(Longo, Weidman, Garv. That's one, two, three Long Islanders if you're counting.)
A Long Island Fights exclusive interview with Kevin "The Garv" Garvey:
“This is impossible. I don’t believe they could do something like this.”
In November, 1993, Kevin Garvey dubiously plopped down a few bucks for what the ads referred to as Ultimate Fighting Championship.
As a long-time boxing fan, Garvey actually knew who Art Jimmerson was and expected him to “destroy everyone in this tournament” – with just one glove, of course. One flying tooth and three Royce Gracie submissions later, the boxer was an afterthought and the boxing fan was hooked.
“You feel like you’re a real part of this thing. It’s because you’re in it that it’s succeeding really.”
The 1990s had very little to offer as far as MMA coverage goes, but Kevin soon found a few fan forums on the Internet, most notably The Underground, and, with it, other people who “knew what the sport was really all about.”
Nearly a decade later, Kevin was a fixture on the UG boards and decided one day to make a video about Aleks Emelianenko.
"It was over the top. I was yelling into the camera,” he recall. The one thing I was trying to do was entertain my friends on the message boards, so I put up the video and didn’t really have any high expectations.
“And the next thing you know, it has a couple thousand hits, and everyone’s talking about it. Six months later, Gary Marino, unbeknownst to me, he’s the matchmaker for Kimbo [Slice] – [Ray] Mercer…I make a video about that fight. I come out of my closet – I called it the Room of Doom – and Gary saw that on the Underground.”
Marino e-mailed the screaming maniac from the Room of Doom, offering him the chance to interview Kimbo Slice from the cage at the upcoming Cage Fury Fighting Championship 5 (in Atlantic City, NJ) in June, 2007.
“I thought it was someone [from the UG] trolling me at first. But he was legit. He brought me down to the show, and that’s how I got into the business.”
As part of his first assignment in “the business,” he interviewed promoters and fighters, and documented his CFFC 5 experience on video. The highlight of the night was when he presented a victorious Kimbo, who’d been asking for his bread on his YouTube street fighting videos, with a loaf of French bread. People loved it.
Kevin needed a home for all of the interviews and other crazy shit he was doing on video, and so TheGarv.com was born. The accidental video reporter had now become a blogger.
Up next for the Oceanside native was a long-awaited foray into ring announcing. Kevin, who says he used to pretend to be Michael Buffer, “not Bruce Buffer,” and introduce Mike Tyson, approached promoter Dave Mastrogiovani at Battle Cage Xtreme IV.
“Hey, if you ever need a ring announcer, I can do that.”
It turns out that Mastrogiovanni wanted a new announcer and handed the mic to Kevin Garvey, the guy who handed Kimbo the bread.
“For the next event, I just went out there, grabbed the mic, sort of ran with it, had a great time, and people thought I was pretty good. So I started getting gigs,” he remembers.
From there, he picked up more announcing work and also started doing live TV commentary for local shows like Lou Neglia’s Ring of Combat, DaMMAge Fight League, Asylum Fight League, and Evolution AMMA.
“I liked it back in the days where it was the fans really keeping this thing alive.”
The Garv.com continued to gain popularity, and before he knew it, the Wantagh resident was doing live TV commentary of an unknown BCX fighter named Jon Jones and eventually rubbing elbows with such MMA luminaries as Josh Barnett, Alistair Overeem, and Fedor Emelianenko. “I remember sitting with the great Fedor at an Affliction press conference and had the chance to ask him a few questions. I thought, ‘This is mind-blowing. Who am I and why do I even deserve this?’”
Kevin’s enthusiasm for MMA is on full display TheGarv.com, a site that he proudly labels “a fan site.” He says he makes a special effort “to give fans an opportunity to get involved, to get credentialed in their area, a chance to express their thoughts on the site.”
“The thing that’s most important about the site I run is that we’re not in it for the money. You know, sometimes you hear somebody criticizing some of these fan journalists: ‘That interview sucked,” this and that. But you know what? Without those guys, mainstream media wouldn’t touch the sport...I liked it back in the days where it was the fans really keeping this thing alive.”
“I’m in shock that it’s not legal in New York yet.”
Because MMA was born during the lifetime of many of its most passionate fans, they are fiercely protective of and vocal about the sport they love: its history, public image, media coverage, trivia, trends, match making, round scoring, and walk-out music. And few fans are as loyal and as passionate as Kevin, who has become an active member of the Coalition to Legalize Mixed Martial Arts in New York.
“I’m in shock that it’s not legal in New York yet. It’s such a no-brainer in terms of getting the money into the sport. There’s a whole untapped resource, just a ton of money sitting there, not being realized because you have to go out of state for this. You can do jiu jitsu, wrestling, everything legal separately, but you put them together and it’s a crime? I just don’t get it, and unfortunately it wasn’t in the budget this year. I have no idea what’s going on.”
Until the Empire State green-lights MMA, Garv will have plenty to keep him busy. You see, he doesn’t just love MMA, he practically lives it.
In addition to his Coalition work, he announces, commentates (Is that even a word?), consults, heads up a veritable army of writers over at TheGarv.com, hosts The Ten-Point Must Radio Show, posts on the UG (of course), serves as the media advisor for Long Island’s own Renegade MMA, and trains with the guys over at Renegade 3-5 days a week.
“It’s the perfect place for me. I’m no spring chicken, but I’m training with the young guys, and it’s just a lot of fun. We do MMA training, grappling, and kickboxing.”
Lightning strikes The Garv
I ended my talk with The Garv by putting him through the Lightning Round. I say something, he responds immediately. Here’s the transcript:
- 3 favorite fighters to watch: Fedor [Emelianenko], Wanderlei Silva, and Jon Jones
- Favorite fight ever: Kimo vs. Royce Gracie
- Top Long Island Eating Spot: Big Daddy’s (on Sunrise Hwy. in Massapequa)
- Coolest Baldwin: Alec
- 1 interview you still hope to land: I would love another Fedor interview actually.
- MMA’s most entertaining weight class: I want to go with heavyweight.
- I agree. Segal vs. Van Damm: Segal
- Best site covering the Long Island fight game: LongIslandFights.com
- Advice to novice bloggers: Just get out there and write. Be yourself on the blog. Give your opinions, and people will read it.
Be sure to check out the TheGarv.com and RenegadeMMA.tv, and support a great Long Islander in MMA.
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