By Arash Madani,
The Score
It was a Friday night, with the bright lights and the national cameras, a rowdy, packed crowd and Adam Braidwood was itching for action.
“I just want to hit somebody,” the Edmonton Eskimos defensive lineman was saying, on a frigid Calgary evening.
But this wasn’t at a football game and the CFL’s flagship game night.
Instead it was moments before the main event of Destiny, the headliner of Hardcore Championship Fighting’s mixed martial art card last Friday in the southern Alberta city. Braidwood, who is from Delta, B.C., was there to watch and also support his underdog pal Todd Gouwenberg. And when Gouwenberg, a native of Langley, B.C., came out to battle Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (the Canadian ended up losing), it was Braidwood walking with his buddy down the aisle of the old Corral building for the biggest bout of his life.
A year ago, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2006 CFL Canadian Draft spent his off-season in the gym and the cage, a fighter himself. In fact, in his mixed martial arts debut, Braidwood knocked out Ryan Jimmo in the first round of MFC Gridiron. But after tearing the ACL in his left knee in the home finale against Saskatchewan, Braidwood has been a spectator this winter, not a competitor.
“If I were healthy, I’d be fighting (next week) in a card in Edmonton,” said Braidwood, who sat ringside for the majority of the three-hour event. “I like being a spectator, but I’d rather be fighting.”
Since becoming a pro, Braidwood also would have preferred to be playing in November. He’s been in the league for two years and in each, the explosive 6-foot-5, 274-pound end has missed the CFL playoffs. Edmonton went more than three decades without missing the dance, and then all Braidwood – football player, fighter, starter and a potent Canadian threat, who, if he can remain healthy, should have a lengthy pro career – has lived through is watching the post-season from afar.
“When I was drafted, I thought we were a sure-fire threat for the Grey Cup. But then all of a sudden we are in a slump,” he said. Then paused, and smiled.
“I guess the No. 1 pick didn’t help too much.”
Actually, it has. In fact, on a defensive line that has had a revolving door since his tenure began (the Eskimo line-up has boasted the likes of Charles Alston, Robert Brown, Brandon Guillory, Jabari Issa, Ron Warner, Steve Charbonneau, first round Ottawa dispersal draft pick Anthony Collier, Tim Fleiszer, Rahim Abdullah, Tim Cheatwood, Randy Spencer, Isaac Keys, Zach Anderson and Michael Jean-Louis over the past two seasons at the end and tackle positions), Braidwood has been a mainstay who has been an impact player since arriving in Edmonton weeks after being taken with the top selection.
“We have the opportunity this season to prove we are not a lousy team. We have to show how good we can be,” insisted Braidwood. “I’m fired up. I hate losing. It’s not that I love to win -– I hate losing.”
Between all the Eskimos losses, the early exits and now the injury, it has been a rough off-season for the 23-year-old. But he is upbeat for 2008.
Braidwood has been rehabilitating from his re-constructive surgery and even brought physiotherapist Dean Kotopski, who he has been doing recovery work with throughout the fall and winter, on his one-day road trip to Calgary to watch the fights.
“When you tear your knee up now, the (procedure) is pretty neat,” he said. “You know what they do? They put a dead guy’s Achilles in your knee. That means it will be 30 per cent stronger when I come back.”
That he has the anatomy of a corpse in his body has earned him the nickname Frankenstein.
Braidwood feels the rest and having a full break from the physical pounding – not just jumping from the field to the cage, to the field – will be a major benefit come training camp.
He is, after all, heading into an important contract year after showing signs of becoming a future league all-star as a non-import.
“This has given me the chance to chill out for a while,” said Frankenstein. “It’s been my first time to relax in seven years.
“Look, in this situation you can only take the positives and that is what I’m trying to do here.”
Arash Madani is the Calgary bureau reporter with The Score.
(The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily of the Canadian Football League)
