(Pulver for UFC HOF 2011)

On this day 37 years ago, a boy named Jens Johnnie Pulver was born into a tumultuous household in Sunnyside, Washington.

Jens escaped from the violence and psychological abuse he, his sister, two brothers and mother endured daily from his namesake father who was a hard-drinking horse jockey, by dominating on the wrestling mats on weekends. It was there that his family would pretend they didn’t have a monster waiting for them back at their house and where they would escape from the sad reality that was their home life.

11 years ago this winter Pulver picked up and made the trek from California, where he had lived since moving out in his teens, to Davenport, Iowa with only a suitcase and a bag of change. He was put up by his soon-to-be manager Monte Cox when he showed up on his doorstep to ask the powerful agent to represent him. The Cox family took him in and treated him as one of their own children, while he set up shop training out of the fabled Miletich gym alongside some of Cox’s other marquee stable fighters like Matt Hughes, Tim Sylvia and the team’s leader, Pat Miletich.

(Does this look like the face of a retiree?)

Former UFC lightweight champ Jens Pulver squeaked out his second win in the past three years over the weekend, beating 13-13 Central Illinois Combat Club fighter Wade Choate by split decision at Chicago Cagefighting Championship III Saturday night. Before the comments start pouring in about how, “Lil’ Evil should retire after narrowly beating a Choate with a record like that,” FYI, Pulver fought the majority of the bout on a broken foot he sustained in the opening frame of the fight, and according to several sources the one judge who gave the nod to his opponent defied the popular opinion of the majority in attendance that Jens clearly won the bout.

Pulver, who is 2-0 since he began training at Curran Martial Arts in Chicago, tweeted the pics after the jump of his foot during, immediately following and one day after the bout, explaining that the injury occurred when he connected with Choate’s elbow.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/gregorybayne)

If you haven’t seen Gregory Bayne’s masterful documentary about former UFC lightweight champion Jens Pulver’s personal and professional triumphs, trials and tribulations, you really should be ashamed of yourself.

We get it; money’s tight and the economy isn’t great, so we’ll let it slide this time, but when we ask tomorrow, no one in the Potato Nation will have an excuse why they haven’t watched this movie.