Former UFC middleweight prospect, Ian Heinisch, blasted his way into UFC with a first-round knockout over Justin Sumter as part of Dana White’s “Contender Series” back in summer 2018, one of eight fights for “The Hurricane” inside the Octagon.
Prior to his run under the UFC banner, Heinisch built up an impressive resume on the regional circuit. Probably because the 185-pound slugger had already been to hell and back after serving several years in prison for smuggling drugs through Colombia.
Heinisch was pinched swallowing “shiny” kilos of cocaine.
“About four trips into this, this guy stops me at the airport, throws out a badge, he’s like, ‘Who are you?’ I’m like … ‘No Comprende, sir,’ and he’s like ‘secret police, sit down,’ and I sit down next to this beautiful chick and this sketchy looking dude,” Heinisch told Soft White Underbelly. “I asked the girl, I’m like ‘Hey, what are we doing here?’ And she’s like, ‘The X-ray.’ I’m sitting with a kilo of cocaine in my stomach and I’m like dude, I’m looking at a long time in prison — and now it’s in Columbia.”
“The Colombians, every time we’d wrap this cocaine, there was a shiny paper that they put on it,” Heinisch continued. “They said, ‘This is what’s gonna pass the X-ray,’ and I was like, ‘Nooooo.’ In my mind, I was like hoping it was true, but my mind was like, ‘They’re just telling me this so I feel better.’ So I went in this room, put my hands up in this big machine … I’ve never been so nervous in my life. I walk over they said ‘Have a good day.’ I fingerprinted, I signed, and got smashed with a shot of adrenaline that I could never replicate — even in fighting.”
“It was like that level of winning a fight,” Heinisch added. “I’m just like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I just walked out of that.’ I get on the plane, the Colombian who I’m with — because we would act like we’re not with each other — he’s looking back and I’m like, ‘I’m good.’ And it was actually bad, because we started to get cocky. We were like, ‘Oh … well what are they gonna do, X-ray us?’”
Heinisch, now 36, did over three years at facilities in the Canary Islands and Northern Spain before finishing his jail time on U.S. soil on separate drug-related charges. His first professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fight was staged in early 2015 for Sparta Combat League in his native Colorado.
“The Hurricane” won by first-round knockout.
