Tufts of wild prairie grasses and forbs once fought for light where Ryan Roberts now lays tile on his kitchen floor. But before they were excavatedโbefore the slab, footings and foundation walls of his house were poured, the mixed martial artist lived in drunk tanks, jail cells, and rehabilitation centers.
Roberts lived his own personal hell. Now heโs laying the groundwork for a new home.
โI donโt know how professionals lay tile,โ Roberts muses on a recent morning, staring down a rotating blade with naked eyes. โI only know how I do it.โ
His table saw shrieks, echoing throughout the emptiness that will soon become a family room for his wife and daughter. Clay dust drifts onto the carefully arranged path of tiles that Roberts, 35, says heโll set before the day is done. The VFC featherweight champion has a plan.
It hasnโt always been that way.
โMy first five fightsโI was drunk in every one,โ Roberts says, thinking back to 2006. โI didnโt know any better.โ
He had been a free-swinging, Red Bull and vodka-shooting brawler in those days, punishing most fighters with a flurry of punches and submitting to the technical prowess of very few. Away from the ring, Roberts says he received his drubbings from drunk-driving accidents, โhanging out of windows, bouncing on the concrete.โ
And then there were the DUIs. Thirteen to be exact.
After his most recent arrest, his second 4th offense DUI, Roberts says he finally decided to quell his thirst for alcohol. And although he couldnโt sense it at the time, his five-year quest for sobriety would culminate with a victory in the biggest fight of his career.
Roberts says he had a nickname growing up: Tete. Phonetically, he pronounces it โteet,โ but what his friends had really meant to call him was Teek, a mischievous rodent from George Lucasโ forest moon of Endor.
โSo my nickname is misspelled on my fโing back,โ he says, pointing to four faded Old English letters. โFirst tattoo I ever got.โ
Roberts entered the Omaha Salvation Army Rehabilitation Center in 2009 a shell of Tete, or perhaps he was a shell of Teek. Either way, he says he felt as confused as his moniker, witnessing fellow patients abuse heart medication and other substances for four months.
The ink had only just begun to dry from his second back tattoo, which was a cross Roberts says he got immediately after his best friend and drinking buddy, Cody Cummins, shot and killed himself playing Russian roulette.
โHe was my brother,โ Roberts says, lifting his baseball cap and mussing his hair. โHe was a lot like me, but taller and just an ornery son of a bitch. His life was taken too early.โ
After transferring to a 28-day recovery program in Lincoln, the brawler says he resolved to turn himself in for a DUI he received years before in Glenwood Springs, Colo. Roberts hung a punching bag in the rehab centerโs carport. He would need to win a fight to afford the train ticket to get himself out to Colorado.
Roberts did a month of jail time in Glenwood Springs, followed by about two months in the Douglas County Corrections Work Release program. With a clear conscience and finally sober, the fighter formerly known as Tete was ready to take on a new identity of โAre You Ready?โโthe epithet he received for his eagerness in the ring.
โHonestly, I was just starting to grow up,โ Roberts says. โI had a lot of work to do.โ
And then his sister was brutally murdered.
The biggest test to his maturity came last summer after Nikko Jenkins shot and killed his sister, Andrea Kruger, in a car-jacking on the morning of August 21. She left behind three children.
โThey will never know how great their mom really was,โ Roberts says of his two nieces, 2 and 4. โThey just wonโt remember all the things that she had done for them. She did so much for so many people.โ
Roberts is determined to remind them anyway, he says.
Adding to the ink cross he proudly displays for Cummins on his back, Roberts got a set of angel wing tats for Kruger, which was completed about a week before his match with L.C. Davis in December. The ensuing five-round marathon became one of the greatest fights in VFC history. Roberts eventually won by split decision.
โHeโs by far the biggest star of our organization at the moment,โ says VFC owner Ryan Stoddard. โHeโs also one of the hardest working guys I know.โ
And he has no plans to slow downโnot even while tiling the kitchen.
โEnjoy life. Donโt waste it,โ Roberts says. โWhen I die, this body is going to be completely used up.โ