‘Ultimate Fighter’ contestant gets kicks in the cage

Saturday, June 2, 2007 | 7:12 a.m.

What: World Extreme Cagefighting mixed martial arts card

When: 4 p.m. Sunday

Where: The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel

Tickets: $25 to $250, box office or Ticketmaster

TV: Versus (Cox cable channel 67)

Full card: Chance Farrar (5-0) vs. Urijah Faber (18-1), 145 pounds, featherweight title; Rani Yahya (11-2) vs. Mark Hominick (13-6), 145; Josh Smith (5-2) vs. Alex Karalexis (8-2), 155; Craig Zellner (4-1) vs. Brian Stann (3-0), 205; Brock Larson (20-1) vs. Kevin Knabjian (7-2-1), 170; Alex Serdyukov (8-3) vs. John Alessio (24-11), 170; Micah Miller (8-0) vs. Cub Swanson (10-1), 145; Brian Bowles (3-0) vs. Charlie Valencia (8-2), TBA; Mike French (7-8) vs. Jeff Bedard (9-0), 135

Although he had enough soccer talent to play professionally, Alex Karalexis chose to pursue mixed martial arts as a career.

The reason, he said, always surprises people.

"I tell them I got out of soccer and into MMA because I was getting hurt too much playing soccer," Karalexis said at Randy Couture's MMA gym on Sunset Road, where he was preparing for Sunday night's World Extreme Cagefighting card at the Hard Rock.

A three-year Las Vegas resident, Karalexis fights Josh Smith in a lightweight (155-pound) match in a show at the Joint that includes featherweight champ Urijah Faber against Chance Farrar in a 145-pound title fight.

Karalexis has recovered from the recurring leg injury that hampered his soccer career and brings an 8-2 professional MMA record into Sunday's fight.

Yet when he first came to Nevada from his native Boston, where he was working as a carpenter after his one-season stint with a Cape Cod minor league soccer team, Karalexis acknowledges , he had little clue what lay ahead.

"Being a full-time professional fighter had never crossed my mind," he said. "At the time I was just doing it for kicks, to stay out of trouble and because I liked to fight."

His original plan was to spend a month in Las Vegas sharpening his skills by training with MMA star Phil Baroni.

"But after two weeks, Phil was like, man, you have what it takes," Karalexis, 29, said. "If this is what you want to do with your life, you need to be out here training full time."

Once in Las Vegas, Karalexis accepted an invitation to participate in the first season of "The Ultimate Fighter," the popular reality-competition show on Spike TV that awards an Ultimate Fighting Championship contract to the winner.

He didn't win the top prize, but after training with Couture and fellow UFC champ Chuck Liddell, Karalexis was impressive enough in the octagon to earn three UFC bouts. He beat Josh Rafferty and lost to Kenny Florian and Jason Von Flue.

Karalexis enjoyed the exposure and high-level competition afforded by "The Ultimate Fighter," but not the isolation the show requires. As per the unwritten rules of "reality" TV, the program places 16 fighters in a house in the Las Vegas area, forbids outside distractions and encourages them to get on each other's nerves as the cameras roll.

"The TV show was a double-edged sword," Karalexis said. "It was the best training I ever got. From our season's cast, 13 of the 16 guys are still successful today at the elite level.

"As far as being taken out of society for two months, with no TV, no phone calls, no newspaper, no books, it was awful."

The worst part: Karalexis was still under quarantine when his beloved Boston Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years.

"I hated every second of it, but I would do it again in a heartbeat," he said. "Does that make sense?"

Now that World Extreme Cagefighting is owned by Zuffa, parent company of the UFC, and has a TV deal of its own - Versus (Cox cable channel 67) will televise Sunday's card - Karalexis expects the organization to "rise to a new level."

"They (Zuffa officials) have a formula for success," he said. "They'll do it again with WEC."

Snapping off crisp punches with both hands during his workout at Couture's gym, Karalexis pronounced himself ready to rumble Sunday, fully recovered from a broken hand he sustained while winning an earlier fight.

Broken hands often mean victory, according to Karalexis, as they're a result of pummeling your opponent with hard shots. Needing stitches on your face is a different story, though - those usually indicate a loss.

It's a fitting credo for Karalexis and his violent, physically demanding sport.