Steven Razor Sharp

A lot of MMA fighters have a few skills such as good takedowns or Jiu-Jitsu, ground and pound, stand up or clinch work, charisma and marketability, however, few fighters have them all. Steve "Razor" Sharp is a rare breed of fighter that can do a lot of everything. Recently, I sat down with Steve to get to know more about who he is, inside and outside of the cage.

Born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, Steve had a good childhood. His father, Ken, has been a fireman for as long as Steve can remember. He is the middle child of six brothers and sisters which means he got to beat up his younger siblings, and was beat on by his older siblings. He went to Kearns High School. Unlike a lot of fighters who were wrestlers before dipping into MMA, Steve excelled in soccer. He was All State during high school. He played on the Olympic Developmental Team at the age of sixteen. He was offered a scholarship to play soccer for The University of North Carolina, but turned it down so he could stay in Utah. He played for the local state college while attending the minimum of school classes required. One of his favorite classes, not surprisingly, was Kung Fu.

Steve is Straight Edge. "Straight Edge isn't about fighting, it’s about being drug free,” Steve says, although he admits he used to get in a lot of street fights. If someone cut him off in traffic, or got drunk in a club and started pushing people around, he felt it was his responsibility to teach them a lesson. He says he didn’t go out looking for fights, but he never walked away from one either, until one night near State Street, when he and some friends were involved in a fight that resulted in a stabbing death and a friend’s prison sentence. He hasn’t had a street fight since.

When he saw the success his friend Robert "The Wrecker" Densley was having in the local MMA fight show, he thought, if Robert can do that, then so can I. Soon he was facing his first opponent, Darrel Godfrey. In the first round, Steve broke Darrel’s nose, slipped on the blood, and ended up on his back, fully mounted with a lot of time left in the round. Back then, Steve had no ground game. He fought from his back as best he could and survived the round. He started the second round with a flurry of punches that quickly sent his opponent to the mat and earned himself his first victory. He gained some fans, and considered he had a future in MMA.

Steve wanted to stand out. He started wearing all white for his fights -- white gloves, shorts, hoodies, etc. Other fighters started to imitate him, so he decided to wear pink. Pink was the one color he figured people wouldn’t imitate, and if they did, they would look more ridiculous than he did. He even knitted his own pink beanies to wear to his fights.

MMA, like other sports, has its own superstitions, and Steve has a ritual for his fights: He comes out to the same fight song, eats two power bars, (one peanut butter, one chocolate), two bananas, and a dose of Pepto-Bismol (he has been known to push himself so hard during his fights that he throws up). His hair, usually a pink mowhawk and his toenails are perfectly painted, thanks to his fiancée Jessica. I tried to take a picture of his toenails for the article but he refused because they were "too beat up.”

Steve took his dad’s nickname – he’s known as Ken “Razor” Sharp at the fire department. “Razor” suits Steve: His favorite way to end a fight is with his “razor” sharp elbows. He loves to cut his opponents open.

Steve has taken part in some of the best fights in Utah history, none of them boring. One, dubbed the “David and Goliath” fight, was against Zach Barlow. Barlow, at185 lbs, outweighed Steve by almost 15 lbs. The fight went to the ground early and Steve put on a triangle choke. He looked at Zach and said, “good night," before he pulled his head down to finish the choke.

He fought Bob Calnin, a guy who looks like Mel Gibson on steroids. Halfway into the third, Bob knocked Razor to the ground and full-mounted him with less than a minute to go in the fight. "Most fighters would have quit, but not Steve," Handley says. Steve reversed the position and then exploded on Bob like Braveheart, raining down strikes that ended the fight for Bob.

Steve has trained at Absolute MMA over the last three years. Rob Handley, owner and head coach at Absolute, has black belts in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Judo and Tae Kwon Do, and has experience in other forms of martial arts, wrestling, kick boxing and boxing. His philosophy is to be “a friend first, then coach,” which might explain why Steve has trained here for so long.

And how many fighters can say they met their future wife at a cage fight? Steve’s fiancée, Jessica Lester, had heard of Razor before she met Steve, but didn’t automatically realize that’s who he was. Last July, Jessica gave birth to the couple’s first child, a beautiful baby girl they named Ella Moxi Sharp. Steve accompanied Jessica to all of her doctor’s appointments during the pregnancy, and is, according to Jessica, “the best dad ever.” However, he didn’t do as well with his future in-laws. “Steve is disgusting and doesn't have good manners,” Jessica says by way of explanation. When he first met Jessica's mom and brother, he didn’t hesitate to fart very loudly.

His family is very supportive, although they get more nervous than he does. His dad loves to watch him fight. His mother stopped attending his fights because he lost every fight she watched, and she fears she brings bad luck. His brothers and sisters attend as many of his fights as they can. At one out-of-state fight, when Jessica and two of his sisters joined him, Steve told everyone he was a “polygamist”, and the girls were his three wives. For the rest of the weekend, people approached his fiancée and asked how the “polygamy thing” worked. Steve’s brother John has followed in Steve's footsteps by competing in the cage, and every time Steve sees his grandma, she asks, “When are you going to stop that cage fighting stuff?"

Everyone wants to know why Steve stopped fighting in Utah. For Steve, it’s simple, "If you were given the opportunity to get paid more money for the same job, and get a vacation out of it by flying to Colorado or Arizona or wherever, have a good time and get paid better, why wouldn't you take it?" Steve also admits not seeing eye to eye with a local promoter, although he holds no grudges.

He left Utah to fight for a friend and former sponsor who was with the WFC. He took a fight with Noah Thomas (who later ended up on the reality series The Ultimate Fighter), on short notice. Steve won by judges’ decision. His next opponent was Matt Ver Halen, who he beat for a first-round victory, winning the WFC Lightweight Belt in March of 2006. Two years later, he has successfully defended his belt and is still the Lightweight Champion.

Steve is very excited with growth of MMA in Utah. He has already participated in two shows, first as a referee for “Jeremy Horn’s Fight Night,” then as a judge for the “Throwdown” show that was held at UVSC in April. He feels that his fight experience helps him as a referee to know when the fighters are in trouble. In spite of the fact that he told two of the fighters to "Protect yourselves and obey yourselves,” (instead of “obey my commands”), he was asked to come back and referee again for the May Show.

"Steve Siler would be the number one guy I would like to fight just simply because there is some history there,” Steve says. “Don't get me wrong: I don't think he is a tomato can, either. He does have some great skills. Obviously, he was able to beat my brother so he can't be some chump out there. I don't think he is at my level but he thinks he is at my level. I would like to show him the difference. He has gotten a lot of great match ups so it makes the guy look good, but I think if [he] and I fought, he would see holes in his game. I really want to fight him not because I think he is good, but because I want to get back at him for my little brother. I want to rip his heart out just like he did to my little brother. I want to show that kid that he is not as good as he thinks. The day that I fight him, people will see that there is not going to be a submission. He’s going to be knocked out or hurt so bad the ref stops it!

"Travis Marx, if I made it down to 145, would be another great fight,” he adds. “I love Travis as a person as a friend and everything. Travis and I, would brawl and a have good fight.

"The other guy [I want to fight] is a guy that fought Travis Marx at the Jeremy Horn show. He was a brawler. He took some good shots from Travis and came back. . . That’s a guy that I would like to fight. He is a tough kid; he took a lot of abuse from Travis and still threw them back. His name is Mammalis, Nick Mammalis. He did look like he was wearing white panties out there in the cage ‘cause his little spandex was a little bulky, a little bit big for him. But whatever, he can wear granny panties when we fight, too, and I will beat him up."

Once called “the best kept secret in MMA” by the editor of Grappling magazine, Steve is looking for the same opportunities that his former opponents were given by TUF and other MMA organizations. With over thirty fights behind him and the current WFC lightweight championship title, Steve has a lot to offer Utah fans. Look for him on upcoming fight cards.

If you are interested in sponsoring Steve you can contact him at Absolute MMA's gym at 801-255-1166.