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Stories from the Road: Bas Rutten

Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted before the death of former UFC heavyweight champion Kevin Randleman.

He is 50 now and has pretty much seen and done almost everything. His age and the wars he has been through do not show on his chiseled face and bald head. There are no remnants scratching at the edges of his eyebrows, like those tiny indentations from stitches that fighters accrue through time from the myriad of elbows and knuckles they absorb. There is a simple child’s joy that comes through in his high-pitched voice, and the brutal world he has been such a big part of has never been able to wrench away his wide-eyed wonderment.