LAS VEGAS – Dive deep into the early stages of Darren Elkins ’ MMA career, and it’s pretty easy to think the guy is about as opposite of what most would consider “California” as you can get. He was fighting on Chicago’s South Side at events like “Bourbon Street Brawl” inside a combo bar and concert/wedding venue. He was fighting at the Hammond Civic Center in his native Northwest Indiana, an 4,500-seat old basketball barn built before World War II. There, in 2008, he fought and beat future Bellator champion Pat Curran in a ring – and spilled through the ropes at one point onto a cageside table. The only loss the former Indiana state wrestling champion had before signing with the UFC came in a fight that took place outdoors on a muggy September night in 2009 at a county fairgrounds.
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UFC’s Darren Elkins on leaving Indiana, and why California was the place he ought to be – MMA Junkie