritually,'' he said. ``What's the worst thing that could happen? I die and go to heaven? I fear not being able to provide for my son and wife, but God would provide for them.''

Standing a lean 6 feet, 1 inch, with only a few visible scars and bumps from his career in combat, Mullen looks more like a neighborhood soccer coach than an ultimate fighter. Even while flexing his washboard abs and giving his best bad-boy grimace, he seems almost sheepish, a gentle man in the body of a thug.

The idea that Mullen will soon enter a cage with men whose sole purpose is to mangle and disfigure worries his wife, Rebecca, and his 4-year-old son, Trace. But Mullen said he is certain he is doing the right thing.

``This is what I've been doing all my adult life,'' he said. ``People say it's barbaric, but this is the only thing I know. I didn't finish high school. I didn't go to college, and I don't know how to make cabinets or anything.

``This is my life. This is what I train for. This is how I feed my family,'' he said.

The son of a Simi Valley construction worker and a homemaker, Mullen grew up a plump and angry kid. He got into scrapes regularly, mostly when classmates teased him about his weight. He took up karate at the age of 16 after doctors told the 280-pound adolescent that the strain on his knees had led to rheumatoid arthritis.

He found relief, self-esteem and, eventually, a livelihood in martial arts. He took to kick boxing, and after only two matches as an amateur showed up at the world championships as a second alternate. When the challenger to the reigning world champion dropped out, Mullen went to the nearest bathroom, shaved the sides of his head and stepped into the arena. He sent the champion to the mat in the fifth round with a sidekick to the stomach.

But Mullen knows he will need far more than his signature kicking strength to prevail in ultimate fighting. Only biting, strangling, eye-gouging and mauling are off-limits when the combatants step into the ring.

Matches last up to 18 minutes and end when a fighter either blacks out or signals surrender by tapping the mat three times. Grapplers and wrestlers have fared best, as most fights are decided in mashed clinches that leave little room for practiced acrobatics or strategic striking.

Promoters say all fighters are screened by coaches and doctors before they are allowed in the octagonal ring. Most participants are recruited from such disciplines as boxing, jujitsu and sumo wrestling, lured by payoffs that start with $2,000 for a first bout and reach $150,000 for a championship.

Other participants, Isaacs said, are lifelong street toughs who were found after they called a toll-free phone number flashed at the end of an ultimate fighting broadcast.

``If I wasn't in the octagon I'd be in a bar or an intersection fighting,'' the sport's self-anointed bad boy Tank Abbott said after a televised bout last year.

Fighting an opponent like Abbott, who cultivates his groin grab as much as his roundhouse, demands an entirely new training approach, Mullen said. His regimen includes regular workouts with a 300-pound-plus wrestler, four hours a day of kick boxing aerobics and a high-carbohydrate diet that can include four whole chicken breasts and heaping plates of rice.

Mullen has prepared mentally with a hypnotherapist, who has helped him visualize 10 matches in the octagon. In these imaginary matches, his fists crackle with energy and he is filled with the spirit of a ferocious bear.

His opponent always goes down.

That wasn't the case in Mullen's only previous outing in the ultimate fighting ring. In a fight for a spinoff league a year ago, he was quickly gripped in a headlock known as the guillotine. He tapped out just before falling unconscious.

Mullen said he is prepared for the heightened danger of ultimate fighting. The fringe world of kick boxing, Mullen said, can only take him so far. With its mass exposure and growing legitimacy, ultimate fighting promises much more.

Mullen said his own story demonstrates how much good can come from fighting. A sickly boy who threw first punches at parties and school has grown into a devoted family man and disciplined athlete. In May, he opened Ultimate Fighting Concepts, a martial arts studio in a Simi Valley mini-mall where he teaches students the moves he will try out for the first time professionally next month.

While his family frets about his entry into the arena, Mullen said his mind will be clear of doubts when he climbs into the cage.

``God gave me a talent and I've got to take it as far as I can,'' he said. ``This is it for me - this is the ultimate.''

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1--color) Jim Mullen, a kick boxing competitor from Simi Valley, will compete in the Ultimate Fighting Championship in February.

Myung J. Chun/Daily News

(2-3--color) Jim Mullen, 27, first saw his first ultimate fighting match three years ago while working as a bar bouncer. ``It was just like a bar fight,'' he said. ``I got real excited.'' Mullen is one of six competitors who will appear Feb. 7 in what ultimate fighting promoters hope will be a turning point for the 3-year-old sport.

(2) Myung J. Chun/Daily News

(3)Tom Mendoza/Daily News