Lil' Thang, Big Spirit

Christian Nielson seemed like a walking contradiction to me. Peaceful, yet utterly relentless. When he wasn’t training or teaching, he had a tranquility to him--a slowness and ease that radiated a sense of peace around him; but flip the switch, and he was a rocket, a whirling dervish of energy and ferociousness. A former high school wrestling champion, MMA fighter and ex-infantryman he was nicknamed “Lil Thang” because of his fighting prowess that went beyond his physical size in the ring. I tried to imagine the kind of drive that had allowed him to mold his body into a steel rod, the hours of blunt trauma that had reshaped his ear lobes, and the guts to achieve so much at such a young age. 

He didn’t have the beastliness of Curt or the steady calculation of Kelvin, the brute strength of the bigger guys like Ashley and King--and yet for some reason, he scared me in a deeply visceral way. I shied away from him the day I put on the punch guard at Title--“You know I’m only 140 pounds Kirsten,” he laughed at me. “I can’t hit you that hard.” He wouldn’t hurt a fly, and he was the last trainer or staff member at Title that I would ever see get their feathers ruffled, but that calm hid an aggression simmering just below the surface

He could have seemed cold to someone who didn’t know him--to have been a soldier, to have fought so many--and yet he was actually very gentle, kind and patient. Patient enough to be a loving father to a mayhem-filled toddler, and kind enough that my 66 year old mother who has had a knee replacement loved his classes as he encouraged and modified workouts for her. And all the while that I had known him, I bounced between the desire to know more--a keen fascination and the trepidation of where my curiosity would lead me.

When I sat down in the back room to talk to him, as with all of our conversations--apprehension quickly gave way to ease. He sat rubbing his swollen ears, alternating between deep pensive thought, and the sincerity of eye contact with the occasional closed lip smile that melted any last misgivings I might have had.

So---you won all Army Combatives right?

Twice.

What is that--can you explain it to me a bit?

First day is just grappling, the second day is pankration where you can slap the face you can punch the body you can kick from head to toe but you can’t punch the face. If you win that you move into the cage and do an MMA fight like you see on TV. So that was for all of the armed forces.

Before you fought for the Army, you began as a wrestler in high school--how long have you been wrestling and what gave you the initial motivation to want to fight?

I started wrestling when I was six for sixteen years. When I was 20, I went to the Olympic training center at Fort Carson to live at the center and train for the Army. I made the Army team went to the armed forces championship as an alternate. The US nationals--I got sixth place there which qualified me to go to the Olympic trials in 2013. At world trials I got beat down 0 and 2--it was the top six guys there and I was the top sixth guy so, yea--It was the only place I ever walked into where I was the worst wrestler there. But in high school, I was a back to back state champion wrestler from Nebraska. I went 88 and 0 my last two years there I never lost after my sophomore year.

I don’t know where it comes from but I’ve always felt like part of being a man I guess is learning how to fight. I have no real reason for thinking that, I’ve just always felt the need to be able to hold my own. Wrestling was fun. Eventually it wasn’t that I wrestled, it was that I was a wrestler. The difference is that--there’s a lot of people who wrestle--they get up, go to practice, come home and carry on with their life. I was a wrestler, that’s what I was--it wasn’t that wrestling was a season, it was something that defined me, it never turned off, it was an obsession. I was so terrified that my opponents could outwork me that I just every chance I got I was doing something, I couldn’t not work.

Relentless sense of urgency.

Relentless sense of urgency, exactly-- I think you’ve heard me say that before.

So wrestling was a part of your identity?

Yes, when I let it go my senior year--I didn’t really know that I was going to wrestle for the Army, I just thought, I’ll go try out for this and see how good I do. After I won the State Championship my senior year and everyone was happy and everyone was sitting there and I was holding up the trophy--I’m crying because I knew that it was my last time. I wasn’t going to college, I wasn’t going to keep on wrestling--I was giving up such a big part of what I was. I didn’t do any other sports, I didn’t do anything else. I wasn’t a good student, didn’t really have anything else going for me at all besides that. So when I gave it up, that was a big deal for me.

Did your family influence you at all--back then were your parents supportive of your wrestling?

Growing up I had all of the support for wrestling. If there was a wrestling tournament and my dad asked me if I wanted to go and I said yes--if he wasn’t working that day he would take me. The trade-off was I had to work hard. If he took me somewhere and I was lazy or I gave up, if he would ever see me quit or not try or care even, why would he care. That was the trade-off--he would care as long as I cared.

After my freshman year, I almost didn’t go out my sophomore year because I didn’t do well my freshman year. I didn’t make it to State in my head I did a lot worse than I thought I did, but for a freshman, I guess I didn’t do too bad. I went 15 and 15--I was just one short of qualifying for State, and I was like, man that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

I went from not placing at State and almost not going out to coming back and qualifying for State my sophomore year. At district, this kid had come out, he was from the complete opposite of state and he pinned me. That was before the finals, so instead of first or second I was down in third or fourth spot. That was the first time I ever saw my dad ever get mad at me over a loss.

He came over and said “Hey, you better get your ass together” and “What the hell was that, you are this close to State--you better figure it out.” I got it together and beat the next kid, then the next and went to State. Then, we’re at State and it’s the semi-finals again and it’s me against the guy who pinned me at district--I didn’t underestimate him again--and it was extremely close this time.

We went into the very last second--we rolled out of bounds and he was the last one to score so we came back and he was on top. There’s a rule where if you’re on top you can’t just grab the ankle and grab the wrist and hang on for dear life, but there are five seconds of that before the ref calls you and you get three warnings--so a total of 8 seconds. This kid knew that and he was smart, he grabbed my ankle and just held on for dear life and he wound up winning by one point so I was not going to state finals. I stood up after that and said to my coach “I am never losing again” and he said “I believe you”

I came back my junior year, tried out did a few tournaments then all of a sudden I was rated number one in the state. I was obsessed that entire off season, I didn’t stop wrestling. I was always training, always lifting weights--I always came back stronger. I won two back-to-back State Championships after that and it was all over in one day. The day that I won the second time.

I had offers all over the country for athletic scholarships, but at that point I was over school. I joined the Army because it felt like a patriotic thing to do, to fight terrorists--especially after 9/11--I wanted to go fight in a war. A few years later I decided to try out for the Army’s wrestling team, but my heart was never really in it again. I still had the talent and the skills that I had gained through all those years of wrestling, but while I was there I never had the hunger or the drive again, I couldn’t get myself to care.

Did you find that same drive for MMA?

Yea I did, for a while. It seems like my life’s going in another direction now, but I enjoy training people. I’m still practicing all the time, if I was told today that I could never fight again, I would still train. If there’s any type of working out that I could do--I would always just want to train. You can never truly be the best, there can always be someone there who can beat you, you never get bored.

You seem to have this real peace about you, but then you have this intense fighter mentality--is it a desire to achieve? Or a desire to hurt--where does it come from?

There’s this thing called the big dog mentality--and what that is--have you ever seen a chihuahua get pissed off and chase a pit bull across a yard and the pit bull runs like it’s scared? We know the pit bull would tear that chihuahua to pieces, but the chihuahua had the big dog mentality--it didn’t give a shit that that pit bull was a pit bull it was just like “It’s on, come at me.”

I learned that mentality, it was brought up to me by a book that my coach forced me to read in high school--forced the whole team to read it, just this one chapter in this book the ‘big dog mentality’ it really stuck out to me and that was it. No matter what was in front of me who or what, I’m not going to cower down from it. I never think “hey he might be really tough I’m not going to try” I would say “This big tough son-of-a-bitch right here I’m going to f*** him up” and if you don’t believe it, it won’t happen. But if you believe it, you have a lot in your corner.

For me the thrill of winning, the crowd cheering--that’s what drove me. I’ve performed in front of 15,000 people, I’ve been on TV and all that and I love it--I just freaking love it. It’s crazy raising your hands and waving to the crowd after you win, pointing at at your coach point at your girlfriend or whatever, there’s nothing like it.

It’s the glory.

Yea, it’s the glory.

Without it I wouldn’t be anything like I am today. Without it I’d be someone else, I’d probably be a lot smaller, I’d be just a loser--a drug addict, in jail--I would not be the way I am without wrestling then fighting. I would have gotten lost in the world, for sure--absolutely. I’ve seen it happen to friends of mine who grew up with me who didn’t stick with it--and I would have stayed with them, I would have been just like them--I would have been on drugs, dead, or in jail for sure.

As you’ve transitioned from predominantly fighting to now training and being a father and a husband, and your role here now--do you think that you’ve softened in any way, or just pivoted?

It’s a good question. Umm..it might seem softer--but I think it’s just wiser. Not making rash decisions you know. As far as being a trainer and all that--I’ve come to realize that people aren’t like me, they aren’t just fighters. They haven’t lived their whole life thinking “oh I need to fight, I have to have this big dog mentality” they just live their lives--and for me to try to treat them the way I would treat someone like me wouldn’t work. I have to be able to put myself in their shoes, I have to be able to see things from their side or I’ll never be able to train them. If I try to treat them like I know I could be treated, they would turn the other way; I would never see them again.

As far as being a Dad--you have to have a good memory. If you can’t remember what it’s like to be a little boy then you won’t treat your little boy like a little boy. You’ll try to treat him like an adult, and he is not an adult. You’ll judge him past his years. You’ll see him do something he’s not supposed to do and you’ll get mad but you have to remember he’s a little boy. He doesn’t have bad intentions, he just does the wrong thing then he goes and does something else, he’s not thinking it through--so I can’t judge him like I would judge a man. I can’t judge the clients here like I would judge myself. They are not the same--I’m not saying im above them at all, I’m just saying they’re not the same.

Where do you see the rest of your life going?

It’s only going up from here, I’ve gone too far with Title to give up now. I can’t tell you for sure what’s next after this, but for now this is it--this is where I have to put all of my effort and all of my focus into this club. But, there’s one thing that I know for sure--there will definitely be more.

Article by Kirsten Hall