From Tragedy To Triumph: The Seth Dikun Story

By Frank Curreri

Sometimes, even for somebody with warrior blood pumping through his veins, it’s good to be scared. Sometimes, when you’re in a rut and in dire need of inspiration, fear is the perfect companion. It was fear, after all, that awakened Seth Dikun from his self-destructive stupor and transformed his broken life. His personal nightmare began in the sixth grade, when Dikun first dabbled in drugs. The flirtation quickly evolved into an ugly, out-of-control habit.

“Everything except heroin,” he said. “I’ve done coke, crack, meth; I’ve done it all.”

Nothing could curb Dikun’s partying ways and appetite for getting high. Willpower didn’t work. Neither did being arrested or placed on probation. Nor his parents’ urgent and impassioned pleas for him to quit and get help. In fact, by age 19 Dikun was using more drugs than ever. In keeping with the sinister lifestyle, one night he planned to meet up with his best friend, Vinny, and “do some dirt.” Dikun, who lived in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., later changed his mind.

“I decided not to go and to hang out with somebody else,” Dikun said.

What happened that night to Vinny is something Dikun never imagined and will never forget.

“The police followed him (Vinny) back to his hotel and they raided it,” he said. “There was a shootout with police and he died. That was the last straw. I was like ‘Nah, this ain’t for me.’”

Vinny, whose last name Dikun wanted to withhold, was 18 years old. Two weeks after his death Dikun said he enlisted in the U.S. Army. Shortly thereafter Dikun headed off to boot camp and struggled with sobriety and the sudden avalanche of discipline.

“It was rough at the start,” he said. “I actually got into a lot of trouble when I first joined the Army just being a young kid trying to cope with people telling you what to do. But then I was able to smarten up and turn everything around.”

It was in the Army that Dikun not only cleaned up his act but discovered mixed martial arts. He says he got into a street fight with a much-larger, musclebound Army peer and won. Two years later the same Army comrade, still haunted by the defeat and apparently emboldened because he had started training in the mixed martial arts, challenged Dikun to a rematch.

“He was like 190 pounds but benched like 400,” Dikun said. “We went to his gym and everything. We put on mixed martial arts gloves and fought inside of a cage.”

Once again, using only his natural skills and wrestling skills he learned back in high school, Dikun handily beat his foe. The head instructor at the gym was impressed.

“You’re pretty good man,” he told Dikun. “You could fight and make some money.”

Dikun didn’t immediately latch on, but when he relocated to Victorville, Calif., circa 2005 he started training MMA in a buddy’s garage. Then he ventured to former WEC fighter Thomas “Wildman” Denny’s gym and caught a bad case of MMA fever.

“From the first day I said, ‘I want to fight for money. I don’t want to be a mediocre fighter and just fight for chump change, I want to do this for real,’” said Dikun (pronounced “deacon”). “I just loved to train and love to fight.”

Under Team Wildman Vale Tudo, Dikun turned pro in April 2006, daring to face an opponent who had five pro fights under his belt. Dikun was armbarred in little over a minute. He rebounded with two straight wins, loss his next fight to a promising Mexican fighter named Antonio Duarte, but has reeled off four straight wins heading into his Jan. 25 showdown with WEC veteran Charlie Valencia. Dikun has the utmost respect for the man who will be standing on the other side of the cage for his WEC debut.

“He’s a badass,” Dikun said of Valencia (9-5). “He’s a vet of the sport who has fought everybody. I know he is a wrestler with solid overhand rights. He’s a straight forward fighter, he stands in the pocket and just bangs. He’s a good test for me. I think he’ll be the biggest test, definitely the biggest name and a higher caliber than what I’ve fought. It’s the next level for me. But it’s not a crazy level for me where I’m trying to fight a Miguel Torres in my first fight. I’m going to go out there and hopefully give a good show for the fans and find out how good I am. I want to see if I’m good as I think I am.”

Asked to describe his own fighting style, Dikun was largely at a loss for words.

“That’s a hard question I guess,” he said. “Straight forward, decent everywhere. I think I’m around the same standing as on the ground. I wrestled in high school. I did pretty good, I was an OK wrestler I guess.”

Dikun said he admires fighters who entertain regardless of wins and losses, citing Wanderlei Silva, Eddie Alvarez and his coach, Thomas Denny, as examples. Dikun, nicknamed “2 Quik” because he once scored a 28-second knockout, said he does his best to be compelling in the cage, and even once did a backflip to a kick in one fight.

“He (my opponent) actually almost caught me in a kneebar off of it but I flipped out and then got up and ended up winning a unanimous decision,” Dikun said. “If I go out there and fight an exciting, intense, fight but I lose, I’m still more likely to fight for that organization again. That’s the kind of fighter that I am.”
Yet outside of the cage, Dikun said he bears no resemblance to the troubled young man he used to be. The 28-year-old works as a CT tech doing X-rays, and has a wife and two daughters with whom he tries to spend most of his free time.

“I’m pretty much a boring dude. I work, I train and I fight,” Dikun said.